Editing Simultaneous substitution (section)

==Effects==
The high incidence of simultaneous substitution requests by privately owned Canadian television networks to draw advertising revenue<ref name="CRTC1"/> has had profound effects on various spectrums, ranging from Canadian network schedules to portions of programming being lost due to mistimed substitutions.

===Network schedules===
Since private Canadian broadcast networks such as [[CTV Television Network|CTV]], [[Global Television Network|Global]], [[CTV 2]], and [[Citytv]] often rely heavily on American programs, their programming schedules are often effectively dictated by the schedules of corresponding United States network broadcasters.<ref>{{cite book |title=Canadian Television Today|author=B. Beaty|publisher=University of Calgary Press|location=[[Calgary]], [[Alberta]]|page=71|year=2006|isbn=978-1-55238-222-6}}</ref> For example, if a U.S. broadcaster moves a series to a new time slot, the Canadian broadcaster that holds domestic rights to carry first-run episodes of that program would need to move its broadcast to correspond with the new time slot if it wished to exercise its simultaneous substitution rights.<ref name="cbc-nosimsub" />
 
Many American networks telecast their most popular programming during [[prime time]], meaning that in order to maximize simsubbing opportunities, Canadian private broadcasters are often unable or unwilling to broadcast their own original programming during these hours. As a result, [[Canadian content]] programming is commonly scheduled as a secondary concern, to fill holes where an American program cannot be placed for substitution. This issue has also extended beyond scripted entertainment programming – all three major networks in Canada have faced criticism for at least one incident in which the network seemingly deemed a live Canadian news or cultural awards program to be less important than simsubbing an American [[reality television]] series:
* In 2006, [[CBC Television]] received criticism after it announced plans to bump its primary network newscast, [[The National (TV program)|''The National'']], to a later time slot one night a week to broadcast the short-lived singing competition series ''[[The One: Making a Music Star]]''.<ref>[https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/nash-slams-cbc-while-accepting-award-1.612538 Nash slams CBC while accepting award], CBC.ca, June 23, 2006</ref>
* In 2007, CTV was forced to back down on a plan to [[broadcast delay|tape-delay]] the [[Juno Awards of 2007|2007 Juno Awards]] to maintain its simsubbing rights to an episode of ''[[The Amazing Race]]''.<ref name="Junos"/>

Since 2008, CTVglobemedia (now [[Bell Media]]) has held both the exclusive rights to the [[Canadian Football League]] and the rights to Sunday afternoon and playoff games of the American National Football League, broadcasting most NFL games on CTV, while relegating CFL games (including the Grey Cup) to cable channel [[The Sports Network|TSN]], making CFL games unavailable on broadcast television for the first time in Canadian history. The move was in part due to the desire to gain simsubbing rights over the NFL broadcasts, something that was not necessary for CFL games because, as of 2015, those games are only available on cable television in the United States.

===Portions of programming lost===
Due to the high number of simultaneous substitutions requested by Canadian broadcasters, portions of programs are sometimes lost. This may occur for a variety of reasons, including the cable provider erroneously timing the substitution or substituting over the incorrect distant signal, the Canadian broadcaster making a scheduling error when requesting a substitution, the American broadcaster making a last minute change to its schedule, or adverse weather conditions sometimes affecting a Canadian station's local signal. In addition, should a Canadian network interrupt its programming to provide information on a [[breaking news]] event while simsubbing an American show, the American program cannot be telecast.

With the increasingly common practice of American networks extending programs by one to two minutes into the start of the next hour in order to avoid audience loss,<ref name="HouseExtend">{{cite web|title=Extended episode of ''House'' could plague DVR users|url=http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2008/11/house-runover-m.html|newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]]|date=November 2008|access-date=September 13, 2009}}</ref> such errors are sometimes unavoidable if the Canadian station is not able to match the altered start time. This slight differentiation in timing between the Canadian and American stations can lead to a short period during which the Canadian viewer is watching the original American station's signal before the Canadian network starts its simsubbing, resulting in the show's jumping back to the start again. This is not a problem for American viewers who choose to watch the same network across time slots, but Canadian viewers could miss critical content. The timing is often rectified by tape delaying the overlaid content and forgoing a minute of ad time in the following commercial break to quickly catch back up with the American broadcast.

===High-definition television===
[[High-definition television]] signals must also be simultaneously substituted, although this only applies if a local over-the-air [[digital terrestrial television|digital]] transmitter that broadcasts HD content is receivable in the market served by the local cable provider. Since many broadcasters were only required to convert their main, typically major-market transmitters during the 2011 [[Digital television in Canada|digital television transition in Canada]], this means that HD simsubbing is not currently enforceable in many rural areas.

Although the CRTC's policy regarding simultaneous substitutions for high definition broadcasts do not require them to be applied if the quality of the Canadian feed is not equal or better than the American feed, there have been instances in which inferior Canadian feeds were substituted over higher-quality American feeds. In such cases, complaints can be filed to the CRTC, whereas the commission will confer with the applicable BDU and Canadian network about the issue.

[[File:CTVTwosimsub.png|right|200px|thumb|A partially transparent NBC logo is seen on the left. An opaque, grey [[CTV 2|CTV Two]] bug partially covering the NBC logo is seen on the right.]]

===On-screen graphics===
Implementation of simultaneous substitutions can also cause issues involving [[digital on-screen graphic]]s (e.g., a "bug”) applied by the originating broadcaster; if a [[clean feed (television)|clean feed]] of the program is not available (particularly for live programming), the Canadian broadcaster will often place their own bug in a different corner of the screen, or not add one at all. CTV and CTV Two occasionally used an opaque logo to cover the logo bugs of US-based networks on simsubbed broadcasts of ''[[The View (talk show)|The View]]'' on CTV and ''[[The Tonight Show]]'' on CTV Two, but have since discontinued this practice.