OUR FEDERAL GOVERNMENT promised a review of the Broadcasting and Telecommunication Acts in its 2017 budget and last week the CRTC took the first step down this path when it issued: Harnessing Change: The Future of Programming Distribution in Canada.
While it floated a number of interesting, innovative and controversial ideas, we’re all anxious to hear what Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly will have to say about it this weekend when she addresses the Banff International Media Fest. There, we hear she is likely to announce the appointment of a worthy and carefully chosen panel of experts to undertake a year-long…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – On the empirical side, unsurprisingly, data compiled and released today by the CRTC in response to a government request, show the slow decline of the popularity and revenues of traditional media.
But for the future, the report called Harnessing Change: The Future of Programming Distribution in Canada identifies four options available to the federal government as it mulls its promised overhauls of the Broadcasting Act and Telecommunications Act:
Status quo
Deregulate traditional players
Apply the existing regulatory approach to new players
Develop new, adaptable and innovative approaches which engage new players. This is the one the Report recommends.
“To ensure a vibrant domestic…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC proposed some new tools and regulatory approaches Thursday designed to support the production and promotion of Canadian audio and video content.
The report, Harnessing Change: The Future of Programming Distribution in Canada, is meant to aid the Feds’ pending overhaul of the Broadcasting and Telecom Acts by offering “important context and policy options”.
“This report does not set out specific timelines or predictions, nor does it attempt to prescribe policy”, reads the introduction. “Rather, it comes to conclusions on the types of change needed to the legislative and regulatory frameworks given the likely market…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The CRTC estimates that its total telecommunications regulatory costs for the 2018-2019 fiscal year, defined as April 1, 2018 to March 31, 2019, are $29.095 million.
The Telecommunications Fees Regulations, 2010 (Fees Regulations) provide for the payment of annual telecommunications fees by certain telecommunications service providers, as set out in sections 2 and 3 of the Fees Regulations.
The annual adjustment amount referred to in subsection 3(5) of the Fees Regulations is $1.552 million for the 2017-2018 fiscal year.
The Commission said Wednesday that the net billing for its telecommunications fees for the 2018-2019 fiscal year, taking into account the adjustment above,…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Canadian entrepreneur and broadcaster Evan Kosiner wants the Feds and the CRTC to use the National Alert Aggregation & Dissemination System (NAAD System) to urge Canadians to vote in their upcoming provincial and municipal elections.
In a statement Wednesday, Kosiner said that he wrote a letter to Prime Minister Trudeau, Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly and the Commission asking them to “use their power” to promote civic engagement.
"If due to government bureaucracy it doesn't fall into the "emergency" category, the innovator in me suggests it perhaps it could be conveniently another test day that happens to mention to "Get out…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The CRTC is tweaking its regulatory framework for next-generation 9-1-1 (NG9-1-1) services at the behest of the New Brunswick 9-1-1 Bureau, which filed a review and vary request on behalf of a number of public safety answering point organizations.
The Commission said that it has determined that there is “substantial doubt” as to the correctness of its previous decision to exclude secondary public safety answering point (PSAP) connections from next-generation 9-1-1 (NG9-1-1) network access tariffs, as set out last June in Telecom Regulatory Policy CRTC 2017-182.
Therefore, the Commission varied that determination on Monday to include NG9-1-1 related…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA-GATINEAU – On Thursday morning, the CRTC will release its new report into the future distribution models for content in Canada, which it was asked to do by the Governor-in-Council in September 2017.
The report, called “Harnessing Change: The Future of Programming Distribution in Canada,” is meant to aid an overhaul of the Broadcasting and Telecom Acts by answering the three main questions which were posed by the Order-in-Council from Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly:
the distribution model or models of programming that are likely to exist in the future
how and through whom Canadians…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – The Commissioner of Competition has put the kibosh on Corus Entertainment’s plan to sell French-language specialty channels Historia and Séries+ to Bell Media.
Corus announced the decision in a statement early Monday, adding that both it and Bell Media are reviewing the decision “and considering the appropriate course of action." Corus also pledged to provide further updates “in due course”.
The $200 million proposed sale, first announced last October, requires both Competition Bureau and CRTC approval, plus “other customary closing conditions," added Corus. The application is currently before the CRTC.
As readers will recall, Historia and Séries+ (plus the…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – Christianne M. Laizner is the new full-time telecommunications vice-chairperson at the CRTC, a role that she has held on interim basis since last July.
Canadian Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly announced Laizner’s appointment early Thursday. Her five year term will officially begin on July 17, 2018, making her the first female vice-chairperson of telecommunications in the CRTC’s 50-year history.
Laizner (pictured) first joined the CRTC in 2010 as general counsel, telecommunications before being named the Commission’s senior general counsel in 2013, and then executive director of the CRTC legal sector. She was called to the Ontario Bar in 1982…
Continue Reading
YES, A MUST-CARRY TV license is not the lottery win it once was and yes, making a linear ethnic programming service in various languages work as a business within the Canadian TV system has always been a challenge which has only grown more difficult of late.
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t people who think they can make a national ethnic TV channel work. In fact, including the incumbent, there are eight companies with some pretty bright ideas.
OMNI has long been the mainstream ethnic channel, serving up a mix of Italian, Cantonese, Mandarin, Punjabi and other programming over the…
Continue Reading
