Seeking to boost donations
OTTAWA – The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) last week sent out an email appeal saying if it doesn’t raise enough funds by the end of the year, it will have to shut down.
PIAC has long been an advocate on behalf of Canadian consumers – most notably battling Canadian cable, broadband and wireless companies over their business practices and rates, but it is also an advocate for consumers in other sectors, such as financial services and airlines – but its email appeal sent last week says it may not survive much longer.
“This crisis has been caused…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – While Canadians increasingly opt for platforms and devices connected to the Internet for their video and audio content, traditional television and radio services still play an important role, says the first part of the CRTC’s 2017 Communications Monitoring Report.
Canadians aged 18-34 years old are leading the trend with 23% watching TV exclusively online. Nationally, 13% of Anglophones watch TV exclusively online, more than three times the number of Francophones (4%). Overall, Canadians aged 18 years or older watched 3.1 hours of Internet TV per week in 2016, compared to 2.7 hours in 2015.
Although Canadians are spending…
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OTTAWA – Former Corus exec Sylvie Courtemanche is joining the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) as its new chair, replacing the retiring Andrée Noël.
Courtemanche (pictured) was most recently a senior executive at Corus for both regulatory matters and government relations. Prior to that, she was EVP policy and regulatory affairs for the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, legal counsel at the CRTC for several years, plus had her own consulting practice related to broadcasting and telecommunications in Canada
“Sylvie is well known to all industry stakeholders and has over 25 years’ experience in the broadcasting industry and in the public sector”, said…
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TORONTO – Distributel has received the go-ahead from the CRTC to acquire 100% of IPTV service provider Zazeen. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The two companies have partnered for over two years on a TV service available in many English and French markets in Ontario and Quebec. Distributel also unveiled new, lower prices for its bundled Internet and TV service, pledged to offer new channel packages, and expand to new Canadian markets in the coming months.
"Distributel is once again taking a leadership role in Canadian telecommunications with this acquisition, which will allow our continued strategic investment in TV," said…
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Rogers agrees to expand distribution of tiny community station
GATINEAU – CRTC hearings feature a lot of what we call “woulda, shoulda, coulda” talk.
Loads of words about what companies would be doing, if only this or that were changed, what they should (or shouldn’t) be doing under existing rules and what they could be doing, regardless. It isn’t often where these issues are solved without the CRTC forcing the matter.
Well, during October’s phase II BDU license renewal hearing, commissioners heard from one small community TV outfit on what Rogers Cable could and should be doing for them in southern New…
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OTTAWA–GATINEAU – The CRTC’s national video relay service (VRS) has extended its service hours to allow users to make and receive calls any time of the day.
SRV Canada VRS allows its customers to communicate to a sign-language interpreter via an Internet-based video link. The interpreter provides real-time interpretation of conversations, as the system connects to the hearing caller whose words are translated into American Sign Language or Langue des signes québécoise.
Since the launch of SRV Canada VRS in September 2016, over 280,000 calls have been placed by nearly 5,000 Canadian subscribers. Canadians may access SRV Canada VRS…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC has pushed back its deadline for comments pertaining to TV channels wishing to renew their places in the basic programming package.
After recently announcing that it would kick off its 9(1)(h) hearing on April 30, the Commission said Wednesday that the deadline to submit interventions, comments and answers is now December 8, 2017, and not November 16 as first announced. The deadline for the applicants to submit their replies is December 18.
The new deadlines comes as a result of a joint procedural request from BCE, the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance, Cogeco, Quebecor, Rogers, Shaw and…
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OTTAWA – Canadians filed fewer complaints over the National Do Not Call List in 2016-17, despite a 489% jump in the number of telemarketers registered with the National DNCL operator, says the CRTC’s annual report released Monday.
Since the National DNCL began in 2008, Canadians have registered 13,401,407 telecommunications numbers and deregistered 56,042 numbers. In the last fiscal year alone, Canadians registered 214,822 numbers for landlines, mobile phones, and fax machines, an average of more than 588 numbers each day. That’s down from 2015-16 when Canadians registered 294,115 numbers, averaging 805 numbers every day.
The report says that the CRTC received 79,417 complaints filed in FY…
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OTTAWA–GATINEAU – Canadians now have more time to tell the CRTC how they plan to find and consume audio and video content in the coming years and its impact on the Canadian market.
The Commission extended the deadline to file comments from November 25 to December 1, 2017 in response to requests from the Forum for Research and Policy in Communications and the Coalition pour la culture et les médias.
This call for comments, the first phase of the proceeding, comes in response to the Governor-in-Council’s directive for a report by the CRTC on future distribution models for Canadian…
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OTTAWA – New CRTC chair Ian Scott formally returned the welcome that he received last month from the two ministers who oversee the Commission, Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly and Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains.
In his own letter on Tuesday, Scott said that he looked forward to “fostering an open and transparent relationship” with the duo, and reiterated the CRTC’s focus on ensuring that Canadians have fast, affordable and reliable Internet access and wireless services; high-quality and diverse content; the option to use applications and services on the networks and devices of their choice; and…
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