Want faster, cheaper piracy measures
By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – The country’s largest broadcasters and telecoms want new copyright legislation to include provisions that give the courts the ability to order website-blocking, prevent the CRTC from overruling blocking orders, and to expand authority over other intermediaries to choke off infringers.
Bell, Rogers, Telus, Shaw, Cogeco, Quebecor, SaskTel, Eastlink, and the Canadian Communications System Alliance also want the legislation to reflect the courts’ ability to unilaterally order search engines to de-index infringing websites, social media platforms and to force hosts, like Cloudflare, to take down infringing services and not direct users to it,…
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If it doesn’t pass and there’s no election, it will continue in the fall
By Bill Roberts
AT MOMENTS HE LOOKED a bit like that deer in the proverbial headlights.
Minister Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Canadian Heritage, was in virtual conversation with Prem Gill, CEO of Creative B.C. on Thursday at the virtual Banff World Media Fest.
It was also somewhat of a hot seat.
“Look, I’ve been minister for 20 months and 18 of those were under Covid… it’s been a steep learning curve,” shared Guilbeault as he acknowledged his baptism by flamethrower at the Ministry.
And with Bill C-10, “we’ve had 120 amendments…
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OTTAWA — As a discretionary service, several of Starz’s broadcasts containing coarse language, sexual content and violence which aired during afternoon time slots in December 2020 and January 2021 violated the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ Code of Ethics and Violence Code, says a decision released today by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC).
The broadcasts at issue were episodes of the drama series High Fidelity and Ramy, and the comedy movie The Right Kind of Wrong on Starz 1, as well as the comedy movies The Hangover and Bridesmaids on Starz 2.
The CBSC concluded all of the broadcasts should not…
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NORTH BAY, Ont. — Radio station CFCH returned to the airwaves Tuesday morning, officially signing on at 7:30 a.m. ET as Country 90.5 FM, CFCH North Bay.
The CFCH call letters originated with the first radio station launched by Roy Thomson in North Bay back in 1930, which was right at the beginning of Lord Thomson of Fleet’s media-empire building. (The current Thomson-Reuters is a descendant of that company.)
The new CFCH FM station is owned and operated by Vista Radio, which is owned by Thomson’s granddaughter Sherry Brydson, who helped to kick off the launch of CFCH and spoke about…
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TORONTO — Starting October 16, 2021, the new area code 742 will be introduced in the Golden Horseshoe region (excluding Toronto) which is currently served by area codes 289, 365 and 905.
This region includes Niagara, Hamilton, Halton, Peel, York and Durham. The introduction of the new 742 area code is the result of an October 2020 decision by the CRTC and is intended to meet the continuously growing demand for new telephone numbers in the region.
The new area code will be introduced gradually starting October 16. After this date, consumers and businesses requesting a new phone number may…
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GATINEAU — The CRTC announced today it is imposing a penalty of $29,756.04 on Ontario-based Top Tier Moving and Storage for violating the Commission’s Unsolicited Telecommunications Rules.
The CRTC determined Top Tier made 6,226 telemarketing calls between October 4, 2017 and July 17, 2019, resulting in 14,804 violations of the rules. The violations were a combination of Top Tier calling consumers registered on the National Do Not Call List (DNCL), not being registered with the National DNCL operator nor subscribed to the National DNCL itself, and making telemarketing calls outside the permitted hours (9 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. from Monday…
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Commission to launch ILNF review after C-10’s fate is known
GATINEAU — The CRTC announced today it has approved an application by the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) to increase the maximum percentage of proceeds from the Independent Local News Fund (ILNF) that can be allocated to any one station or group of stations operated by the same licensee in a given market from 10% to 12% in any given broadcast year.
The change will be effective on September 1, 2021, which is the beginning of the 2021-2022 broadcast year.
The CAB, which administers the ILNF, submitted its Part 1 application…
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Auction starts today
By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – The strings attached to the federal government’s 3.5 GHz spectrum, whose auction beginning today will repurpose portions of it for mobile wireless use, include a speed-to-deployment component that complements federal policy to accelerate connectivity throughout the country by the end of the decade.
Winners of the auction, which Innovation Canada said will take “several weeks,” will have to deploy the spectrum largely within the 2030 timeframe for which the federal government hopes to provide access to all Canadians to high-speed internet.
While the focus is largely on what the 3.5 GHz spectrum will do for…
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By Bill Roberts
THE BANFF WORLD MEDIA Festival, a month-long virtual event running online from June 14th to July 16th thanks to the pandemic, kicked off Monday morning with a timely conversation with Ian Scott, CRTC chair and CEO.
Scott and his interviewer, journalist Jason Pinto, expressed the importance of the cultural industries regarding political, social, and environmental progress; and being a force for good. Pinto’s enquiries focused on Bill C-10 (the bill to amend the Broadcasting Act) and the past, current, and future efficacy of our broadcasting regulatory framework.
There was general consensus that, “drilling down” and given the pandemic and…
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GATINEAU — The CRTC today approved a new broadcasting licence for CKHQ 101.7 FM Kanesatake, which previously operated as a low-power Indigenous radio station, located in Kanesatake/Oka, Quebec, and was recently acquired by not-for-profit Mohawk Multi Media (MMM).
In May, the CRTC approved MMM’s acquisition of the station from CKHQ United Voices Radio (the station’s existing logo is pictured), and today the Commission issued its decision regarding the station’s licence, allowing CKHQ-FM Kanesatake’s status to be changed from a low-power unprotected service to a regular-power FM service.
In its application, MMM said CKHQ-FM Kanesatake would broadcast 126 hours of…
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