GATINEAU – Jilted 9(1)(h) license applicant ICTV has filed a petition to the Governor-in-Council demanding federal Cabinet not only set aside the CRTC decision granting Rogers Media a must-carry TV license for OMNI, but also that CRTC chair Ian Scott and vice-chair broadcasting Caroline Simard, be fired.
It has also filed a motion for leave to appeal the same CRTC decision to the Federal Court of Appeal.
In the petition to the GIC filed late Monday, Independent Community Television Montreal, an independent, not-for-profit community TV operation out of Montreal (which was one of the applicants hoping to…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – In another chapter of the ongoing saga between Bell and Quebecor, the CRTC has directed Bell to continue providing roaming services to Vidéotron, at least for now.
A Part 1 application from Québecor Média on behalf of its Vidéotron subsidiary to the Commission earlier this month said that Vidéotron’s end-users have had access to Bell’s roaming service since May 2015, but that Bell had threatened to suspend that service after alleging that “ a significant number of Vidéotron’s users …were using Bell Mobility’s roaming service …on an illegitimate, non-occasional and permanent basis” which it said contravened Bell Mobility’s…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – Corriere Canadese has formally appealed to federal Cabinet the CRTC decision to grant a multilingual national multi-ethnic discretionary service with mandatory 9(1)(h) distribution to Rogers, as Cartt.ca had previously reported.
“In the Decision’s relegation and monopoly granted to a single corporate entity, to purportedly speak for all other linguistic and ‘ethnic’ Canadians, who are non-Anglo and non-Franco, the Decision violates the very essence of sections 2,7,15 and 27 of the Charter, as well as the underlying constitutional imperative to Federalism and Respect for Minorities as enunciated by the SCC, in…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – Total broadcasting revenues sank 1.2% from 2017 to 2018 as television distribution providers (BDUs) posted negative growth for the fourth consecutive year, according to the CRTC’s statistical and financial results for the industry.
The Commission’s 2018 Broadcasting Financial Summaries Highlights reported that overall BDU revenues dropped by 2.0% ($168 million), falling from $8.58 billion in 2017 to $8.41 billion for the broadcast year ended August 31, 2018. IPTV revenues grew by 4.5% in 2018 to surpass the $2 billion mark, albeit at a slower rate than previous years. Satellite (DTH) service providers reported total revenues of $1.9…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The CRTC has kicked off a proceeding to co-develop a new framework for Indigenous broadcasting in Canada.
Noting that its current Indigenous broadcasting policy was introduced back in 1990, the Commission pledged to “modernize the existing regulatory framework so that the Canadian broadcasting system can adequately support the special needs of Indigenous peoples, now and in the future.”
The procedure will adopt a phased approach “to maximize Indigenous peoples’ opportunities to shape the public participation process and make their views known to the Commission,” the CRTC said Thursday. The first phase will consist of early engagement sessions; the…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – Telecom service providers now have six months to trial a proposed interim call traceback process designed to determine the origins of unwanted nuisance calls, the CRTC said Wednesday.
After accepting a report from the CRTC Interconnection Steering Committee (CISC) outlining the interim process, the Commission said that the trial should examine all possible solutions, target individual and mass call originators, and all network technologies (e.g. TDM, wireless, and IP).
Noting that all TSPs that provide voice telecommunications services in Canada should cooperate and participate in the final traceback process, the CRTC urged the CISC Network Working Group to…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The Federal Court of Appeal has agreed to hear Quebecor’s request to overturn a decision by the CRTC that forces it to make TVA Sports available to Bell TV customers while in dispute with Bell Canada over its distribution agreement.
According to a Montreal Gazette report, the court found that Quebecor made “solid arguments and a defendable case” about whether the Commission has jurisdiction to regulate affiliation agreements between BDUs and programmers this way.
The appeals court said that it would study two issues: whether the measures imposed by the CRTC are given to it by the…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – A little more than a month and a half following the adoption of Motion 208, which called for expanded digital infrastructure (wireless and wireline) in rural Canada, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada issued a new report with a number of recommendations it would like to see put forth to help improve connectivity throughout the country.
The top recommendation is… more study: that the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology consider solutions to help close current gaps in wireless infrastructure in rural Canada over the next year. That includes the deployment…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – Back in February 2019, we weren’t sure we’d see sunshine again or see the Raptors win the NBA championship(!!), but Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Innovation, Science and Economic Development Navdeep Bains decided that one day he would have the sun shine on consumers in the form of more affordable wireless plans, and issued a proposed telecommunications Policy Direction to that effect.
This is a rare occurrence. The last time it had been done was by then Conservative Industry Minister Maxime Bernier, back in 2006.
After the consultation mandated by statute was completed, the policy direction is…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – On Tuesday, the federal government tabled the final version of a policy direction to the CRTC requiring it to improve the affordability of Internet and cellphone services for Canadians.
According to a statement by Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED), the directive “aims to encourage all forms of competition and investment” in Canada’s telecommunications market.
"As long as Canadians pay too steep a price for their cellphone and Internet bills, our government will take extraordinary means to continue driving down the prices of telecommunications services,” said ISED minister Navdeep Bains, in the statement. “We are also fostering a…
Continue Reading
