Northland surprised by Super Bowl switch

SANDPOINT - Northland Cable is seeking out an alternative source for its KHQ-TV signal after the cable provider's customers were unable to watch American advertising content during the Super Bowl.

All of the ads during Sunday's big game were Canadian, which came as a disappointment to many since the NFL championship serves as a platform for the most-watched commercials of the year.

"That's the big entertainment value of the Super Bowl, although it was a great game," said Northland customer Kary Miller.

Northland officials said they spent much of Monday working with KHQ to determine what happened. They discovered that Canadian Communications, which supplies Northland with the KHQ satellite feed, switched to the CTV signal without notification.

CTV is Canada's largest private broadcaster.

"After investigating the issue, it appears Cancom did a signal substitution and gave Northland's customers CTV instead of KHQ," Northland Regional Manager Jon Ulrich said in a statement issued Tuesday. "By the time the switch had occurred, it was too late to find an alternate signal."

SuddenLink, a cable provider in the Silver Valley, said it experienced the exact same problem when the game kicked off.

Nathan Clark, marketing manager for Northland, said Cancom substituted the signal because CTV has the advertising rights to the Super Bowl in Canada. Cancom mostly serves Canadian cable and satellite companies, but it also provides some signals to rural areas in the Panhandle which can't otherwise get network programming.

Northland said its agreement with KHQ, the NBC affiliate, calls for the signal to be distributed without modifications, although Cancom operates under different rules because it's a Canadian company, Clark said.

Clark added that the signal switch has never happened before.

"Northland apologizes for the inconvenience our customers may have experienced due to the switch. Because our customers' concerns are Northland's concerns, Northland Cable is seeking out an alternative source for receiving the KHQ signal," Ulrich's statement said.

The Super Bowl boasts a U.S. audience of 100 million, making it the largest of any American telecast, according to The Associated Press. The broadcast is also a marketer's dream because it's an instance where audiences actually like watching the ads.

The game features nearly 70 advertising spots, which AP said sold for between $2.4 million and $3 million per 30-second slot.

Miller said she plans to catch up on the ads she missed via the Internet.

"The people that paid billions for their commercials probably wouldn't be happy if we were getting Canada's instead of theirs," she said.