By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC is expanding eligibility for the independent news fund by including Corus’s 15 Global stations into the fold.
Because Corus is a large media company vis-à-vis other eligible services – and would likely receive the majority of the funding – the CRTC said it is also instituting a funding cap of 45 per cent to any one entity to ensure the other recipients of the Independent Local News Fund (ILNF) are not adversely affected by its inclusion.
“The Commission notes that Corus plays an important role in producing and broadcasting locally reflective and locally relevant news and information…
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Rogers said Wednesday that it has received all sports league approvals to buy Bell’s 37.5 per cent stake in Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE).
The cable giant got approvals from the NHL, NBA, CFL, MLS, and the American Hockey League (AHL) to become 75 per cent owners — which it values at $15 billion — in the sports empire.
The company now requires CRTC approval “to acquire an additional indirect interest in Toronto Raptors Network Ltd (NBA TV Canada), representing a very small portion of the transaction,” it said in a press release.
“We’re pleased to have league…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA) has been granted Wednesday a discontinuance of its legal challenge against a CRTC decision that temporarily relieved Corus of some of its regulatory obligations.
The ruling was a consent judgment, meaning the justice acted on an agreement by both parties – the CMPA and Corus – to end the litigation on a without-costs basis.
The decision stands in contrast to what the trade group for independent producers told Cartt in late March, which was that it was going to pursue the legal challenge that sought to argue that the CRTC…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC has contract work to purchase Canadian music data for its public database.
The contract, opened for bids Tuesday and valued at $95,000, seeks a supplier from which to purchase data and metadata to supplement its existing bank of information which it says is “incomplete or insufficient” to assist it in classifying Canadian content.
The supplied information “is meant to be integrated seamlessly within a data management tool procured from a third-party Contractor allowing CRTC staff to handle, validate, and certify high volumes of Canadian content using data and metadata on an ongoing basis,” the contract reads.
“On a…
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Canada’s telecommunications sector contributed $87.3 billion in direct GDP and supported 661,000 jobs across industries in 2024, according to a new PricewaterhouseCoopers report (PwC) released Tuesday morning.
The report, Enabling Canada’s Economic Independence and Global Competitiveness Through Telecommunications, was commissioned by the Canadian Telecommunications Association (CTA), which represents carriers, equipment manufacturers and other companies that build, maintain and operate telecom networks in Canada, including Bell, Rogers, Videotron, SaskTel, Eastlink, Tbaytel, Xplore, Ericsson Canada and Nokia Canada.
The $87.3 billion in GDP contributed by Canada’s telecom sector includes $30.1 billion in immediate direct…
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The parties are currently engaged in a carriage dispute
By Ahmad Hathout
Corus is suing Telus in the Ontario Superior Court for allegedly breaking its distribution agreement by withholding and refusing to repay roughly $2.5 million in service fees.
Corus filed the claim this week revealing the parties are currently engaged in a dispute over the terms for carrying Corus’s services, which Telus continues to distribute per a regulatory standstill.
Crucially, the existing agreement, which continues to govern the parties during the dispute, includes a section that stipulates that Telus “shall not deduct or set-off any amounts for any reason from Service Fees…
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Quebecor said it welcomes the decision
By Ahmad Hathout
The Federal Court of Appeal ruled Wednesday that the CRTC did not err when it chose Quebecor’s rate to access Rogers’s wireless facilities as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) during final offer arbitration (FOA).
The court rejected all three arguments the cable giant put forth for why it believed the regulator erred when it chose the lower rate, which it argued was unjust and unreasonable per the Telecommunications Act.
Rogers argued that the CRTC erred by ruling in July 2023 that just and reasonable rates can “include rates that may…
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By Howard Law, author of MediaPolicy.ca and Canada vs. California: How Ottawa took on Netflix and the streaming giants (Lorimer, 2024)
Last week, Quebec’s culture minister Mathieu Lacombe slid a wild card into Prime Minister Mark Carney’s deck by tabling Bill 109 in the National Assembly.
The bill contemplates doing for Quebec exactly what the federal Online Streaming Act, Bill C-11, mandated the CRTC to do two years ago for all of Canada: regulate streaming platforms so that original French-language content reaches more French-speaking Canadians.
The Lacombe bill claims a constitutional jurisdiction it doesn’t have (until the Supreme Court tells us…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The director of media for Canada’s largest private sector union said Tuesday the CRTC could view local news as a service of “exceptional importance,” making it qualify for mandatory distribution, to drive more support for the expensive-to-produce programming.
Such a mandatory distribution could be imposed on online streamers as well, said Unifor’s Randy Kitt, who urged the commission to not let market forces determine the fate of a sector that has seen mass layoffs recently.
“We’ll just lose more jobs, we’ll lose more journalists, we’ll have more news deserts, and our democracy will slip away,” Kitt said about the…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Pushing back against the assertion that the public broadcaster should take up the mantle of at-risk programs where private broadcasters have struggled, CBC’s executive vice president said this must be a whole-of-system effort.
“We feel that we should not be seen as a gap filler for the problems of the other broadcasters – that where market forces don’t come easily to their decisions about programming – it shouldn’t just be assumed not to worry about it, the CBC will do it,” Barbara Williams told the five-member CRTC panel on the second-last day of its hearing into the definition…
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