President says Iristel will work to implement alerts
By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC has denied a request to subsidize small telecoms’ delivery of emergency alerts on LTE or newer networks.
Last year, Iristel argued that the regulator underestimated the cost for smaller carriers to deliver the alerts and filed an application requesting a subsidy from the National Contribution Fund, which bankrolls basic telecom service. In the alternative, Iristel asked that those carriers be exempt from the 2017 policy until they have enrolled at least 50,000 LTE subscribers, which it said would reduce the cost per subscriber. If that is also refused,…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC on Thursday launched a public database it says will make it easier for broadcasters, artists and the public to identify Canadian music.
The database, which also aims to assist broadcasters in complying with CanCon requirements, has its own page on the CRTC website and so far includes nearly 20,000 entries. Users can search by song title, artist, release date, CanCon status, language and International Standard Recording Code (ISRC).
“For the first time, information that broadcasters use to identify Canadian music is available in one place,” the CRTC said in a news…
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By Connie Thiessen
A year after Google’s landmark $100-million annual deal with Canadian publishers took effect, a new independent auditor’s report says the funds are helping preserve local newsrooms across the country – even as smaller outlets struggle with funding caps, lost social media traffic, and an uncertain five-year horizon.
According to the report, released by the CRTC on Oct. 23, the Canadian Journalism Collective (CJC) disbursed $96.7 million to 445 eligible news businesses during the first full funding cycle in 2025.
The report says the payouts provided a…
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As part of its ongoing review of the wholesale high-speed access (HSA) service framework, the CRTC is asking Canada’s telcos and cablecos for information regarding the appropriateness of mandating that all incumbents provide a 50 Mbps service on a wholesale basis to ensure low-cost options are available to customers.
The telecom regulator also wants to know if it would be appropriate to establish a single frozen rate for all services in the “up to 50 Mbps” rate band.
In April, the CRTC finalized the rates for aggregated wholesale HSA services over fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) facilities. At that…
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Cable giant watching AI shopping
By Ahmad Hathout
Rogers executives said Friday that the cable giant felt the full impact of the CRTC’s fees elimination decision in the third quarter, as it continues to seek ways to offset the loss of revenue that it says was used to recoup costs.
On a year-over-year basis, wireless service revenue decreased one per cent to just north of $2 billion and mobile phone ARPU fell 2.6 per cent, or $1.48, to $55.22 in the third quarter, which encompasses the months of July, August and September.
“The full run rate for the decision was felt in the…
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The CRTC last week approved Hope Channel Canada’s purchase of the English-language commercial religious specialty FM radio stations CJRP-FM Saint John and its transmitter CJRP-FM-1 Rothesay, and CKOE-FM Moncton, in New Brunswick.
The stations currently operate under DARR FM Radio Ltd. and Houssen Broadcasting Ltd.’s Alive FM brand, broadcasting Christian music and programming. DARR FM and Houssen are both owned and controlled by James Houssen, based in Moncton.
Hope Channel Canada is an Oshawa, Ont.-based not-for-profit corporation controlled by its Canadian board of directors. It currently…
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The CRTC last week approved Torres Media’s acquisition of Evanov Radio Group’s English-language radio station CHSV-FM (currently operating as Lite 106.7 FM) in Hudson/Saint-Lazare, Quebec.
With a transaction value of $310,000, the change in radio station ownership requires Torres Media to allocate $18,600 in tangible benefits, to be paid in equal installments over seven consecutive broadcast years, to various content funds, including the Canadian Starmaker Fund, Fonds Radiostar, FACTOR, Musicaction, the Community Radio Fund of Canada, and any eligible Canadian content development initiative at Torres Media’s discretion.
In its application seeking CRTC approval for its acquisition…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Rogers and Corus have agreed to a new distribution deal that ends a long-running carriage dispute that involved several regulatory and court decisions.
Corus wrote a letter to the CRTC last month stating it wished to withdraw two 2024 undue preference applications, including one that targeted Rogers’s intention of removing or repackaging its Home and Flavour channels, which replaced HGTV and Food Network, respectively, after the cable giant scooped up the rights to those trademarks and content that summer.
In a reply on Tuesday, CRTC staff acknowledged that Corus and…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Telus is asking the CRTC to reconsider part of a July decision that determined Every-Day Computers (Ev-Com) satisfied the spectrum requirement to become a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) under the regulated framework — and to scrutinize broadly the spectrum being used to claim eligibility.
Ev-Com filed the initial application in January asking the CRTC to order Telus to provide access to its wireless network under the MNVO regime. But while the regulator ruled in July that Ev-Com did not satisfy all the requirements to get mandated access – namely, that it…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Rogers is claiming in a Part 1 made public Monday that Concord Pacific Development Corp. is forcing it to pay a $300 per-unit fee to access two properties under construction in Burnaby, British Columbia.
The cable giant claims, since July 2024, it has been seeking access to the properties at 5889 Barker Avenue and 4750-4754 Kingsway, but Concord “has consistently refused to discuss access by Rogers to the Properties unless Rogers agrees to pay an upfront per unit entry fee of $300 to obtain Concord’s permission to access the multi-dwelling units after construction is complete.
“Concord has also stated…
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