OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC wants to hear from Canadians on the state of competition in the wholesale mobile wireless services market.
The Commission kicked off a public consultation Thursday to review whether the wholesale mobile wireless services market is sufficiently competitive, both now and in the future. The Regulator also said that it will hold a public hearing on the matter beginning on September 29, 2014, in Gatineau.
Specifically, the CRTC is inviting comments on:
the state of the market for wholesale mobile wireless services, including wholesale roaming and wholesale tower sharing in Canada;
the impact that the wholesale mobile wireless services…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC launched an interactive questionnaire Tuesday to poll Canadians’ thoughts on issues affecting the country’s television systems in the newest phase of its Let’s Talk TV campaign.
Let’s Talk TV: Choicebook follows the first phase of Let’s Talk TV: A Conversation with Canadians, which began in October 2013. The Commission said it used the comments submitted by Canadians during Phase One to prepare Choicebook.
The interactive questionnaire contains a series of scenarios that reflect the realities Canadians face daily with respect to the television system.
While the purpose of Phase One was to collect more personal comments on what Canadians think of…
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OTTAWA – A Senate committee turned to a former broadcast regulator for insight on how to address the challenges facing CBC/Radio-Canada in light of its loss of Hockey Night in Canada to Rogers Communications last year.
Appearing via video conference from Florida, former chair of the CRTC Konrad von Finckenstein told the Standing Senate Committee on Transportation and Communications what he believes could be done to improve the chances for success of Canada’s public broadcaster. He pointed to unloading the corporation’s vast over-the-air broadcast network, refocusing of the public broadcaster’s content as well as changing the governance structure and oversight…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC is launching an inquiry to examine the impact of satellite services on the quality and cost of providing telecommunications services to the country’s northern and remote communities.
The inquiry, to be led by CRTC Commissioner Candice Molnar, will focus on communities in remote regions that are served solely by satellite.
As part of a decision released last December concerning a four-year modernization plan of Northwestel’s broadband internet and wireless services for certain areas of northern Canada, the CRTC identified a digital divide between communities that receive these services over terrestrial networks, such…
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GATINEAU – A complaint before the CRTC accuses a big Canadian TV broadcaster of behaving poorly by giving itself an undue preference by outright refusing to air advertising from a radio competitor.
The culprit? The CBC.
Leclerc Communication, which bought Quebec City radio stations CJEC-FM (WKND 91.9) and CFEL-FM (CKOI 102.1) from Cogeco when the latter acquired Corus Quebec stations in 2011, says that it has tried and failed to buy local advertising on Radio-Canada's Quebec City television station because of a policy the public broadcaster has to refuse advertising to competitors.
"We believe that it's imperative to promote WKND 91.9 on…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC will examine licence renewal applications from Rogers Media, plus consider a second request for a Canadian film channel and a pay-per-view service for Telus at a hearing scheduled for April 8, 2014 in Gatineau.
The Commission made public Wednesday that Rogers has filed applications to renew the broadcasting licences for 17 of its television services and stations, including its City stations, multilingual ethnic television stations and Sportsnet. In addition to licence renewal, the Commission will examine “key issues” relating to these applications including the group-based approach to the licensing of the City television stations and…
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GATINEAU – On Wednesday, the Competition Bureau filed a submission to the CRTC’s consultation on the domestic mobile wireless roaming rates charged by Canada’s largest wireless companies.
In a press release the Bureau said it “believes that Canada’s largest wireless companies have an incentive to use high mobile wireless roaming rates to ensure that new entrants are not, and do not become, fully effective competitors. As a result, new entrants are likely limited in their ability to bring attractive product offerings to market, resulting in reduced product choice, higher prices for consumers and/or less innovation…
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OTTAWA – Canadian television viewers want more content choices and have mixed feelings about the way their television is currently delivered to them, according to the first phase of the CRTC’s Let's Talk TV: A Conversation with Canadians.
The Commission issued the Phase 1 report Wednesday, based on the 1,320 comments it received from October 24 – November 22, 2013. As Cartt.ca readers will recall, the initiative kicked off by asking Canadians the following three questions:
1. Programming: What do you think about what’s on television?2. Technology: What do you think about how you receive television programming?3….
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OTTAWA – The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and Chimo Community Services (Chimo) want the CRTC to eliminate charges for Canadians who call helplines and crisis lines from their cell phones, and to protect helpline users’ privacy.
Currently, Canadians who call helplines from their wireless phones are charged for those calls or have those voice minutes deducted if they have a voice plan. Callers’ accounts can also identify the fact that a call was made to a helpline, as well as the number of that helpline.
In an application filed Wednesday, PIAC and Chimo argued that wireless charges and the inadequate…
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OTTAWA – Corus Entertainment’s purchase of Ottawa-based radio stations CKQB-FM (The Bear 106.9) and CJOT-FM (Boom 99.7) from Bell Media will close on January 31st , Corus confirmed Tuesday.
Formerly owned by Astral, Corus agreed to buy the stations last March as part of the divestitures required as conditions of Bell Media’s purchase of Astral Media. The deal received CRTC approval late last week.
Corus has established a Montreal-based management team led by Mario Cecchini, president of Corus Média and head of Eastern Ontario tadio and television. In addition to overseeing Corus' Quebec-based specialty services, Cecchini will now be responsible for Corus' eastern Ontario radio and local television…
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