I'm lucky enough to get Canadian hockey coverage here in Detroit (Ontario is so close the signals carry) and nothing beats CBC hockey coverage. So I know what you mean. Even though I disagree with how the Canadian government funds about $1 billion a year to the CBC and allows it to compete against privately owned Canadian stations, in effect trying to run them out of business, all while collecting advertising revenue, they still have my heart when it comes to Wings games!

To the FCC's credit, they are A LOT more "hands off" when it comes to programing than Canadian authorities. And like was mentioned, they don't even get involved with content issues unless something is broadcast OTA. Sure, on Canadian TV you see more boobs and hear more swearing, but Canada demands a certain percentage of all broadcasting be Canadian based (they demand that all Canadian radio station play a certain percentage of Canadian artists too.) And get this, they had no problem allowing Al Jezerra (you know, the station that hates the West and shows all the decapitaion videos because they "just happen" to get all the videos sent to them) but it took YEARS of complaining by a handful of Canadians to allow Fox News into Canada. There were more concerned about a "Right leaning news network" then a Jihad propaganda machine. My Canadian buddies and I talk about this all the time.

So, while it may be true that the FCC doesn't allow you to buy Canadian satellite equipment, I think it's more about those satellites not having the authority to beam there signal into the USA than it is about trying to control what you watch. Likewise, DirecTV wasn't authorized to broadcast into Canada so people there couldn't buy DirecTV equipement. But what they started doing was importing the gear and hacking the cards. It wasn't even illegal until very recently. So they were "stealing" a signal that didn't even have the authority to be broadcasting there. I always thought it was kind of interesting. But IIRC, DirecTV finally convinced Canadian authorities to make it illegal to steal their service because a lot of those "hacked" cards were coming to the USA by the thousands.

I guess it's a matter of respecting borders. I doubt any country in Europe would like if we started filling their skies with radio signals either. But because of the nature of the signal's coverage area, some parts of neighboring countries do get the signal.