OTTAWA – The CRTC will add a new programming category known as ‘Reality Television’ to its broadcasting regulations this fall.
Broadcasters must enter on their logs the program category associated with each program that they broadcast. This amendment will add the new category 11(b) Reality television to the schedule of program categories starting September 1st.
Click here for more on the new category.
www.crtc.gc.ca
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OTTAWA – Canada’s wireless customers need better safeguards to protect against expensive premium text messaging services, according to a new report released Wednesday from the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC).
The report, Paying a Premium: Consumers and Mobile Premium Services, includes the results of focus groups with consumers who had experiences with mobile premium services, also known as premium text messaging services, plus a review of industry self-regulation and practices.
PIAC counsel and report co-author Janet Lo said that consumers continue to report numerous problems with mobile premium services, ranging from unauthorized subscriptions to unsuccessful unsubscription, and difficulty disputing charges for these…
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GATINEAU – The clichés and attempted parallels were flying on the final day of the CRTC’s vertical integration hearing on Tuesday.
All of the independents, from V Interactions at the start of Tuesday through to GlassBox and Fight Network at the end of the day, are afraid the big, vertically integrated companies will only act ruthlessly in their own self interests to the severe detriment to their much smaller companies.
Among the elements of its proposal, the Weather Network/Météomédia owner Pelmorex Inc. argued that the Commission should “entrench in regulation” a requirement on broadcast distribution undertakings (BDUs) that they can’t alter…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC is asking Canadians to have their say on the country’s national broadcaster.
As it gears up to renew the CBC’s radio and television licences for the first time in 12 years this fall, the Commission has launched an on-line consultation seeking input that it will consider during the renewal hearing. That hearing is scheduled to begin on September 12, 2011, in Gatineau.
Specifically, it would like to hear from Canadians on the following questions:
– How can the CBC be relevant and meaningful in the future?– How can the CBC best deliver content to all Canadians?– Should…
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FOR THOSE AMONG you who use Twitter, you’ll recognize the hashtags in the headline. For those who don’t, the hashtags are those # signs attached to words or acronyms that help those of us who use and like Twitter to keep track of topics and conversations on the micro-blogging site.
There are a number of conversations I follow when I “tune in” to Twitter, like #CRTC and #UBB for example, or #cts11 during the recent Canadian Telecom Summit (although this week, that hashtag means California Travel Summit). This week, we have a new one, #ivi, which is…
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BANFF – CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein is one busy guy these days – just ask him. “We have a hearing virtually every month which is unheard of”, he told Cartt.ca on Monday morning at the Banff World Festival.
A few of the biggest broadcast-related issues on his plate at the moment – the pending digital transition and the impact that the over-the-top services are having in Canada – figured prominently in his annual breakfast speech to delegates here on the confab’s first full day.
Congratulating the country’s TV broadcasters on their efforts to date to comply with August 31st deadline,…
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OTTAWA – Bell’s decision to repackage Canadian specialty channel The Cave while continuing to distribute its own like-minded service and a comparable foreign service smacks of undue preference and disadvantage, the CRTC ruled Friday.
The Cave (formerly known as Men TV) is a category 1 specialty service controlled by Quebecor’s TVA Group and licensed to Shaw Television. Quebecor filed a complaint with the Commission last December over Bell’s decision to repackage it from the ‘Lifestyle 2’ package, where it had been for the past eight years, to the ‘Variety 3’ package, alleging an undue disadvantage and an undue preference…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC is asking for comments on a proposed code of best practices for access programming on cable community channels.
The code, available here, was submitted by the Cable Industry Working Group which was assembled last August and includes representative from Rogers, Shaw, Cogeco, EastLink, Quebecor and the CCSA.
The deadline for submitting comments is September 6, and replies are due by September 16, 2011.
www.crtc.gc.ca
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has approved an extension to its fact-finding exercise on over-the-top programming services in the Canada.
The On-line Broadcast Working Group asked the Commission earlier this month to extend its deadline, as Cartt.ca reported. The Commission agreed on Wednesday, pushing the deadline back from its original date of June 27 to July 5, 2011.
The Commission also said that it does not intend to extend this deadline further.
www.crtc.gc.ca
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GATINEAU – The group of Canadian broadcasters and content creators which asked the CRTC to investigate the effects over-the-top video is having on the regulated TV industry has asked for an extension to the June 27th deadline of the fact-finding proceeding the Commission launched on May 25th.
The Online Broadcast Working Group, chaired by Alain Gourd, asked the CRTC for a “short” extension on June 2, Cartt.ca has learned. We do not know the reasons why the working group has asked for extra time or how much extra time they feel is required.
The group originally asked the Regulator to…
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