By Ahmad Hathout
Bell executives told the CRTC on Thursday that the broadcaster doesn’t need outside funding support for news production – just an easing of requirements on a losing product like community news.
“We’re losing $40 million a year in the conventional newscast,” said Jonathan Daniels, Bell’s vice president of regulatory law. “And so we looked at what would just be a better way that we could help finance that. And so we suggested that it was a redirecting of money from the community TV … because it’s just not been a very successful product.”
The executives said the company spends…
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Quebecor Media subsidiary TVA Group announced Wednesday several layoffs, primarily in its television division, as the broadcaster faces an uncertain future due to ongoing financial challenges, the Montreal-based company said.
“TVA Group, like other private broadcasters, is operating in a steadily deteriorating business environment and continues to absorb substantial financial losses while competing on an uneven playing field,” Quebecor President and CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau, who is the acting president and CEO of TVA Group, said in a press release.
“In this alarming situation, TVA Group is forced to cut some 30 jobs,…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Quebecor executives said Wednesday that Radio-Canada, the French-language version of the CBC, should be made to step-up on producing children’s programming because it has become economically difficult to do so for private broadcasters.
The company’s vice president of public and regulatory affairs told the five-member CRTC panel in response to a question about how to sustain the delivery of children’s programming that the public broadcaster — which is already required by the CRTC to broadcast a certain number of hours of kids programming — should pick up where private broadcasters have failed.
“We hope the mandate of Radio-Canada will…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Telus is alleging in an undue preference complaint made public Wednesday that Bell is deliberately obstructing its ability to introduce its broadcasting services over the larger telco’s last-mile fibre facilities in eastern Canada.
Telus claims in the complaint that it has made “repeated requests … over the course of several months” to pave the way to include its BDU systems on Bell’s fibre facilities but was allegedly denied based on reasons that are redacted from the complaint.
Telus says it wants the CRTC to force Bell to allow it to distribute its own programming services in these leased network…
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Quebec’s Minister of Culture and Communications Mathieu Lacombe on Wednesday tabled in the Quebec National Assembly Bill 109, An Act to affirm Québec’s cultural sovereignty and to enact an Act respecting the discoverability of Francophone cultural content in the digital environment.
Minister Lacombe also proposed introducing in Quebec’s Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms “a right of access to cultural content of original Francophone expression”, according to an English translation of a Quebec government press release.
This introduction of a right to discoverability and access to French-language content in the Charter “would serve to promote the presence,…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Rogers and Quebecor are challenging a decision by the CRTC to extend by two years the implementation of the next-generation 911 service, saying they will be forced to assume millions of dollars in unnecessary costs for a longer period of time.
The CRTC in March extended by two years the full implementation deadline for the new system, which will allow first responders to receive texts and multimedia messages from distressed callers. Crucially with that decision, the regulator maintained the dual-rate model, meaning originating network providers (ONPs) – which link up with Bell and Telus, the managers of the…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Telus has filed a notice of discontinuance requesting the Federal Court of Appeal no longer consider its judicial review application challenging an order from the federal cabinet recommending the CRTC contemplate banning the “Big Three” from access to the last-mile fibre regime.
The Vancouver-based telco insisted in March that its case was still relevant – despite the CRTC declining to change its November 2023 interim decision in response to the cabinet order – because the government still had another opportunity to vary or rescind that subsequent decision by May 5.
That date has come and gone…
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Corus urges CRTC move on children’s programming
By Ahmad Hathout
If the CRTC used current foreign streamer investments to the Canadian system as a baseline to determine obligations, then it would put the commission offside of the new Broadcasting Act and the policy direction from cabinet by forcing more contributions from them relative to traditional Canadian broadcasters, said representatives of a trade group representing the major foreign streamers Friday.
“If you were to establish the existing investment obligations as a floor, I think you would end up with foreign streaming services contributing a disproportionate amount to the Canadian broadcasting system when you…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) has been accepted as intervenor before the Federal Court of Appeal to explain the relationship between royalty payments and the making of Canadian content.
The court said this week it found the largest rights management organization in Canada is “well-positioned” to address specific issues raised by Spotify, which argued in part of its appeal challenging the CRTC’s five per cent base contribution requirement that it was paying royalties to Canadian music artists.
SOCAN argues the payment of royalties is simply a cost of doing business…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC has closed the loop on a matter it opened over a year ago: that it does, indeed, have concurrent jurisdiction with Industry Canada over the wireless attachments on telco-owned or controlled structures.
The ruling means the installation of small cell and Wi-Fi equipment is subject to the support structure tariffs filed to the commission, which was the starting point for the matter in question.
The commission held that preliminary view since February 2024 after Rogers and Quebecor applied to it for an order directing Bell, which was accused…
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