New competitive call and hearing coming
GATINEAU – The CRTC today approved Rogers Media’s request that its OMNI-branded multicultural TV stations be converted to a must-carry, regionalized, specialty service – but only as an interim measure.
OMNI Regional, as of this September, is added to the digital basic service with mandatory carriage, as per section 9(1)(h) of the Broadcasting Act, with a wholesale fee to distributors of $0.12 per subscriber per month. It's license is for three years only.
While making sure OMNI lives on (Rogers executives had all but said during the license renewal hearing they would close the stations without this switch) the…
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OTTAWA and GATINEAU – The CRTC will announce its decisions on the license renewals for the large French-language ownership groups and large English-language ownership groups on Monday at 4:00 PM ET.
The Commission will also unveil its decision on Rogers Media’s request to approve the mandatory distribution of OMNI Regional on all digital basic TV packages.
Those decisions were originally intended to be released this week, but were postponed due to ongoing flooding in the region, as Cartt.ca reported.
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HALIFAX – The pending arrival of Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang is expected to boost the bottom line at DHX Media, which saw third quarter profits and revenues sink, the kids content producer, distributor and broadcaster said Wednesday.
Revenues for Q3 2017 of $78.35 million fell 7% from $84.10 million in the same period last year but slightly ahead of expectations, reads the company’s news release. In absolute dollars, the decrease was due largely to expected declines, in line with quarterly targets, in DHX Television, consumer products-represented revenues, consumer-products owned, proprietary production and producer and service fees, offset…
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DARTMOUTH – Newcap Radio owner Newfoundland Capital Corporation said Wednesday that flagging advertising rates and Alberta’s ongoing economic uncertainty helped to weigh down first quarter revenues and profits.
For the period ended March 31, 2017, revenues of $35.7 million were 3% lower than the same period last year, primarily due to revenue declines in the Alberta markets due to continued economic uncertainty in that region and declines in Ottawa due to downward pressure on advertising rates.
Profit for the period plunged 35% to $3.0 million year-over-year due to lower revenue and a higher provision for income taxes. Earnings before interest, taxes,…
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OTTAWA – Thirty-four campus and community radio stations will receive over $1.4 million from the latest round of funding of the Community Radio Fund of Canada’s (CRFC) Radiometres program.
The CRFC said that the funded projects will enhance local programming, attract and train volunteers, and increase community participation. Several of the projects revolve around local news, various partnerships between stations, schools and local organizations, the creation of a LGBTQ program, an audio art project, and an initiative focused on reconciliation A list of the 34 recipients is available here.
CRFC president Roger Ouellette said that the record number of applications…
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THE CRTC’S DECISION ON differential pricing practices will be praised or blamed according to one’s inclinations: whether to trust the innovative tendencies of carriers or the capacity of regulators to enforce fairness. Trust is the key, because each side of the argument honestly believes the other to be mistaken on a very large point of policy. How much weight do we assign to the deficiencies of regulation, as against the propensities of carriers to squeeze the tubes for profit?
Those inclined to trust the innovative propensities of carriers deplore the CRTC’s comprehensive decision to prevent unwarranted profit-seeking….
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GATINEAU – Continued flooding in Gatineau, home of the CRTC and many of its staff, means the big decisions planned for this week have been put off until next week, Cartt.ca has learned.
Multiple sources have been told by the Commission that since some staffers are dealing with flooding in their own homes (the Regulator’s offices have not been flooded) that the decisions on the license renewals for the large French-language ownership groups and large English-language ownership groups, originally intended for this week, had to be pushed back to next. The CRTC office was also closed Monday and remains so…
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TORONTO – Toronto listeners will soon have a new ethnic radio station after the CRTC granted a broadcasting licence to multilingual broadcaster Radio 1540 Limited on Friday.
Radio 1540 is a corporation owned by 1252591 Ontario Limited (81.17%), which is held by Leonard and Theresa Lombardi, with effective control exercised by Leonard Lombardi. Radio 1540 is also the licensee of the commercial ethnic AM radio station CHIN Toronto.
In its decision, the Commission both approved Radio 1540’s proposal to operate the new FM station using the technical parameters of CHIN’s rebroadcasting transmitter CHIN-1-FM Toronto at 91.9 MHz, and granted its…
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OTTAWA – Raj Shoan said that he will contest his most recent dismissal from his role as the CRTC’s Ontario commissioner in order “to ensure accountability and justice.”
Shoan was relieved of his duties late Thursday, just four days after returning to the job after his appointment was first rescinded last June.
“This is to inform you that, on reconsideration, the Governor-in-Council has again terminated Raj Shoan’s appointment as Regional Commissioner for Ontario, effective May 5th”, reads an internal CRTC memo signed by chairman and CEO Jean-Pierre Blais.
“This has been a challenging period in the CRTC’s history”, continues the memo. “I am fully aware that events that…
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IT IS ALMOST A DEFINING characteristic for Canadians to distinguish ourselves from our neighbors to the south. The untrained ear may think we speak English somewhat similarly, but Canadians emphatically define ourselves as “not American” while we roll-up-the-rim-to-win.
That doesn’t keep us from wishing we had American prices for gasoline, milk, eggs, airfares, clothing and alcohol. It is springtime, and it is natural for us to look wistfully at greener grass growing on the other side of the border. We can add the USA’s unlimited mobile data plans to the list, prompted by one of the first acts by Federal…
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