Hank Intven resigned June 28
OTTAWA – The Broadcast and Telecom Legislative Review panel is down to six members after lawyer Hank Intven stepped down.
An alert Cartt.ca reader this week pointed us to a new asterisk beside Intven’s profile on the BTLR web site which states that as of June 28, 2019, he is no longer a member of the panel.
Intven is one of the most learned, experienced voices in Canadian telecom and broadcasting law and policy, having advised a long list of companies during his time as a partner with McCarthy Tétrault from 1986 to 2013. He was also…
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OTTAWA – Last month, Bernadette Jordan, who was appointed Canada’s first rural economic development minister in January, unveiled both the federal government’s economic development strategy for rural Canada and High-Speed Access for All: Canada’s Connectivity Strategy to help all rural and remote communities “fully participate in the global economy and society.”
Jordan (right), who is also the Liberal MP for the Nova Scotia riding of South Shore–St. Margarets (a large rural riding which extends from just outside of Halifax to near the tip of the Nova Scotia peninsula near Barrington),…
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But has to fight Bell for it at the CRTC
MONTREAL –Vidéotron said last week it plans to offer consumers and small businesses in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue “a full line of telecommunications services, including Internet, television and IP telephone service” by the end of 2019.
The western Quebec region of 145,000 (most of whom live in the cities of Rouyn-Noranda and Val-d’Or, but are spread over 57,000 sq. km.) is primarily served now by Cablevision du Nord, a cable company and ISP which is owned by Bell Canada.
The interesting part of this story is how Vidéotron plans to service the region: as…
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TORONTO – The Ontario Association of Broadcasters’ 2019 Ontario Hall of Fame Award will be presented to long-time broadcaster Paul Larche during the OAB fall conference, Thursday, November 7th.
The Ontario Hall of Fame is presented to individuals who have spent most of their careers working for private broadcasters and demonstrated a commitment to the highest standards of broadcast excellence, says the OAB.
Larche (pictured) ran Larche Communications, which owned and operated radio stations in Kitchener-Waterloo, Barrie/Orillia/Midland, Sudbury and Owen Sound. He has been working in the broadcasting and marketing business for over 40 years. He sold his…
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Household expenditure data from 2013-17 showcased
GATINEAU – Canadian households continued to abandon landline telephone service in favour of mobile service, with almost a third subscribing to mobile service only, the CRTC said in its latest Communications Monitoring Report released today.
The data from 2013-2017 shows how household subscriptions to television distribution services continued their gradual decline, with “about three-quarters of households subscribing, while the percentage of households with Internet service increased slightly to 89%,” reads the report.
As well, adds the research, Canadian households spent an average of $233 per month on their communications services in 2017, an increase of…
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Some numbers truly unexpected as we break down the report on individual specialty services
INDEPENDENT CANADIAN SPECIALTY services are punching well above their weight when it comes to making and delivering Canadian content, despite the fact they live in a far lower margin world than those owned by vertically integrated companies.
Collectively, independent, or non-vertically-integrated specialty channels spent a whopping 59% of their revenue on Canadian content in 2018, far outpacing VI channels, which collectively spent 38% of revenues on Cancon in the 2018 broadcast year, which ended August 31st. These numbers are according to the CRTC’s 2018 Individual Discretionary and…
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Von Finckenstein rebuts Menzies
IN THE JULY 3 EDITION of the Report on Business, former vice-chair of telecom Peter Menzies wrote he believes Ottawa has given the CRTC conflicting directives which will result in a tough road for the current Commission chair, Ian Scott.
I see the issue differently. The federal government has actually issued two helpful directives.
First, the previous government under former Industry Minister Maxime Bernier issued a directive in 2006 putting the emphasis on competition and directing the CRTC, when regulating, to maximize competition in the telecom sector. Now, under ISED Minister Navdeep Bains, today’s…
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Many customers may want it, but is it contrary to the CRTC’s Code?
TORONTO – Rogers Communications today said it will now offer customers the ability to pay for new devices over 24- or 36-month time frames, at $0 down with no interest.
Wireless policy watchers will say immediately, of course, that the CRTC’s 2013 Wireless Code only effectively allows carriers to offer a maximum two-year contract to their customers. Telus wireless chief Jim Senko told Cartt.ca last week he believes the company can’t go any longer than the two-year financing offer it just launched – even though he’d like…
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Slowed speeds after 10 GB might be against the rules
GATINEAU – Who would have thought a routine process of monitoring Internet pricing to make sure Internet Traffic Management Practices (ITMPs) don’t violate consumer rights would bump up against the much ballyhooed new $75 wireless data pricing plans?
The CRTC has long been concerned about some differential pricing practices that could be viewed as unfair, so it decided two years ago to “closely monitor the retail prices and data caps for both wireless and fixed-line Internet services, which will enable it to assess the degree to which…
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ECG, TLN, urge the federal government to intervene
OTTAWA – A total of four companies which had hoped to win a coveted must-carry licence for a national, multi-ethnic, multi-language TV channel have now asked the federal Cabinet to set aside the CRTC’s decision to grant the license to Rogers Communications, which says the vertically integrated company gets to hang onto OMNI for an additional three years.
On Monday, both Ethnic Channels Group (whose proposal was called Voices) and TLN Media Group (whose joint application with Asian Television Network was called CanadaWorld), joined Corriere…
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