OTTAWA – The CRTC has denied requests from both Bell and Telus seeking forbearance from the regulation of billing and collection service (BCS).
BCS is a mandated wholesale service that requires all local exchange carriers to bill and collect on behalf of alternate service providers (ASPs), such as long distance service providers, with respect to certain eligible services. These eligible services include casual long distance services (also known as 10-10 services), 900 services, collect call services, and bill-to-third call services. BCS enables an ASP to provide services to a local exchange customer without having a pre-existing billing relationship, or establishing…
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OTT players were granted a new level of confidentiality, but to what end?
SO, DID THE GLOBAL digital media powers respond to the CRTC’s request for their data by the March 2nd deadline? We have no idea.
Last month, in order to help inform the report on the audio/visual content consumption patterns of Canadians which the CRTC is preparing for the federal government, a range of companies were asked to provide competitively sensitive information by the Regulator. Besides some of the usual Canadian suspects, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Netflix and Spotify were asked…
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THE PROPOSED REVIEW of our communications acts is about to proceed, but the problem is finding a significant issue that legislative change would solve.
Of course, some improvements are possible, but I would gladly forego a few improvements if the alternative would be to subordinate the Telecom Act to the purposes of the Broadcasting Act.
Each Act has been perfected over time for the purposes it serves. To borrow internet terminology, the Telecom Act deals with market power at the transport and infrastructure layers. The Broadcasting Act deals with the perceived problem of Canadian content, namely that without subsidies and –…
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MONTREAL – Quebecor’s broadcaster/TV producer/publisher TVA Group reported last week that it posted $9.2 million in net income attributable to shareholders in the fourth quarter, up from $5.7 million in the same period in 2016.
Revenues, however, dropped to $155.3 million for the period ended December 31, 2017, down from $169.5 million year-over-year. This is due in part to $1.21 million unfavourable variance in its broadcasting and production segment, mainly because of a 9.5% decrease in the adjusted operating income of TVA Network, the company said in a press release.
“We are satisfied with our results for the last quarter…
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Part VII in our series on rewriting the Broadcasting and Telecom Acts
THE CANADIAN BROADCASTING ecosystem has entered a challenging era, but it’s not only the digital shift that has caused upheaval. Some argue vertical integration policies have caused just as much damage to the system.
As Brad Danks, CEO at OUTtv argued in a previous section (and in his own recent writings on the matter), vertical integration has failed the Canadian system to the detriment of the smaller independent players. This is where competition law should play a role, he added.
In OUTtv’s submission to the CRTC’s distribution models of the…
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7e partie dans notre série sur la révision des Lois sur la radiodiffusion et des télécommunications
LE SYSTÈME DE RADIODIFFUSION canadien est entré dans une ère de changements, mais il n’y a pas que la transition numérique qui pose problème. Certains affirment que les politiques sur l’intégration verticale ont causé tout autant de problèmes.
Comme l’indique Brad Danks, PDG de OUTtv dans un article précédent (et dans ses propres écrits sur le sujet), l’intégration verticale a eu un effet négatif sur le système canadien de radiodiffusion au détriment des petits joueurs indépendants. C’est ici que le droit de la concurrence devrait…
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GATINEAU – In a complaint filed with the CRTC last week, the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance says Rogers Media is violating a number of CRTC policies in refusing to let its members launch or re-package channels as contract negotiations drag on.
The CCSA represents over 115 independent broadband and video carriers which collectively serve approximately 350,000 Canadians, in areas which compete with one or more of the bigger providers, or in more rural regions.
In the complaint, filed February 22nd and posted to the Commission’s website Wednesday, the CCSA says Rogers Media Inc. is now refusing to permit CCSA members to…
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OTTAWA – Despite pleas for lots more, the federal government has given a small boost to local journalism, providing one or more still to be determined independent non-governmental organizations with $50 million over five years to support such efforts in underserved communities.
Budget 2018 noted “As more and more people get their news online, and share their interests directly through social media, many communities have been left without local newspapers to tell their stories.”
The Liberals will also be exploring new local news business models that could see greater involvement of private and philanthropic support “for trusted, professional, non-profit and local…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC is calling for comments as it reconsiders its earlier decision to block U.S.-based cable television shopping service QVC from the list of non-Canadian programming services and stations authorized for distribution north of the border.
The move comes after a Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) ruled last September to allow an appeal of the Commission’s April 2016 decision that rejected VMedia Inc.’s application to add QVC to the List. The FCA determined that the decision was not reasonable as it did not adequately explain why the Commission deviated from its general approach with respect to the…
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Part VI in our series on rewriting the Broadcasting and Telecom Acts
TODAY’S COMMUNICATIONS WORLD is marked by a few large, vertically integrated companies offering Internet access, broadcasting, telecommunications and wireless services. These firms have considerable control over who has access to their networks and what content is available over their respective pipes.
This means governments and regulators must ensure smaller independent competitors have access to these networks and to make this access as competitively neutral as possible. Even more, the big owners of those networks shouldn’t be able to favour some content over others. This, in a nutshell, is net…
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