OTTAWA – After 276 members of Parliament voted earlier this month to support a private members motion, M-208, which calls for expanded digital infrastructure (wireless and wired) in rural areas, the standing committee on Industry, Science and Technology will begin hearings to study the matter Thursday morning.
“I am pleased to see that my colleagues from both sides of the aisle recognized that the lack of cell phone coverage and internet access in rural areas is a public safety issue faced by too many Canadians,” said Liberal MP for Pontiac, William Amos, said earlier this month when his motion passed.
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MONTREAL – To no great surprise, Québecor has appealed CRTC decision compelling TVA Sports to continue providing its signal to Bell TV customers while in dispute with Bell Canada over its distribution agreement.
Quebecor argues the CRTC does not have jurisdiction to regulate affiliation agreements between BDUs and programmers this way; that it does not have jurisdiction to control the financial relationships between BDUs and programmers and that the powers invoked by the CRTC are far from the objectives of the Broadcasting Act, which are cultural in nature and focus on content.
The Federal Court of Appeal must…
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OTTAWA – The federal government should revive the department of communications as part of its review of broadcasting, telecommunications and radiocommunication legislation, a University of Calgary expert on the relationship between communications systems and governments told a conference on Canada’s electronic communications law at the University of Ottawa last week.
Rather than having the minister for Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada responsible for the Telecommunications Act and Radiocommunication Act, and the Canadian Heritage minister responsible for the Broadcasting Act, “we need a ministry whose sole purpose is the oversight of the Canadian communication system,” said Gregory Taylor, an assistant…
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TORONTO – The Canadian government should hold social media companies responsible for what they publish, just as traditional media are, according to a new Nanos Research survey.
The poll, commissioned by watchdog group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting (FCB), found that more than four in five respondents say they agree (63%) or somewhat agree (21%) that the government should hold online social media platforms like Facebook responsible when they publish inaccurate, misleading, or illegal content in the same way that traditional news media are held responsible by the government. Over one in ten disagree (seven per cent) or somewhat disagree…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has ordered a bevy of broadcasters to get it the information that it asked for so that it may move forward with its plan to update the policy on Canadian programming expenditures (CPE).
The Commission on Friday issued a direction to comply with a request for information to 14 broadcasters for their data on revenues and expenditures associated with their digital media broadcasting activities, specifically in the context of CPE. While some of the 20 broadcasters who received the request for information letter in March have complied, the Regulator received joint reply from 14…
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The union representing local TV news staff across the CTV chain has made it clear to Bell Media that its restructuring plans cannot leave media workers out in the cold.
“Today’s announcement from CTV of its shift to ‘digital-first’ airing of local news stories on the Internet was inevitable,” said Unifor National President Jerry Dias. “Retooling local news for digital is necessary and, hopefully, a successful business plan because local TV is being starved for advertising revenues and anything that brings in a bigger audience and more ad revenue is welcome.”
The stations affected by restructuring include the CTV1 stations in…
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OTTAWA–GATINEAU – The CRTC is once again seeking volunteers to help it measure the performance of home wireline broadband Internet services provided by the country’s major Internet service providers.
Under the Measuring Broadband Canada program, the Commission will work in collaboration with ISPs and broadband testing firm SamKnows to measure broadband performance and test parameters associated with the broadband Internet connection, including download and upload speeds.
While some providers offer advertised speeds of 1Gbps or faster, services above 940Mbps cannot be measured with a conventional speed test, meaning that speed tiers of 1Gbps or faster are excluded from the 2019 Measuring…
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Company asks CRTC to step into toll free dispute with Bell
GATINEAU – Frustrated with stalled negotiations with Bell Canada on how toll-free calls should be handled going forward, Rogers Communications last week filed a Part 1 application with the CRTC asking the Commission to settle the dispute.
Rogers contends Bell is profiting twice from certain toll-free calls because it won’t change the historic way it has handled them, despite changes Rogers has made and this inaction means Bell is providing itself with an undue preference. The impasse has dragged on for seven months, says Rogers.
While this sounds like a bit…
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GATINEAU – The Bell vs. Quebecor saga continues, but this time it’s not about Bell the carrier and Quebecor the sports channel provider.
This time Bell Media is complaining to the CRTC that its Super Écran is being poorly treated by Quebecor’s Vidéotron in violation of Commission rules.
Long the primary French-language premium pay-TV channel, Super Écran airs Canadian movies and series as well as dubbed popular English content from the likes of HBO and Showtime for French language viewers. However, a packaging change made by Vidéotron in November of 2018 which saw the Bell Media channel relocated from a “Premium…
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TORONTO – Canada’s three big private broadcasters, Bell Media, Corus Entertainment, and Rogers Media, have petitioned the CRTC to exempt them from providing described video to non-Canadian programs received less than 72 hours prior to broadcast without described video.
The Canadian National Institute for the Blind is not happy.
This would be contrary to a mandate from the CRTC where broadcasters were told to provide described video for all shows during prime-time hours starting in September 2019.
TVA has asked the CRTC to relax their conditions, too.
In 2015, the CRTC announced plans to increase the availability of described video and mandated that…
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