TORONTO – Bell Media and Bloomberg Media announced today they will join forces to build a new multi-platform business news brand called BNN Bloomberg that will debut this spring.
The two companies said Monday that the partnership will blend Bloomberg’s 2,700 business journalists and analysts in 120 countries with Canada’s lone all-business news channel.
BNN Bloomberg will use Bloomberg’s five Canadian news bureaus in Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Montreal, and Vancouver, plus offer several hours of live evening television coverage of Asian markets, early morning programs from Europe, and contributions from Bloomberg reporters in North America and worldwide throughout the business…
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A hard-nosed businessman, he made a brilliant cable territory swap, competed ferociously with Telus and pulled Global television from the Canwest inferno
FEW OCCASIONS BETTER illustrated the cultural divide between the world of the western bottom-up entrepreneur and that of Ottawa’s top-down public service bureaucracy than when Jim Shaw and Konrad von Finckenstein crossed swords in a hearing room.
There, front and centre of the raised platform bearing commissioners, would be the multilingual von Finckenstein, a six-foot-something-awesome lawyer who was chief legal adviser on the original North American Free Trade negotiations, served as head of the Competition Bureau, became a Federal…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC has signed a memorandum of cooperation with Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications to fight unsolicited commercial electronic messages (spam).
The Commission said Friday that the partnership will support close cooperation and a coordinated approach in the enforcement of spam laws in both jurisdictions to limit the amount of unwanted emails received by both Canadian and Japanese residents.
As part of the agreement, the two agencies have agreed to share information and provide investigative support, upon request, and in accordance with the law. The memorandum of cooperation also provides for research and education opportunities through sharing of best…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – After first asking Canadians to weigh in on future distribution models for Canadian programming, the CRTC now wants to know why we watch and listen to content the way that we do.
The Commission launched a new survey on Thursday that it saus will help it to understand the reasons behind Canadians’ choices on how and where they consume content. The survey’s questions include queries around why Canadians opt for traditional TV or radio versus watching and listening online, as well as the importance of programming made in Canada.
Canadians can participate by filling out the survey before January 31…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has turned down a Bell Canada request to review and vary an earlier Commission decision requiring the company to implement an outside meet-me point to support competitor interconnection to its disaggregated wholesale high-speed access (HAS) service.
An outside meet-me point provides competitors with an external interconnection point to connect with the disaggregated wholesale HSA service through a fibre termination at a pedestal or a splicing enclosure located outside the central office or cable head-end.
The Commission dismissed the request Wednesday after determining that it did not err in fact or in law, despite Bell’s assertions to the…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has sided with Rogers in its dispute with the Iristel group of companies over an alleged case of traffic stimulation.
In December 2016, Rogers asked the Commission to intervene after it accused Iristel of “being unjustly enriched by gaming the regulatory framework for local competition” by profiting from the higher local termination charges applicable in the Northwest Territories. Iristel denied the claims.
On Wednesday, the CRTC determined that Iristel had given itself an undue preference and subjected Rogers to a corresponding undue disadvantage.
“The Commission therefore directs Iristel and any of its affiliates, within 30 days…
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TORONTO – Regulators must help to save Canadian voices from extinction as television evolves in a new digital world, says a new report from the C.D Howe Institute.
In Strengthening Canadian Television Content: Creation, Discovery and Export in a Digital World, authors Lawson Hunter, Kenneth Engelhart and Peter Miller find the future of television and Canadian content is up in the air in a world where TV is delivered over the Internet, bypassing Canadian regulations.
Internet-delivered TV’s increasing popularity could lead to a significant decline in the amount of available Canadian television content, at least in the regulated system, says…
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But this still isn’t the end of it. Bell appeal to Commission awaits a decision
OTTAWA – The Federal Court of Appeal ruled today that the CRTC does, in fact, have the jurisdiction to make new rules for an individual program, despite the “irony” of deploying rules which are normally used to protect and promote Canadian content to instead promote the airing of American advertising.
As readers may recall, in January of 2015 the Commission made a decision stemming from its Let’s Talk TV policy review process that revoked the Canadian broadcast rightsholder’s ability to simultaneously substitute its signal over the…
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EDMONTON – Edmonton’s new French-language community FM radio station is one step closer to fruition after receiving over $600,000 in federal funding.
The Société radio communautaire du grand Edmonton Society said Monday that it received $400,000 from Western Economic Diversification Canada and almost $296,000 from Canadian Heritage for the new station Radio Cité.
The station aims to serve 38,000 potential listeners with local community programming plus offer advertising options to help promote the 325 businesses and community organizations delivering programs and services in French within the greater Edmonton area. It received CRTC approval in January 2017 to operate at 97.9 MHz.
“All…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC is seeking feedback as it prepares for a review of the reseller registration obligation.
The Commission currently requires Canadian carriers and non-carriers (also known as resellers) to fulfill various obligations as a condition of offering and providing telecommunications services, including the obligation to register.
Resellers that provide interexchange services, local exchange services (also known as local telephone services), wireless voice services, local voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services, Internet access services, and payphone services will still be required to register, the CRTC said Friday. The review will consider whether the registration obligation should apply, for example,…
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