By Ahmad Hathout
Bell said it has reached an agreement with Telus that will allow the Vancouver-based telco to carry its broadcasting services over Bell’s fibre network in eastern Canada.
Bell confirmed the agreement but not the details after the CRTC said in a letter, dated Tuesday, that it was closing Telus’s Part 1 application filed last year that alleged Bell was unduly blocking its ability to carry content on the fibre network.
Telus, which requested closure of the Part 1, said in its original application that it wanted the CRTC to force Bell to allow it to carry…
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Announces $600M in new money for broadcasting system
By Ahmad Hathout and Linda Stuart
Culture Minister Marc Miller announced Wednesday that he is directing the CRTC to review its recent decision to regulate online streamers and Canadian broadcasters, which sets out mandatory contributions toward the broadcasting system.
The CRTC’s new requirements, which raises to 15 per cent the financial obligation on foreign streamers, “would impose new costs on the companies providing these services, which could ultimately fall on Canadian consumers through higher prices,” said a Canadian Heritage press release Wednesday. The regulator…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Rogers can force a competitor to connect at a traffic hand-off point of its choosing because its commission-approved tariff allows it, the CRTC ruled Thursday.
Cambridge, Ont.-based Fibernetics argued in a 2024 Part 1 application that Rogers was forcing it to connect its fibre half a kilometre away from the cable giant’s head-end facility in Calgary because Fibernetics was using a third-party, not Rogers, to route the traffic back to its office. Fibernetics, which was backed by other wholesale-based competitors claiming similar experiences, argued this effectively disadvantaged it because Rogers was forcing a competing internet…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The Shaw Rocket Fund has filed for a court review of a CRTC decision last month that did not require Rogers to continue paying into the fund beyond August 2025 — and did not find a public hearing was warranted on the matter.
The Federal Court of Appeal application, dated May 21, seeks clarification about whether an administrative renewal of Rogers’s licence – which involved no public consultation – meant that the commission effectively extended for the rest of the term that funding mandate, which was a condition of approving the cable giant’s purchase of Shaw Communications’s broadcasting…
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The CRTC has opened a proceeding regarding a February application from Corus Entertainment seeking approval to change the ownership of all its licensed programming services to a new parent company as part of Corus’s recapitalization plan that it announced in November.
That plan, which received court approval in March from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, is designed to reduce the financially troubled media company’s third-party debt and other liabilities by more than $500 million.
Under a proposed debt-for-equity recapitalization transaction, some of Corus’s lenders would forgive approximately $500 million in debt in exchange for…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC on Monday ordered online streamers to provide closed captioning (CC) for their entire program catalogues by 2031.
Within that space of time, the streamers will have one year from now to provide CC for all new original pre-recorded English- and French-language programs; all original English- and French-language live programs, including those made by a third-party supplier; and all previously captioned programs on traditional TV.
To strike a balance between accessibility and avoiding straining CC resources, the CRTC said it will give them four years to have CC on 80 per cent of their program catalogues and five…
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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)
The other shoe dropped last week when the CRTC delivered two rulings that nearly complete its new regulatory framework for Netflix and the rest of the Hollywood streamers, as well as Canadian television broadcasters.
The reaction to the rulings from the Hollywood streamers and their Canadian enablers offered more heat than light. Media reports played them as a trade story and some breathlessly speculated on Culture & Identity Minister Marc…
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Regulator aims to float services of “exceptional importance” through fund
By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC on Thursday ordered online streamers to contribute a total of 15 per cent of their annual Canadian revenues into the broadcasting system, which includes the five per cent base amount the regulator ordered them to pay in a 2024 decision that foreign streamers are currently fighting in court.
Simultaneously, the regulator is reducing the amount Canadian private broadcasters have been paying into the system – from between 30 and 45 per cent to at least 25 per cent – which is the CRTC’s answer to leveling the…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC has turned down a 2023 application that asked it to align the rates competitors pay Bell for disaggregated and aggregated fibre access.
Quebecor’s application, which hoped for an update to rates established in 2017, was opposed by Bell and Rogers for a reason that the CRTC would adopt Tuesday: the regulator is already reviewing how to update the disaggregated regime, which forces competitors to get their own transport/traffic facilities to obtain access to the fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) portion of the legacy telcos’ network.
“The proceeding initiated by Telecom Notice of Consultation Continue Reading
President says organization will submit a comprehensive application “promptly”
By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC has denied Vues & Voix a three-cent increase in the rate broadcasters must pay to carry its 24-hour French-language radio station Canal M, saying there is insufficient evidence to justify it.
The discretionary service, which provides news and current affairs programming for the accessibility community and for people with disabilities, requested a three-cent rate increase – from four cents to seven cents per subscriber, per month – due to financial pressure. The not-for-profit said it has had to implement significant budget cuts, which resulted in…
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