By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC’s vice president of broadcasting said Wednesday that some of the base contribution money collected from online streamers, which is to be delivered to Canadian content funds, has already been released, despite a court-ordered stay of that policy.
Scott Shortliffe told the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, in a briefing about the implementation of the Online Streaming Act, that the streamers’ money from the previous broadcast year – which ended on August 31 – has been collected by an independent company and that some of the money has already been delivered.
“We understand that the money has been…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC on Friday denied applications from Bell and Ontario charging that the commission made an error in a previous decision by failing to clarify that it had exclusive jurisdiction over long-distance calls in correctional facilities.
The commission said Friday that this issue was not central to its 2024 decision – which determined that those call rates were forborne from regulation since 1997 and it did not have authority to retroactively adjust the rates charged by Bell between 2013 and 2021 – and that the Telecommunications Act does not give the CRTC “authorities in exclusive…
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The CRTC last Friday denied an August 2024 application for relief from Iristel following the disconnection of its telecommunications services by Northwestel.
The commission had previously denied an Iristel review-and-vary application regarding the CRTC’s June 2024 decision that found Iristel did not provide sufficient evidence showing it was wronged in an interconnection dispute with Bell and its subsidiary Northwestel.
In its latest decision on the matter, the CRTC said the record shows Iristel did not enter into a deferred payment agreement with Northwestel within the prescribed deadline….
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By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC on Thursday confirmed a preliminary view that regional mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) should have access to shared wireless networks even when an agreement is reached with just one of the carriers.
The commission determined Thursday that the network sharing agreements between Bell and Telus make them one national network “that results in both carriers being national wireless carriers that possess market power,” upholding a view on which it asked for comments in October.
To deny regional players access to parts of that contiguous network would, therefore, confer on the large telcos an undue…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Nearly five months after the Online Streaming Act became law, the CRTC warned about a delay in implementing the new rules after its request for funding was denied by the Department of Finance, according to a letter obtained by Cartt.
“The CRTC began working with Canadian Heritage, the Treasury Board Secretariat, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Finance to have approved financing and a revised fee regime in place for April 1, 2024,” CRTC Chair Vicky Eatrides wrote in the heavily redacted September 19, 2023 letter to then Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge.
“We were counting on…
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The CRTC has approved an application by Pembina Acquisition Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of Anthem Sports and Entertainment’s GameTV, to acquire Hollywood Suite and its four movie channels.
The transaction, originally announced by Anthem and Hollywood Suite in September 2024, is valued at $49.5 million, according to the CRTC’s decision published last week. As such, the CRTC requires Pembina/Anthem to allocate a total of $4.95 million in tangible benefits to various production funds and discretionary initiatives over seven consecutive broadcast years. In its application to the CRTC, Pembina had proposed a…
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Regulator acknowledges error, but doesn’t change outcome
By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC on Friday upheld a three-year-old decision that imposed on Bell a $7.5-million administrative monetary penalty (AMP) for preventing Videotron from accessing the telco’s poles in a timely manner.
The issue stemmed from a 2020 complaint made by Quebecor, on behalf of Videotron, for an order forcing Bell to process permit application to access its support structures. Quebecor alleged Bell was unreasonably delaying the processing of those applications; applying construction standards in an unreasonable and discriminatory way; and making it responsible for the cost of replacing structures.
The next year, the CRTC…
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Related consultations launched
By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC is requiring all telecommunications service providers report to certain official bodies major outages that are now defined as those that last at least 30 minutes and affect a certain number of user minutes – with a few exceptions.
The final mandate, ordered Thursday, is incumbent on all providers with their own network equipment, support systems or that use third parties. The order simplifies the categories of services affected by outages: primary services, which are individuals and business users of all telecom services; emergency services; and specialized services, which include 988 mental health and services…
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The CRTC will hold a virtual hearing on Oct. 30 as it considers separate broadcasting applications from CBC, Quebecor Media and Résonance Média.
CBC is asking for a broadcasting licence to operate an English-language commercial FM radio station to replace its English-language AM station CBY Corner Brook and to transfer its transmitters CBDT-FM Deer Lake, CBNA-FM St. Anthony, CBNC-FM Stephenville, CBNE-FM Port-aux-Basques, CBNF-FM Boone Bay, CBNH-FM St. Andrew’s, CBNJ-FM Port Saunders, CBYM-FM Mount St. Margaret, and CBYP-FM Portland Creek, in Newfoundland and Labrador, to the proposed new FM station. CBC is also asking for the…
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On the same day TVA Group’s 2025-26 programming lineup was revealed, its acting president and CEO, Pierre Karl Peladeau, issued an appeal for action to government authorities and the CRTC, asking them to address the “serious competitive imbalances” that he says are destabilizing Canada’s private television broadcasting ecosystem.
Echoing many of the points he has made previously regarding what he calls a “crisis” in private broadcasting — including in May when layoffs at TVA Group were announced — Peladeau said in a statement Tuesday that, despite its…
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