The CRTC last week approved the change in ownership and effective control of ethnic radio station CJRJ-AM Vancouver (formerly operating as Spice Radio).
Through the transaction, Spice Radio owner Shushma Datt’s shares in I.T. Productions Ltd. (the station’s licence holder) are being acquired by numbered company 1101651 B.C. Ltd., giving Kulwant Singh Dhesi effective control of the station. CJRJ-AM has been operating as Radio Swift 1200 AM since last summer, serving the local South Asian communities in the Vancouver area.
Given the $2.77 million value of the transaction, as determined by the CRTC,…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
Eastlink is expressing disappointment Friday after the CRTC blocked it from destandardizing certain internet speeds for third-party service providers that it no longer offers to its own retail customers.
In March last year, the regional telecom asked the CRTC to allow it to eliminate the 100 Mbps download/10 Mbps upload and the 300/10 Mbps speed tiers from competitor access as it stopped offering those tiers to new retail customers in December 2024. The telecom said the proposal was part of its effort to streamline and consolidate its service offerings.
But the CRTC denied the change Friday on the basis…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC approved Friday a proposal it made this past fall that would allow broadcasters to introduce spoken word programming on the FM dial.
The regulator will allow licensees of commercial FM radio stations to devote more than 50 per cent of weekly programming for that type of content for a one-year trial period.
The companies must notify the commission by letter within 30 days of the end of the broadcast week that they have participated in the trial and whether they intend to continue and for how long. If before the end of one year,…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
A study commissioned by the CRTC, made public Thursday, presses the need for the regulator to allow broadcasters to allocate a portion of their Canadian content expenditures on audience development, such as marketing and promotion.
The Nordicity report, which studied discoverability strategies of Canadian and international players, said Canadian audiences are now viewing content on multiple screens and platforms, which requires marketing budgets to scale appropriately.
“This shift in behaviour stretches the marketing task, requiring larger, smarter, and longer-term investment to sustain interest from early development through release and into catalogue,” the report…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
The Quebec Court of Appeal ruled last month that a trial court should consider punitive damages in a proposed class action lawsuit involving the reimbursement of phone unlocking fees.
In February 2024, the Quebec Superior Court authorized a class of plaintiffs to sue Rogers, Bell, Telus, and Quebecor for charging phone unlocking fees to Quebec customers between the period of August 14, 2014 and December 1, 2017.
But the court denied a request to allow the class to seek punitive damages, which would go beyond reimbursement, in part because it believed that the telecoms did not act maliciously. The…
Continue Reading
The CRTC last week approved, by majority decision, a May application from Northwestel proposing to introduce two new 1 Gbps business internet packages to its general tariff.
The new packages include Northwestel’s Cable Business Internet 1 Gbps Unlimited package, with a download speed of 1 Gbps and an upload speed of 40 Mbps, and its FTTP Business Internet 1 Gbps Unlimited package, with symmetrical 1 Gbps download and upload speeds. Both packages are priced at $499 per month.
Northwestel said in its application its 1 Gbps cable business internet package would be…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
Apple is asking the Federal Court of Appeal to review whether the CRTC is inappropriately demanding the disclosure of what it calls competitively sensitive financial information as part of the implementation of the Online Streaming Act.
The California-based music and TV streaming giant is arguing that the CRTC has not explained in its November decision on the definition of Canadian programming why the streamers need to publicly disclose annual contributions they make to domestic content and their gross Canadian broadcasting revenues.
“The decision to presumptively disclose … has not reasonably been explained to be and is…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
The Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA) is asking the Federal Court of Appeal to review the 20 per cent minimum copyright ownership threshold set by the CRTC that the creative group argues fails to give Canadians effective control to exploit their works as required by the law.
The trade group, which represents over 600 creative companies, argues in a leave application filed late last week that the regulator, in its November 18 decision defining “Canadian” programming, did not explain how that minimum 20 per cent Canadian control over the intellectual property translates to Canadians controlling…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
Major foreign streamers are asking the Federal Court of Appeal to review the CRTC’s decision to force them to disclose certain financial information that the regulator says is in the public interest.
The Canadian affiliate of the Motion Picture Association (MPAC) and its members, including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Paramount+, are arguing that, by declaring certain financial information “public,” the CRTC is effectively pre-empting their ability to designate certain competitively sensitive information as confidential as is their right under section 25.3 of the Broadcasting Act, which was amended by the Online Streaming Act that…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
Akash Broadcasting Inc. has been granted a hearing at the Federal Court of Appeal over a decision by the CRTC to reject its buy of AM radio station CKMX in Calgary.
Akash, an operator of ethnic stations, had entered into an agreement with Bell in 2024 to acquire the assets of the station, which has been off-air since June 2023. It then went to the CRTC for approval of the transaction.
In October, the CRTC denied the application because it came while the commission reviewed applications for another commercial radio station in the city. Akash’s application came approximately two…
Continue Reading
