Panel won’t make them public until June
CARTT.CA HAS BEEN TOLD Navdeep Bains, Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) Minister, has decided to keep the public submissions made to the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislation Review secret for now. So, Cartt.ca will continue to report on the ones made available to us.
PIAC
As usual, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre has a submission full of good quotes.
For example, on 5G, they say that it “is not so revolutionary that it should require legislative changes that favour the technology’s deployment beyond the powers currently granted to the CRTC,” and so the group proposes an…
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OTTAWA and MONTREAL – The CRTC has given the go-ahead to Quebecor Media’s TVA Group to buy French-language specialty channels Évasion and Zeste as part of its acquisition of parent company Serdy Media.
The proposed $24 million deal, announced in May, also includes the Serdy Video group of companies. CRTC approval was required for the change in the ownership and effective control of the two discretionary television services.
The Commission said Monday that it has determined that the deal is in the public interest, noting that Zeste and Évasion stand to benefit from Quebecor and TVA’s multiplatform exposure and reach, and that…
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WE DON’T YET KNOW what public process the expert panel reviewing Canada’s Broadcasting, Telecom and Radiocommunication Acts, headed by Janet Yale, will follow as this year unfolds.
So, when the deadline for written submissions to the Broadcast and Telecom Legislative Review (BTLR) panel came on Friday, January 11, we asked various companies and groups for their submissions. Most gladly sent them. Some sent excerpts. Others decided to keep them private for now, since the panel itself has not yet told us, or anyone, definitively, what the plan is for making them public.
Because of the volume, we have decided to begin…
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OTTAWA – While it is still unclear how the interventions to the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review (BTLR) Panel will be made public and when, the CRTC published its comments one day before the deadline!
Not much news in the CRTC proposal to the BTLRP for those who have been following the publication of its Harnessing Change: The Future of Programming Distribution in Canada, the Chairman’s speeches in front of the Senate Committee on Transport and Communications and at the IIC. Then again, the Chairman is not known for his showmanship.
So, it is no surprise that the Regulator’s suggestions are…
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WYOMING, ON – The SouthWestern Integrated Fibre Technology Inc. (SWIFT) is calling on all rural broadband stakeholders to submit comments in support of a review of the CRTC Broadband Fund’s eligibility criteria that it calls “restrictive”.
As Cartt.ca reported, SWIFT has asked the Commission to take another look at the way how it qualifies rural regions to receive millions of dollars in funding to deliver broadband to its residents under the Regulator’s $750 million Broadband Fund.
Specifically, SWIFT is proposing that modifications be made to the exclusive use of the 25 km hexagonal system used by Innovation, Science and Economic…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has dismissed, in part, a complaint against the Bell Fund by a group of broadcasters and the Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA) over the composition of its Board of Directors and the guidelines of its new TV Program.
In its first decision of the calendar year on Tuesday, the Commission determined that the manner in which the Bell Fund has structured its TV Program is consistent with the CRTC’s policies and requirements of Certified Independent Production Funds (CIPFs), and therefore do not need to be revised at this time.
However, it did direct the Fund…
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TWO YEARS AGO, on December 21, 2016, the CRTC acknowledged the increasing importance of Internet services to Canadians in Telecom Regulatory Policy 2016-496, in which the Commission defined fixed and mobile wireless broadband Internet access services as basic telecommunications services.
The Commission also established several new expectations for ISPs to address consumer complaints related to bill shock and contract clarity.
As a result, all ISPs that provide retail fixed broadband Internet services to individual and small business customers now must ensure their contracts and related documents clearly explain, in plain language (i) the services included in the contract (ii) any limits…
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MONTREAL – Stingray subsidiary Stingray Radio is buying CHOO-FM in Drumheller, AB from Golden West Broadcasting. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The AC station is branded as 99.5 Drum FM. The transaction is scheduled to close in mid-2019 pending CRTC approval.
“The acquisition of CHOO-FM offers an excellent opportunity for Stingray to add an FM station in Drumheller that will perfectly complement our Real Country-branded CKDQ-AM,” said Stingray’s radio operations president Ian Lurie, in the news release. “The stations, under one ownership, can now focus on best serving listeners and clients in a small market environment where resources…
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OTTAWA – The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA) is crediting government policies that promote facilities-based competition for Canada’s status as a “global 4G superpower with the fastest wireless networks in the G7.”
The lobby group, which represents companies that provide wireless services and products, referenced reports such as November’s Ookla Speedtest Global Index that found that Canadian wireless networks have download speeds that are 144.3% faster than the global average, making Canada's networks the fourth fastest in the world and tops amongst G7 nations.
CWTA president and CEO Robert Ghiz also highlighted CRTC data from its 2018 Communications Monitoring…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC is seeking feedback on a new production report to be completed annually by the large English- and French-language ownership groups in place of the current programs of national interest (PNI) report.
The new report, which would only apply to licensed services, would include all Canadian programming expenditure categories, except news and sports programming.
The Commission said that it is considering expanding the key creative roles in the report to include ‘showrunner’, for example, and is also asking for input on draft templates that include Canadian programming expenditures by region and language, as well as programming produced by Indigenous and official…
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