MONTREAL – "Do you know what I did for my summer holidays?" CRTC chair Jean-Pierre Blais asked rhetorically to Bell Media on Tuesday. "I didn't have summer holidays. I read interventions."
Blais held up a large binder with the 774 interventions, most of them by individuals, filed in response to an application by Bell to convert Montreal all-sports AM station CKGM (TSN Radio 690, formerly 990) from English to French. “There are nine volumes like this,” Blais (pictured below on CPAC.ca holding up that binder) said of the 774 interventions filed in relation to this application.
The Commission skeptically grilled Bell…
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MONTREAL ? With a three-hour break mid-day (we were told someone had to go to a funeral, so quit complaining&), yesterday?s long hearing day featured a ton of back and forth between Bell executives and the panel of CRTC commissioners.
Long lovely narratives explaining each exchange would be nice but time restraints mean we?re going for the bullets only of some of the highlights. We think we?ve hit some of the main points with our bulleted rundown here.
* In his first public appearance as chair of the CRTC, Jean-Pierre Blais acquitted himself well, nailing a few biting comments throughout the…
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WHILE BOTH SIDES OF the Bell-Astral deal debate were ensconced in Montreal hotels on Sunday polishing their lines and rehearsing their delivery in advance of the CRTC hearing starting Monday morning, the SayNoToBell forces fired out one more press release Sunday afternoon.
The Quebecor-Cogeco-EastLink backed public relations campaign claimed Bell has been preventing its TV ads from airing on CTV until just now.
“Twenty-six days after being asked, CTV has finally broadcast its first television commercial opposing its parent company's ambitions to control an even greater portion of the Canadian broadcasting space,” says the Say No press release which was headlined:…
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AND ON IT GOES…
As we said earlier, while both sides of the Bell-Astral deal debate were ensconced in Montreal hotels on Sunday polishing their lines and rehearsing their delivery in advance of the CRTC hearing starting Monday morning, the SayNoToBell forces fired out one more press release Sunday afternoon.
The Quebecor-Cogeco-EastLink backed public relations campaign claimed Bell has been preventing its TV ads from airing on CTV until just now.
“Twenty-six days after being asked, CTV has finally broadcast its first television commercial opposing its parent company's ambitions to control an even greater portion of the Canadian…
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MONTREAL – The SayNoToBell.ca campaigners claim that nearly 50,000 Canadians, both consumers and industry leaders, have signed their petition urging the CRTC and government to deny the Bell/Astral merger. CRTC hearings into the proposed deal are poised to begin next week.
SayNoToBell.ca says 42 of the 60 interveners to be heard have already publicly opposed the deal or questioned the transaction. Notable industry presentations include:
• Québécor – Monday, September 10
• Eastlink – Tuesday, September 11
• Cogeco Cable – Wednesday, September 12
• Rogers Communications – Wednesday, September 12
• Telus – Wednesday, September 12
• Canadian Cable Systems Alliance – Friday, September 14
Notable…
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“OH, PEOPLE CAN COME UP with statistics to prove anything… 14% of people know that.” – Homer J. Simpson
Released this week, the 240-page mound of data known as the CRTC Communications Monitoring Report was reduced to a pair of press releases this week, one which purported that Bell buying Astral was a very bad and scary thing, and the other that Bell buying Astral was a very good and normal thing.
According to the Say No To Bell forces – the public relations effort put together by Quebecor, Cogeco and EastLink and co-ordinated by National Public…
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DESPITE THE OPPOSITION to its planned purchase of Astral Media, Bell Canada remains steadfast that this deal is good for Canada and Quebec – and will foster innovation and competition to the benefit of Canadian media consumers.
In its reply comments submitted to the CRTC last week (the final paper stage before the public hearing in Montreal starting September 10th, Bell takes a hard line especially against those standing utterly opposed to its $3.4 billion purchase of the company which owns such brands as The Movie Network, Super Écran, HBO Canada, Family Channel, Virgin Radio, NRJ Radio, Rouge FM and…
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TORONTO – Canadians object to the purchase of Astral Media by Bell Canada, when told the resulting company would control 38% of the TV market and 29% of the country’s radio market, according to a poll released Friday and posted on the 'Say No To Bell' website.
In a sampling of public opinion taken this week by the Forum Poll, 6-in-10 (60%) of respondents 18 years of age and older said that they disapprove of the deal. That disapproval was highest among Ontario residents (64%), as well as federal Bloc and NDP supporters (78% and 65%, respectively). Males were more likely…
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OTTAWA – Cogeco Diffusion has received CRTC approval to amend the broadcasting licence for radio station CJMF-FM Québec to a specialized format devoted to spoken word programming.
In its decision, the Commission noted that CJMF-FM already broadcasts spoken word programming during peak listening hours, and still intends to broadcast 17 hours of music programming per broadcast week.
“In light of the above, the Commission is of the view that approval of the amendments proposed by CJMF-FM would only have a limited impact on the Québec radio market, and no undue negative financial impact on incumbent radio stations”, the decision…
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MONTREAL – It’s back to square one for natural resource channel IDNR-TV after its planned launch this fall on Cogeco Cable in Quebec fell through this week.
In a letter addressed to CEO Ivor Barr, Cogeco’s affiliate relations manager Chantal Cousineau said that the channel’s launch was not technically feasible at this time on its Baie-Comeau and Sept-Iles systems, despite “the interest for IDNR-TV in this region”.
As Cartt.ca has reported, the eight-year old independent channel was banking on a recent groundswell of community support to help it finalize its first major affiliation deal.
www.idnrtv.com
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