GATINEAU – Canada’s major cable companies and telcos are squaring off against MTS Allstream and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre over the CRTC’s authority to mandate broadband as an essential service in the so-called “Obligation to Serve” CRTC proceeding beginning Tuesday in Timmins, Ont.
Comments filed with the CRTC in late August show that Bell Canada, Telus and all of the large cablecos are, not surprisingly, opposed to any Commission intervention on this matter, while PIAC and MTS firmly believe that the CRTC can make broadband essential.
The issue has become a central theme in the proceeding which will cover…
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GATINEAU – Since all of the country’s biggest broadcasters (save CBC) will soon all be owned by Canada’s biggest carriers, the CRTC has announced a new proceeding to examine safeguards to prevent anti-competitive behaviour.
The proceeding will include a public hearing starting on May 9, 2011, in Gatineau, Que.
“The broadcasting industry is being significantly reshaped by a series of major transactions,” said Konrad von Finckenstein, chairman of the CRTC, in the press release. “As a regulator, it’s only prudent that we study the implications to ensure we have the right tools to deal with competitive concerns as they arise….
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GATINEAU – The CRTC decision on the purchase of Canwest Global Communications’ TV assets by Shaw Communications will be announced tomorrow at 4 p.m., a Commission spokesperson told Cartt.ca.
Watch the Commission’s web site or Cartt.ca when the news breaks.
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OTTAWA – Wind Mobile has asked the CRTC to step in to try and make sure its customers’ calls aren’t repeatedly fumbled with so-called “hard handoffs” from its roaming provider Rogers Communications.
Wind wants the Commission to toss a flag on Rogers and grant it seamless, or soft, handoffs. A hard handoff, for example, means a Wind customer call is cut off as he moves out of out of a Wind network zone into a Rogers area. A soft handoff would mean the call isn’t dropped as the subscriber moved from network to network while chatting.
In a Part VII filed…
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OTTAWA – TVA received CRTC approval for two new category two specialty television stations on Wednesday.
The first is for TVA Mode, a national, French-language general-interest channel that will offer programming intended for men and women dedicated to fashion, beauty and personal well-being. The application says that programming would include Québécois, Canadian and international fashion shows, various magazines covering the world of fashion and beauty trends in a problem/solution approach, and programs offering vignettes and features dedicated to trends, products and personal well-being. The licence will expire August 31, 2017.
The second is for Star Système, a national, French-language high definition channel…
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TORONTO – The Directors Guild of Canada (DGC) says that it lauds the CRTC’s recent decision to reject requests from Rogers and CTVglobemedia to reduce their Canadian content requirements in order to provide increased programming flexibility for their conventional television stations.
In a statement on Tuesday, the organization accused the broadcasters of “making Canadian programming the scapegoat for Canadian broadcasters’ difficulties”.
“The Commission made the right call. The group licensing policy is a single framework for the television sector, and not a collection of individual policies that can be cherry-picked to suit the broadcasters’ purposes or applied inconsistently across competitive…
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OTTAWA and TORONTO – The CRTC has turned down CTV’s request to extend “interim regulatory flexibility” to it’s financially challenged /A stations.
In a decision on Thursday, the Commission told CTV that it could not cherry pick aspects of the group-based approach to the licensing of private television services policy “on a piecemeal basis, for example by approving a reduction in Canadian programming without imposing expenditure requirements”, or similarly, “eliminate requirements for priority programming without imposing requirements for programming of national interest”.
The Commission continued that it would be “unfair” to implement certain aspects for some licensees,…
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MONTREAL – The uniqueness of the Montreal market, the fact that there is only one AM station still operating in the region, and Astral’s significant radio holdings in the province should be all the evidence the CRTC needs to grant Cogeco an exemption to its radio station ownership policy, the company told the Commission this week.
The Regulator heard arguments this week on Cogeco’s proposed $80 million purchase of Corus Entertainment’s Quebec radio assets – and one of the major issues up for discussion was Cogeco’s ownership exemption request. If granted, it would allow the company to own three…
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TORONTO and OTTAWA – The CRTC should rethink its decision to delay considering applications for mandatory basic digital distribution.
That message seems to be picking up steam, and not just with the independent broadcasters who currently have 9(1)(h) applications before the Commission. The Canadian Conference for the Arts (CCA) waded into the issue this week, calling on the Regulator to rescind BRP 2010-629.
“Our request is based on the fact that in our opinion, due process and transparency were gravely missing in the Commission’s decision to impose a moratorium”, the CCA wrote in a letter to CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein this week….
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OTTAWA – TV viewers could soon have another children’s channel added to their dials.
The CRTC approved TVO Kids+ on Wednesday, a national, English-language Category 2 specialty station aimed at “young learners” from Junior Kindergarten to Grade 5. In its application, the Ontario Educational Communications Authority (TVO) said that its programming will be linked to or based on the Learning Expectations set out in the Ontario Curriculum and complementary to the “formal in-classroom educational experience of young learners”, while encompassing the major areas of the curriculum.
The new channel will not be permitted to broadcast any commercial messages other than…
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