OTTAWA – Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, will join Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly and CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais at next month’s International Institute of Communication – Canadian chapter conference.
Scheduled for November 16 -17 at the Shaw Centre in Ottawa, IIC Canada 2016 will bring together business and government leaders in media, communications and technology to engage on key issues affecting the future of the Canadian communications sector.
Registration is well underway and space is limited. Click here for the program agenda.
www.iic-canada.ca
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MARKHAM, ON – The Ontario Association of Broadcasters will present the 2016 Ontario Hall of Fame Award to both Richard Costley-White and Chuck McCoy at the organization’s fall conference.
A Board nominated honour, the OAB's Ontario Hall of Fame is presented to individuals who have spent most of their careers working for private broadcasters and demonstrated a commitment to the highest standards of broadcast excellence.
Before his passing in 2015, Richard Costley-White (pictured left) was chairman and president of Blackburn Radio Inc., a small and mid-market broadcaster with 13 stations serving Southwestern and Midwestern Ontario. He was the 5th generation of the Blackburn…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC is calling for comments on amendments to exemption orders for various types of radio programming undertakings.
The Commission said Wednesday that the proposed amendments relate to registering certain such undertakings with the CRTC prior to their launch, and to the eligibility to operate under certain exemption orders for persons found to have been carrying on a broadcasting undertaking in whole or in part in Canada without a licence or without authorization pursuant to an exemption.
Citing last week’s crack down on three Vancouver-area radio broadcasters, the Commission said that it is concerned that some broadcasters may seek to…
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OTTAWA – Add the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) to the list of those calling for Netflix to pay tax in Canada.
In a recent post on its website, the union took issue with the streamer's Canadian tax exemptions despite “generating upwards of $620 million dollars in revenues in Canada alone” and called on the federal government and the CRTC to “address the lack of regulation of global digital players like Netflix”.
“It is unfair that everyday Canadians go about paying their taxes while big companies are getting let off the hook,” said CUPE national president Mark Hancock, in…
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OTTAWA – Blackstone Learning Corp. is on the hook for $50,000 after the CRTC found that it committed nine violations of Canada’s anti-spam legislation (CASL).
The Commission conducted an investigation after the Spam Reporting Centre received numerous complaints about emails advertising educational and training services offered by the company, primarily targeting government employees.
The initial notice of violation identified nine messaging campaigns totalling 385,668 commercial electronic messages sent by Blackstone between July 9 and September 18, 2014, without the consent of the recipients. It also set out an administrative monetary penalty (AMP) of $640,000.
Blackstone appealed, and the CRTC said Wednesday…
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GATINEAU – Day two of the CRTC’s 2016 Communications Monitoring Report release shows that in 2015, Canadians data usage on various devices skyrocketed – and that those under the age of 30 are dramatically outspending their older counterparts on mobile.
(As shown by yesterday’s report, the older folks are still spending on regular TV.)
Canadians’ appetite for mobile applications, multimedia services, social networks, and other data-intensive activities like music, video and TV streaming to personal electronic devices increased rapidly in 2015, according to the report.
Last year, more than two-thirds of all wireless subscribers had…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The first part of the CRTC’s 2016 Communications Monitoring Report, released this morning, says Canadians are consuming more audio and video content on digital media and over devices connected to the Internet. Twenty percent of Canadians report listening to online music streaming services, and 57% of Anglophones and 49% of Francophones report watching online TV, it says.
In general, Canadians are still listening to traditional radio, however, a closer look at the data shows a troubling trend that younger Canadians have far different listening habits than other age groups. In fact, those between 12 and 24 years…
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OTTAWA – In a decision released earlier this month, the Federal Court of Appeal said it would hear an application made by the Attorney General of Canada to set aside the September decision by Justice Russell Zinn who said a finding of workplace harassment against former Ontario CRTC commissioner Raj Shoan was unfair.
Click here for our coverage of the case.
The application for appeal said judge Zinn erred in a number of decisions which led to his ruling and an appeal will be heard in Toronto at a date yet to be determined.
Then, on Monday,…
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GATINEAU – The annual and much-anticipated CRTC Communications Monitoring Report (CMR) will be released this week, according to the Commission.
The report, which will be released over at least two days, provides a comprehensive overview of the state of the communications markets in Canada in 2015.
It provides the industry, stakeholders and the Canadian public with a meaningful tool to help them better understand the communications industry and participate in the CRTC’s proceedings, says the Regulator.
Watch Cartt.ca for news from this year’s report. Link here, here and here…
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GATINEAU – Steven Harroun has been promoted to chief compliance and enforcement officer, the CRTC announced today. He joined the CRTC in 2002 and has held various positions in the former economic analysis and research group and later in the former policy development and research sector.
Since 2012, as director general, strategic policy within CASP, “he has lead the development and implementation of key Commission policy decisions including: the Wireless Code, Video Relay Service, Broadcast Emergency Alerting, and Broadband Performance Measurement,” said CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais in a memo to staff Monday.
He replaces Manon Bombardier, who has held the position…
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