TORONTO – The CRTC has approved the plan of arrangement between Alliance Atlantis and CanWest Global that will run Alliance Atlantis until the Commission can decide on the purchase and transfer of ownership in a hearing.
The Plan of Arrangement will see AA Acquisition Corp. (formerly 6681859 Canada Inc.) acquire all of the outstanding shares of Alliance Atlantis for $53 cash per share, as was announced in January. AA Acquisition is primarily funded by Goldman Sachs, with CanWest Global to be controlling shareholder of the regulated assets.
AA owns (directly or indirectly) the securities of certain entities which are…
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TORONTO – Perhaps stung a little by the tough line of questioning the company faced in front of the Commission a few weeks ago, CTVglobemedia sent a letter to the CRTC last week attempting to modify its application to purchase CHUM Ltd.
In it, CTV said it would consider divesting CHUM’s Citytv stations in Winnipeg, Edmonton and Calgary, so long as the Commission was willing to place limits on the further growth of CanWest Global’s CH network. Global, for example, went through a hearing in February where it asked the CRTC for a Calgary and…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC should immediately regulate monthly contributions to the Canadian Television Fund (CTF) and establish an arms length dispute resolution mechanism to deal with any concerns raised about the fund, recommended the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications in its report released Thursday.
The second recommendation of the report, The Challenges Ahead for the Canadian Television Fund, is that the government re-examine the CTF’s spending envelopes, especially with respect to the CBC/Radio-Canada.
One of the complaints of Shaw and Quebecor when they withdrew their monthly contributions earlier this year was that 37% of the CTF went…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC is asking if it should eliminate winback rules for incumbent cablecos with 6,000 or more subscribers serving multiple-unit dwellings (MUD).
Broadcasting Public Notice 2007-48 was issued Tuesday following a request last month from Rogers Cable Communications Inc. for the elimination of the remaining winback restrictions. The cableco argued the imposition of winback rules on the cable industry creates an asymmetry in the broadcasting system that protects telephone companies entering the TV distribution business and the country’s two satellite TV distributors from the normal workings of a competitive market.
Rogers noted that a similar winback restriction…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC wants to know to what extend local number portability (LNP) has to be supported for access-dependent local voice over Internet Protocol services.
The commission wants interveners to comment on implementation constraints, technical issues, customer demand and the cost-effectiveness of support for LNP in the following situations:
1. secondary numbers assigned from within the company’s operating territory, 2. secondary numbers assigned from outside the company’s operating territory, 3. primary numbers assigned from outside the company’s operating territory, 4. with respect to the porting-in of telephone numbers.
This proceeding will not include matters relating to the recovery…
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By Laurel Hyatt
GATINEAU – The Citytv stations are “failing” and need CTV’s injection of cash to stay afloat, so the CRTC should make an exception to its ban on owning two conventional TV stations in a market, says Ivan Fecan, president and CEO of CTVglobemedia.
Allowing CTV to keep City stations in Toronto/Hamilton, Vancouver/Victoria, Calgary, Edmonton, and Winnipeg is in the public interest because “the City stations are teetering at the financial edge,” Fecan told commissioners Monday at the start of a two-day hearing into the $1.365 billion CTV buyout of CHUM Limited.
The CRTC’s…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has added NASA Television to the list of foreign TV channels eligible for carriage in digital in Canada, despite objections from CTV’s Discovery Channel.
The CRTC noted in Broadcasting Decision 2007-43 that it found “the overlap between NASA TV and The Discovery Channel or Discovery HD is minimal and that NASA TV is sufficiently different in terms of target audience, service orientation, programming genres and programming to be considered neither partially or totally competitive with The Discovery Channel or Discovery HD.”
The request to bring the U.S. channel featuring documentaries, archival programming and coverage of…
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GATINEAU – CRTC Chairman Konrad von Finckenstein made two appointments today, following up on his promises to begin re-organizing the Commission’s operations.
He named long-time public servant Robert A. Morin as the Commission’s Secretary General, starting April 23. Morin, an executive coach since retiring from his senior post with the Competition Bureau of Canada three years ago, has been given a specific mandate to launch an internal review of CRTC operations and processes.
Von Finckenstein also announced the creation of a new Strategic Communications Branch that will bring together Public Affairs, Parliamentary Affairs, Internal Communications and the personnel involved…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has launched a public proceeding to set out rules regarding the installation of a network interconnection device (NID) when the incumbent local exchange carrier’s (ILEC) network is disconnected from the inside wire at the home of a residential customer who has elected to take a cable telephone service and no longer wishes to use any services provided on the ILEC’s network (Telecom Public Notice 2007-3).
The commission is asking for comment on whether a NID should be installed at the premises of a residential customer when no such device is present; should the cableco or…
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GATINEAU – Under increasing pressure from many groups (including many politicians) the CRTC today announced a new proceeding to review consolidating media ownership in Canada.
That means it won’t look at the issue under the auspices of the proposed CTVglobemedia purchase of CHUM. That hearing goes April 30th.
The scope of this new proceeding will be set out in a notice of public hearing to be issued shortly. A public hearing will follow in the fall of 2007.
"The current wave of consolidation in the Canadian broadcasting industry (CTVgm/CHUM, CanWest Global/Alliance Atlantis and Astral/Standard), and the possibility of more…
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