NCC’s president and CEO Rob Steele steps down
MONTREAL and DARTMOUTH – Stingray Digital Group officially completed its $506 million acquisition of Newfoundland Capital Corporation (NCC) Friday, creating what it described as Canada’s largest public independent media company.
NCC owns and operates two TV stations as well as Newcap Radio and its 101 broadcast licences (72 radio stations and 29 repeating signals) in seven provinces across the country and has approximately 800 employees. First proposed in May, the deal received CRTC approval earlier this week.
Friday’s announcement said that Rob Steele has stepped down as president and CEO of NCC,…
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GATINEAU – Back in August, when the CRTC and researcher Ipsos launched a survey on what Canadians think of the sales practices of Canadian telecom companies, much private (and some public) hue and cry arose from the carriers across the country.
The tight timeline for Ipsos to finish the survey and the weak overall structure and wording of the questions could only lead to negative answers, they said. They were right. The results came back substantially negative, but does that mean they have a point? Does the survey’s supposedly skewed queries mean the results should be tossed out?
Consumers and consumer…
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GATINEAU – If we may paraphrase some of the reaction by TekSavvy, Tbaytel and Eastlink representatives Wednesday morning in front of the CRTC it would be: "It seems strange to mandate us to continue being nice to our customers."
These three smaller independents (respectively, a wholesaler, a municipally owned telco and a regional wired and wireless carrier) also all had the same story to tell when it came to the dubious sales practices which have been so far outlined by consumers during the CRTC’s Telecom Sales Practices hearing this week in Gatineau:…
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OTTAWA – Divergent opinions on whether a movie and television producer should be credited as an author on their productions took centre stage at the latest Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage which is discussing remuneration models for artists and creative industries in relation to the Copyright Act review.
Speaking on behalf of the Writers Guild of Canada on Tuesday, which represents more than 2,000 English-language writers working in film, television, radio and digital media production, director of policy Neal McDougall pointed out that both scripts and productions resulting from scripts are separate entities under…
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Consumer groups tell Commission most problems likely go unreported
GATINEAU – No one is disagreeing telecom sales practices can and should be improved. The companies know this and so do the consumers and consumer groups.
But, how deeply do the problems run? The telecom companies have said, for the most part, the bare number of complaints made to the CCTS annually and to the CRTC in this proceeding collectively point to sporadic, small problems which are inevitable given the tens of millions of customer interactions they log every month. Even counting all of the complaints from all sources, the total is…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has given the green light to Stingray Digital Group’s plan to buy Newfoundland Capital Corporation (NCC, or as it’s more commonly referred in the radio business, Newcap), for $506 million.
The deal, first announced in May, includes 101 radio licences (82 FM and 19 AM) across the country, as well as conventional television stations CITL-DT and CKSA-DT Lloydminster, and the rebroadcasting transmitter CKSA-TV-2 Bonnyville, AB.
The Commission said Tuesday that it has determined that the deal is in the public interest, saying that its approval of the proposed transaction “would allow the acquired stations to benefit…
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GATINEAU – "I'm doing this for everyone."
So said Tony Wacheski to Cartt.ca as he headed into the hearing room for his individual presentation to the CRTC on day one of its hearing into telecom sales practices. He was one of several individual Canadians to face the Commission either in person, on the phone or Skype on Monday, including Ryan Adams, pictured at right.
(You, too, can be part of the public record, at least via Twitter, if you hashtag your tweets #CRTCforum)
We happened to sit down with him at lunch as he tapped on his tablet to fine-tune his…
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OTTAWA – While most witnesses have insisted the Broadcasting Act is woefully out of date and the sky is falling on the industry, the Senate Committee on Transport and Communications reviewing that piece of legislation as well as the Telecommunications Act heard last week the Broadcasting Act actually works just fine, and the broadcasting system is relatively healthy.
On Wednesday, October 17, Marc Raboy, Beaverbrook professor emeritus in ethics, media and communications at McGill University and Gregory Taylor, assistant professor at the department of communication, media and film, University of Calgary, told a far different story than the appointed politicians…
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Telecom Act takes precedence when it comes to rights of way, siting, etc.
CALGARY – The Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta told the city of Calgary in no uncertain terms that it has no right to regulate where, when, why and how telecom infrastructure can be installed in the city.
In January Bell Canada, Rogers Communications, Shaw Communications and Telus Corp. filed a motion to strike down a bylaw passed by the city to regulate the process for, access and use of municipal rights of way for telecommunications providers.
In a decision released Friday, the court agreed with the four large…
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YOU HAVE TO SYMPATHIZE with the folks who took the time to register their frustration with Canadian telcos and cellcos by filing an intervention to the CRTC’s latest hearing which begins Monday.
They feel lied to. They believe they were told one thing and sold another. That they were never informed how the price they agreed to was just a promotion which ends in six months. That they told sales reps the products and services they wanted and then had other things added onto their bills. That they ended up on a contract they didn’t want.
Having read through quite a…
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