OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Well, this will douse some of the fire that was sure to burn at this week’s Canadian Film and Television Producers Association Prime Time conference in Ottawa beginning Wednesday evening.
With Heritage Minister Bev Oda and new CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein as scheduled speakers at the conference this week, one can bet that producers were prepared to pepper them with repeated questions on the Canadian Television Fund and TV production funding in Canada in general.
However, with Shaw’s announcement today that it will turn its cash spigot to the CTF back on plus this Commission…
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GATINEAU – In his first public statement since becoming chairman of the CRTC, Konrad von Finckenstein today told Shaw Communications and Videotron that they should resume their required monthly payments to the Canadian Television Fund.
However, he also told the leaders of the CTF to start addressing the concerns raised by both companies, which have been reported on repeatedly by Cartt.ca over the past month.
The Commission statement reads:
"The CRTC recognizes the important role that the funds administered by the Canadian Television Fund (CTF) play in supporting the production of Canadian programs. This programming in turn assists Canadian…
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OTTAWA – This evening Konrad von Finckenstein was officially announced as the new chairman of the CRTC.
Bev Oda, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Status of Women, made the announcement with an early-evening release on the Heritage Ministry’s web site. "Mr. von Finckenstein’s credentials will bring strong leadership to the CRTC," said Minister Oda. "I am confident that his experience will greatly benefit the Commission."
A long-time public employee who held very senior positions in the Brian Mulroney Conservative government and helped write the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, von Finckenstein was also Commissioner of Competition at the Competition Bureau…
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GATINEAU – The supply of telephone numbers out west (in the 780, 250 and 403 area codes) are drying up.
So today, the CRTC asked the public for help. The Commission issued two public notices seeking comments on proposed relief plans dealing with the declining supply of numbers in those Alberta and B.C. area codes. The relief plans propose measures to prevent area codes and their regions from running out of numbers.
In Alberta, the proposed relief plan is for the whole province, therefore customers in both area codes 403 and 780 could be impacted. In British Columbia, the…
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OTTAWA – Can’t let a week go by without a telecom announcement from Industry Canada.
This Monday’s was the announcement that the policy direction tabled in June is now in force. The directive told the CRTC that it had to rely on market forces "to the maximum extent feasible" and regulate "to the minimum extend necessary."
(Cartt.ca has covered the Industry Ministry’s directives and other moves throughout 2006. Search "policy direction" or "policy directive" on our site to see what we mean.)
"Canada’s New Government has again furthered its ambitious policy agenda for the telecommunications sector by issuing the…
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NEXT WEEK IN OTTAWA, TV broadcasters will tell their regulator, the CRTC, that they want fewer rules and more ways to make money. They will raise the alarm about how difficult it is these days to make money from traditional advertising because of all of the competition for eyeballs coming from new-fangled media, like the Internet, pay TV, and cell phones. They will plead for measures to help them climb back from merely profitable to very profitable.
And they may well get their way. After all, they have powerful friends in Ottawa. In fact, the minister responsible for broadcasting…
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OTTAWA – No longer will DTH customers with a system at their home and their cottage be able to pay just a single bill.
The CRTC calls it account stacking, while others call it account splitting. Specialty service owners in Canada called it a way to siphon off revenue and want to be paid a wholesale fee for each address. Cable companies called it an unfair advantage. The DTH companies called it consumer-friendly since, because if people are watching TV at the cottage, they aren’t watching at home, too, and should be treated as a single account.
As noted…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC has granted licences for new radio stations in Dawson City, Yukon and Strathroy, Ont., as well as a national Christian specialty audio service.
The commission has granted a licence to the Dawson City Community Radio Society to operate an English “developmental” community FM radio station. It will be at 106.9 FM, with only 5 watts of power. It would broadcast 126 hours of programming per week, of which a minimum of 18 hours will be station-produced. The local programming will include rock, blues, jazz, and folk music as well as programs featuring Yukon and First…
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IT’S NO WONDER THERE couldn’t be a CAB submission to the CRTC on the TV policy review.
While there is some agreement on what must be done to alter the course of conventional television in Canada, along side the regularly substantial chasms in opinion between the usual suspects – distributors and broadcasters – there are also substantial variances between fellow broadcasters on what must be done to secure the future of conventional television stations and companies.
So, for this most important of policy reviews, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters had to step aside and tell its members that since…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC is relieving some cablecos of certain regulatory obligations regarding their local voice over Internet protocol services, but only in cases of “hardship” for small carriers.
The now-defunct Canadian Cable Telecommunications Association had asked the commission to relieve certain competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) from several requirements. In 2005, the commission determined that local VoIP services would be regulated as local exchange services.
The relief is being granted to Group 2 CLECs (non-dominant Canadian carriers offering local VoIP services through a reseller) with fewer than 10,000 subscribers.
These “small CLECs” will not have to meet and…
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