OTTAWA – The Ottawa-Gatineau region may soon have a new radio station after the CRTC issued a call for comments on market capacity and on the appropriateness of issuing a call for radio applications in that market.
The Commission said Thursday that it issued the call after receiving an application from Antoine Karam, on behalf of a corporation to be incorporated, for a commercial ethnic radio station to serve that region.
Interventions are due by December 5 and the deadline to file replies is December 15, 2016. Following receipt of comments, the CRTC said that it will conduct an assessment of the market’s capacity…
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WINNIPEG – Manitoba Telecom Services reported its Q3 results today, showing increases in revenue, cash flow and EBITDA while it patiently waits to hear from the CRTC and the federal government whether or not the announced $3.9 billion acqusition by BCE can move forward.
"We have made substantial progress on our transformational initiatives in Q3. Having just completed the first year of a three-year program, we have now identified nearly two-thirds of the $100 million in expected free cash flow improvements, and this, combined with our strong operational performance has generated strong year-over-year growth in free cash flow," said Jay…
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OTTAWA – The Federal Court of Appeal said Wednesday it will hear Bell Media’s re-filed appeal of the CRTC’s January 2015 decision to ban the practice of simultaneous signal substitution for the Super Bowl broadcast.
In September, the court rejected the company’s appeal of the decision, saying it had come for an appearance too soon – before the CRTC officially issued the order for the new policy. The Commission took 19 months between the decision and officially issuing the order in August of this year, a delay Bell called “extraordinary.”
The ban on…
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GATINEAU – Smaller broadcasters warned the CRTC on Wednesday that it must guard against differential pricing practices because they could have a significant negative impact on their content.
The Independent Broadcast Group told the Commission Wednesday morning it has to consider potential abuses from media companies which own both content and ISPs.
Brad Danks, CEO at OUTtv, noted in his opening remarks to the IBG’s appearance in the DPP hearing that it’s pretty clear that vertically integrated (VI) media companies are able to prefer their own content in ISP distribution. In addition, once the VI’s affiliated broadcast distribution arm gets ISP…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has released a working document designed to help direct the discussion and debate during the upcoming hearing into the renewal of the television licences held by the large English- and French-language ownership groups.
The Commission said Wednesday that it intends to discuss the imposition of the standard conditions of licence, expectations and encouragements for television stations, discretionary services (i.e., pay television and specialty services), and on-demand services (i.e., pay-per-view and video-on-demand services), also published Wednesday, as well as any exceptions to these conditions sought by the various ownership groups.
The public hearing will begin on November 22 at Palace Convention…
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GATINEAU – Social media giant Facebook took the stand in the CRTC’s differential pricing practices (DPP) hearing on Tuesday and argued that zero-rated services don’t need to be anti-competitive and can be constructed to meet net neutrality rules.
Blair Levin, an advisor to Facebook, said under questioning that zero-rated services such as the company’s Free Basics offering (which has faced scrutiny around the world) don’t run amok of net neutrality because ISPs are prevented from acting as content gatekeepers.
“When companies use their position as the gatekeeper to essentially favour one kind of content or another, then…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC today told Alberta-based VOIS Inc. it must show cause why it should not be found in violation of its requirement to participate in the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services (CCTS).
The Regulator also said it is considering an administrative monetary penalty (an AMP, or a fine) for VOIS’ actions. According to its web site, independent network operator VOIS provides TV, Internet and phone to subscribers in Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City, Winnipeg, Regina, Red Deer, Edmonton, Calgary, Fort McMurray, Abbotsford, and Vancouver.
On August 5, 2016, CCTS terminated VOIS’…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC kicked off its hearing on Internet differential pricing practices (DPP) on Monday and heard that while they have a place in the provision of data services, vertically integrated (VI) companies should be banned from using them to promote their own content.
The Canadian Network Operators Consortium (CNOC) were the first of the service providers to appear Monday afternoon and it noted DPPs can help ISPs differentiate service offerings. However, if VI companies use them to promote their own affiliated services at the expense of others, this raises concerns about anti-competitive behaviour.
Matt Stein, vice-chair of CNOC and…
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Two cabinet ministers, CRTC chairman, headline event
OTTAWA – After a year interrupted and a year off, the International Institute of Communications Canadian chapter conference is back in November with a fascinating-looking conference agenda.
The headline speakers for the conference being held November 16 and 17 at the Shaw Centre in Ottawa will be CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais, who opens the conference Wednesday afternoon, Minister of Canadian Heritage Mélanie Joly, who will speak at breakfast on the Thursday, and Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Navdeep Bains, who will speak at lunch the same day.
The…
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OTTAWA – Complaints over the National Do Not Call List spiked 13% as DNCL registrations hit 13,186,585, says the CRTC’s annual report released Friday.
During the 2015-2016 reporting period, from April 1, 2015 to March 31, 2016, Canadians registered 294,115 numbers for their landlines, mobile phones, and fax machines, an average of over 805 numbers per day. That’s down from the same period in 2014-15 when Canadians registered 589,286 numbers, averaging 1,600 new numbers every day.
In addition to registering their numbers on the National DNCL, Canadians filed complaints with the National DNCL operator by phone or an online form on the…
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