QUISPAMSIS – Nationwide voting is now open for Tuned-In Canada: the CCSA Awards.
The Canadian Communication Systems Alliance awards is a long-standing annual initiative which celebrates the contributions its independent communications company members make to their communities and customers.
Canadians are invited to visit www.tunedincanada.com/vote/ to cast a vote for nominees in the following three contest categories:
Best people: on-camera community channel personality
Best story: giving back
Best photo: connecting Canadians (short-listed pictures shown above)
Voting takes place using SMS authentication and Canadians can cast their votes until April 1st. Winners will be announced April 12th and each will receive $1,000 to donate to…
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By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – On Friday, March 19, during a break week(!), the members of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology (INDU) of the House of Commons held a meeting at the request of four of its Conservative members to examine the proposed $26-billion acquisition of Shaw Communications by Rogers Communications.
The very busy committee – which has already undertaken studies on competitiveness in Canada, Investment Canada Act, development and support of the Aerospace Industry, front-line grocery store workers, affordable telecom, and domestic manufacturing capacity for a Covid-19 vaccine – agreed the Rogers/Shaw transaction must be looked…
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MONTREAL – Bell Canada today launched an exclusive new app available only to customers with a 5G phone – and who are in a Bell 5G coverage area.
The new TSN 5G View/Vision 5G RDS launched Friday night as the Montreal Canadiens hosted the Vancouver Canucks at the Bell Centre.
The Bell announcement says 5G tech allows it to use the app to take “fans into the rink on their smartphones, rotating around the action supported by 80-plus in-game cameras broadcast live within the TSN/RDS App.”
This is the first Bell Canada-Bell Media co-production under new Bell Media senior vice-president, product platforms…
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By Greg O’Brien
TORONTO – Rogers president and CEO Joe Natale surprised more than a few observers on Monday with the announcement his company would purchase Shaw Communications. Not with the deal itself since that had been a rumour for two decades, but with the level confidence he displayed when saying he believes Canadian regulators will, in the end, approve.
That confidence hadn’t wavered when Cartt.ca spoke with him on Wednesday.
The company went out of its way to offer major incentives to Canadians as sweeteners to the deal: A $1 billion broadband fund to deliver broadband to 600,000 un- or…
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By Christopher Guly
OTTAWA – Rogers Communications’ proposed $26-billion purchase of Shaw Communications will reduce competition in Canada’s broadband and wireless sector at a time when the industry’s top players are enjoying record profits, and therefore needs to be opposed by the federal government, according to Windsor, Ontario Member of Parliament Brian Masse, the New Democrat critic for telecommunications.
“We need to have strong direction for the industry that buying each other out is not a solution for lowering prices, increasing access for Canadians and bringing greater accountability to consumers,” he told Cartt.ca in an interview.
The federal government should use…
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CityWest wanted to mitigate Connected Coast risk; ISED sliced $1.5M from “served” communities
By Ahmad Hathout
WHEN THIS PUBLICATION reported Innovation Canada reduced the scope of the Connected Coast project, it couldn’t get the precise details from any of the federal or British Columbia governments or the builders as to how much funding was cut and which communities were axed – until now.
That story reported ISED had reduced a number of communities from Connect to Innovate funding because the federal government considered them already served, but with an outdated guideline of 5 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload. (The project,…
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OTTAWA – The next meeting of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, which is studying Bill C-10, the bill to amend the Broadcasting Act, will be held Monday with the following witnesses: Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists, BCE, Fédération nationale des communications et de la culture, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting and Unifor.
Shaw Communications had been scheduled to appear, too, but cancelled.
The Committee, in its meeting on committee business of March 8, agreed to ask the CRTC to appear, on March 26, and be given 10 minutes for their opening statements (this is more time than…
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Bill C-10 and Canadian ownership rules
By Len St-Aubin
BILL C-10 WOULD REMOVE from the Broadcasting Act the requirement that “the Canadian broadcasting system shall be effectively owned and controlled by Canadians”.
Would that change lead to foreign ownership of Canadian broadcasters? Answer: No.
But it’s the wrong question to ask. The better questions, so far left unasked, are:
Would Bill C-10 make it easier to remove Canadian ownership rules? Answer: Yes.
Would Bill C-10 drive broadcasters to seek removal of Canadian ownership rules? Answer: Yes, and C-10 would make it tough for the government to refuse.
Would that impact Canadian ownership in…
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Cumulative revenue for Canadian TV and radio has declined by $1.36 billion since 2016
By Robert Malcolmson
THE DIRE SITUATION FACING Canada’s television and radio industry – the lifeblood for Canadian content, including local, regional and national news – is hurting our communities and weakening a far-reaching sector of the Canadian economy, a sector that employs approximately 25,000 and contributes enormously to our cultural landscape.
With Bill C-10, the government of Canada is laying the groundwork for a much-needed rebalancing of available support for the Canadian broadcasting system.
This rebalancing would see online players like Netflix, Amazon’s Prime Video, Disney+ and others –…
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GATINEAU — Another area code region in Ontario is in a jeopardy condition due to the fact the projected exhaust date for phone numbers in the 249/705 area code has advanced by 20 months, according to a recent CRTC letter citing the Canadian Numbering Administrator’s (CNA) January 2021 numbering resource forecast report.
Area codes 705 and 249 cover most of northeastern and central Ontario, including the communities of Alliston, Barrie, Bracebridge, Collingwood, Huntsville, Midland, North Bay, Parry Sound, Peterborough, Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury and Timmins.
The CNA’s January 2021 Relief-Numbering Resource Utilization Forecast (R-NRUF) shows the projected exhaust date for the…
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