OTTAWA—Public policy should not dictate matters of jurisdiction, lawyers for Bell Canada argued on Tuesday before the Federal Court of Appeal in the company’s nearly two-year-long quest to have the court overturn the CRTC’s mandatory Wholesale Code.
Bell Canada argues that nothing in the Copyright Act or Broadcasting Act gives the Commission the right to impose certain prices and other commercial terms for TV programmers to license their programming to BDUs, which is Bell’s main beef with the Wholesale Code.
“There is no doubt that the CRTC has wide discretion” to regulate programming negotiations, “but its power to do so is…
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OTTAWA – Canadians are so reliant upon their internet service that some 46% said that they’d give up fast food for a year rather than disconnect, says a report this week by the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA).
CIRA Internet Factbook 2017, an annual report that covers the state of Canada’s internet, e-commerce, cybersecurity and the online habits of Canadians, also said that 34% of respondents would give up alcohol, 31% would pass on chocolate, and 26% would ditch their coffee rather than lose the internet.
Of the 87% of Canadians who have a broadband internet connection, 81% say that…
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OTTAWA – Piracy continues to be a major problem for the international content industry. Whether it’s the Premier League football in the UK or HBO’s Game of Thrones, rights holders are under pressure to find ways to stem the piracy tide. As a potential remedy, site blocking was one option raised at the International Institute of Communications’ Canadian event in Ottawa this week.
A paper by Richard Lizius, an associate with McCarthy Tétrault argued that site blocking is a legitimate approach and the Canadian courts have the authority to issue such orders (Lizius wasn’t in attendance; he was at the…
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OTTAWA – This new guy is definitely different from the last one.
Exactly five years ago, then-new chair Jean-Pierre Blais used Ottawa’s IIC Canada conference to set out his plan for the Commission under his leadership. None could understand at the time how his “consumers, creators and citizens” vision would break apart industry assumptions, challenge business as usual, increase consumer involvement with the Regulator – and foster unprecedented levels of acrimony between the chair and industry – and between the chair and some of the CRTC staff and commissioners. A lot of that pain was fueled…
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OTTAWA – Canada’s anti-spam legislation may be burdensome for businesses, but it is beginning to pay off, says Steven Harroun, the CRTC’s chief compliance and enforcement officer.
In a recent address to the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology as part of CASL’s planned three year review, Harroun described the legislation as “largely effective” and stressed that it would be counterproductive to tweak it at this point.
He quoted a third-party study that determined there was 29% less spam email in Canadians' inboxes and 37% less spam originating from Canada just one year after CASL's implementation. Internationally, he continued, Canada is…
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BROADBAND IN CANADA’S FAR NORTH got a boost earlier this fall when the federal government gave Northwestel $50 million for the deployment of a satellite backhaul network for Nunavut. The much needed investment comes from the Liberals’ Budget 2016 Connect to Innovate program, which promises $500 million over five years to address lack of high speed Internet services in rural and remote regions of the country.
Curtis Shaw, COO at Northwestel, noted at the time of the funding announcement that this new backhaul network will provide additional choices to consumers and businesses. The company will also invest $73 million…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC is calling for feedback on some proposed revisions to the Broadcasting Distribution Regulations.
The Commission said Friday that the amendments aim to address concerns raised by Parliament’s Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations and include the following:
– the addition of a definition of “religious programming service” and an associated amendment to section 26(1) to ensure consistency with this definition;
– the addition of a definition of “adult programming service”; and
– various amendments to the French version of the Regulations in order to provide greater clarity and harmonize it with the English version.
Comments and interventions…
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DARTMOUTH – Newcap Radio owner Newfoundland Capital Corporation is crediting growth at its stations in Ontario and British Columbia for a third quarter lift in profits and revenues.
For the period ended September 30, 2017, revenues of $43.1 million were up 4% from the same period last year, primarily due to gains in its Ontario operations combined with the business acquisition in Kamloops, BC. Year-to-date, the Toronto and Sudbury operations achieved strong revenue growth, largely offsetting declines faced in other areas of the country, particularly at certain Alberta and Newfoundland and Labrador stations.
Profit for the period of $8.2 million increased…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Canadians continue to gorge on data, using 25% more per month on their wireless devices than they did in 2015, says part two of the CRTC’s 2017 Communications Monitoring Report.
Mobile broadband subscriptions jumped 13.3% (3 million) year-over-year, and users averaged 1.2 GB of data per month on their wireless devices. More than a quarter of those who subscribed to a monthly data plan had at least 5 GB of data.
Young people are turning to their wireless device to watch TV, with 41% of 18-34 year olds using their smartphones to watch TV online, compared to 11% of…
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Former Google exec is accelerating weather company’s transition, expansion
WHEN PELMOREX FOUNDER Pierre Morrissette trolled the executive ranks for someone new to take his place atop the company which owns and operates The Weather Network and MétéoMédia, he cast a far longer line than into the pool of TV people.
This past summer, Pelmorex surprised many by hiring Sam Sebastian away from his gig as vice-president and managing director of Google’s Canadian operations. The official announcement of his hiring, however, wasn’t a simple “welcome aboard”, but instead made it clear he will be driving an aggressive company aimed towards international expansion…
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