TORONTO—As might be expected, Canadian telecom executives are already choosing up sides for the forthcoming battle over the CTRC's proposals for reshaping how the feds regulate and tax traditional and new media across the country.
That much was evident at the Canadian Telecom Summit here late Tuesday. Speaking during the annual "Regulatory Blockbuster" panel moderated by Cartt.ca editor and publisher Greg O'Brien, execs representing industry incumbents and upstarts battled it out over the Commission's new recommendations to "develop better regulatory approaches that engage all audio and video services and for each to participate," producing plenty of verbal fireworks.
Generally backing the…
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OTTAWA – The federal government today officially launched its promised review of the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Acts with a seven member panel of thinkers and experts who will also look at updating the Radiocommunications Act.
(So, it's not just Joly's panel, as we had surmised earlier...)
“New technology, like streaming services, has changed the way that Canadians connect with each other, do business and discover, access and consume content. Now more than ever, Canadians go online. To keep up with these changes we must modernize our legislative framework so that Canadian artists, artisans, businesses, consumers and broadcasters…
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OTTAWA – With the CRTC’s report on the future of programming distribution in Canada now in hand, it is expected that Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly will unveil a panel of industry experts which she has appointed to come up with key recommendations to overhaul the Broadcasting Act.
We don’t know what it’s going to be called or who is going to be on it as of this writing (really early June 5th), but the announcement could come as early as today and not wait until the Minster’s keynote speech at the Banff World Media Festival this…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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,…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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