CBC gets two-year renewed commitment worth $300M
By Ahmad Hathout
The Canadian Journalism Labour Tax Credit will cost an estimated $501 million over five years – and $85 million ongoing – after the inclusion of broadcast news, according to a proposed federal budget released Thursday.
Broadcasters will be entitled to the same temporary enhanced credit rate of 35 per cent and an annual labour expenditure limit of $85,000 per employee. Print journalism will see a renewal of that temporary 35 per cent credit for two more years. The enhanced rate for both print and broadcast will run until the end of 2028,…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
The sale of Northwestel to a consortium of indigenous buyers may not include the entire asset, the head of Bell said Thursday.
“There’s still the distinct possibility of a transaction to be done, although at this stage, it’s looking like it might take a different form,” Bibic said on a third-quarter earnings conference call.
“It’s unlikely to be the sale of the entire asset, but there is a transaction to be done. If it proceeds, and I think it will, expect it to have the exact same deleveraging impact as the original transaction that we announced a couple of…
Continue Reading
By Connie Thiessen
The CRTC will consider an application for the first-ever radio licence serving the Glencoe/Southwest Middlesex market in southwestern Ontario.
The commission has set a virtual hearing for Jan. 19 to consider an application by Lakeside Radio Broadcasting Corp. for a broadcasting licence to operate an English-language commercial FM station in Glencoe in Middlesex County, ON.
The station would operate at 88.5 MHz (channel 203A) with a maximum effective radiated power (ERP) of 4,500 watts. The applicant proposed 126 hours of local programming per broadcast week, including about 17 hours and 15 minutes of local and regional news,…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
Timeless and Rogers have agreed on rates for the cable giant to carry OneSoccer, but not yet on packaging.
The CRTC said Friday that, during final offer arbitration (FOA), Timeless agreed to Rogers’s rates to carry the discretionary sports channel. With that, the parties resolved the undue preference complaint Timeless filed against Rogers in 2023. Rogers offered rates similar to those given to comparable services – Sportsnet West, beIN Sports, and Goal TV – and to provide it to Rogers’s entire subscriber base to add on an à la carte basis or as part of a package, according…
Continue Reading
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,…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
