OTTAWA – Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, Shelly Glover issued a warning late Monday evening to the CRTC in a statement responding to day one of the Commission's TV Policy Review hearing.
It's an unusual thing for a cabinet minister to publicly interfere with a CRTC hearing but she (well, the Prime Minister's Office really, we're told) made it very clear that the federal government is mostly concerned about pick and pay – and will not stand for TV regulations being applied to new media outlets. The statement (which was e-mailed to some reporters and still can't…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has moved to simplify its approach to tangible benefits and determining the value of broadcast transactions.
The Commission said Friday that to ensure that future tangible benefits for television transactions are streamlined and directed mainly to the production of Canadian programming, it will generally require that at least 80% of such benefits be allocated to the Canada Media Fund (CMF) or various certified independent production funds, unless a compelling case is made that other measures could better meet the public interest. Of this amount, at least 60% shall be directed to the CMF. It also included…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Canadians’ penchant for watching television programming across multiple platforms increased the overall average number of weekly television viewing hours, but cut into time spent on traditional TV viewing, according to the 2014 edition of the CRTC’s Communications Monitoring Report.
The report, released Thursday, provides an overview of the Canadian communication industry for the year ended August 31, 2013. This year, the CRTC will release the report in three parts, with data related to telecommunications, as well as information about consumer spending on communications services, pricing and international comparisons, to be published in the coming weeks.
Canadians had access…
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GATINEAU – Quebecor Inc. complained to the CRTC in February that the Bell Fund, which gives money to digital and new media projects associated with television productions, had rejected three projects from Quebecor’s TVA network for “non-justified reasons” and that staff of the fund made disparaging remarks about Quebecor.
The Bell Fund rejected the accusations outright, arguing that evaluation criteria for projects is clearly spelled out and the projects in question, while admissible, received “average” grades and simply did not make the cut. It countered suggestions of bias by saying the majority of its administrators are…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC wants Canadians to have a better understanding of what it does (and perhaps what it doesn’t do), while encouraging greater public participation in its various activities and proceedings.
To that end, the Commission published It's Your CRTC! Your 5-minute Guide to Understanding and Participating in Our Activities on Tuesday, in an effort “aimed at trying to connect with Canadians on issues that affect their daily lives”.
“When Canadians communicate with the CRTC, they help change, adapt or develop a policy and ensure that the Commission makes decisions in the public interest”, reads the Commission’s news release. …
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TORONTO – Bell, Rogers and Videotron have some explaining to do over the way that they charge customers for live and on-demand television programming on mobile applications.
According to a Globe and Mail report, the CRTC has asked the three big providers a series of questions about their respective apps, such as how many subscribers the services have, how much data they tend to use, and how exactly the content is delivered.
The report raises the issue of net neutrality, noting that the apps allow viewers to use their smartphone or tablet to watch up to 10 hours per month of…
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OTTAWA – In move that could have implications for a number of cross-border broadcasters, the CRTC has summoned three B.C.-based radio companies to a hearing in October for allegedly broadcasting in Canada without a licence.
According to the Commission, Radio India, which is owned and controlled by Baljit Kaur Bains; Radio Punjab, owned and controlled by Gurpal S. Garcha; and Sher-E-Punjab, owned and controlled by Surinder Kaur Badh are all producing programming for broadcast on the radio and over the Internet without licences to carry on a radio programming undertaking in Canada, contrary to the Broadcasting Act. Their primarily South…
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GATINEAU – Suitelife Vacations Club, which sells travel and vacation packages, has paid $20,000 in administrative monetary penalties as part of a settlement over violations of the Unsolicited Telecommunications Rules, the CRTC announced today.
The company also agreed to end its previous telemarketing practices.
Acting on complaints submitted by Canadians, the Commission investigated Suitelife for alleged violations of the Unsolicited Telecommunications Rules. It found that through third-party firms, the company made unsolicited telemarketing calls to Canadians who had registered their numbers on the National Do Not Call List. Suitelife had also failed to register with and subscribe to the List before…
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OTTAWA – The Public Interest Advocacy Centre and the Consumers Association of Canada Tuesday published an open letter to CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais decrying the Commission’s decision to call carriers in for a meeting on paper billing practices instead of allowing for a public process.
Both PIAC and the CAC had submitted a formal application to the CRTC, asking it to prohibit charging Canadians an extra fee to receive a paper bill.
The CRTC issued a press release last week noting it has called the industry in to explain itself. "We are concerned that not all Canadians…
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GATINEAU – Local TV is struggling mightily. Ad revenue is down and showing no signs of growth, while the ever growing lineup of new specialty channels and the rapid rise of Internet-based alternatives are blasting away at what has always been the bedrock of the television system in Canada.
Some are telling the CRTC that it’s time to adopt a radically different approach for local TV, one that would bolster the revenue side of the ledger while also helping to encourage the development of compelling Canadian content.
For example, Bell Canada and CBC/Radio-Canada suggest shutting down over the air infrastructure completely…
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