As a reminder to American readers, PPV didn't become available in Canada until 1991. Before that, if Canadians wanted to see Wrestlemania without having to wait for the (massively abridged) Coliseum Video releases, they had to rely on closed-circuit screenings,
or have a satellite dish.
or have a satellite dish.
Do you have any knowledge and/or speculation as to why it took so long for the Canadian cable companies to adopt it? Canada wasn't and isn't exactly a technological backwater, so it couldn't have been that much of a hurdle to bring it in. The only things
I can think of is a) there were headaches with the CRTC, or b) the cable companies didn't initially have the infrastructure to accommodate it and they weren't in any rush to rectify that. Which would seem to me to be a bit self-defeating, as the WWF was rather
popular in Canada, and they could have made some nice money on it. And you'd think Wrestlemania VI being in TORONTO would have been a solid impetus to bring in the technology so Canadian audiences could have easier access to a big Canadian show.
Oh they wanted in on that money for sure, but Canada is a totally different system than the US was and the technology just wasn’t there until the 90s. I still remember horror stories about Videotron customers in Edmonton having to get special filters for their cable connection to get the early shows in 92. I think it wasn’t until the adoption of digital cable everywhere that PPV really became viable up here.