TORONTO – According to new research, 30% of all Canadian online households (3.4 million of them) now have adedicated streaming device (Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku, etc.) attached to a TV set, more than double the 12% with such devices in December 2013.
Solutions Research Group’s latest installment of its Digital Life Canada independent syndicated study also shows households headed by millennials (singles, couples or with kids) are the most avid users of dedicated streaming devices and subscription over-the-top services like Netflix – based on trajectory of growth, these are poised take over paid TV by mid-2018.
As well, cord-shaving is also…
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LAVAL – CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais stressed the idea of “citizenship obligations” as he concluded a hearing Thursday into licence renewals for major French-language private television broadcasters.
Questioning Corus Entertainment, Bell Media, Groupe V Média and Quebecor Media as they presented replies to interveners, he asked each of them about how they could better serve indigenous and minority-language producers and viewers, and their commitments to closed captioning. The latter led to an awkward moment as Blais admonished V’s representatives.
“I was preoccupied Tuesday when I asked questions about subtitles to TVA and I heard laughs from your group in the audience,”…
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LAVAL — After a day of pushing major French-language television broadcasters to justify their demands for fewer regulatory burdens, the CRTC pushed the other way on Wednesday, for interest groups to justify the need for regulatory intervention as Canadians increasingly get their audiovisual content from unlicensed sources.
“I see a representation of a corporate interest, but not necessarily from the person that the CRTC must serve, the TV viewer,” chairman Jean-Pierre Blais told the Association québécoise de la production médiatique, one of many production groups to present at the licence renewal hearing in Laval, north of…
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TORONTO – In a sometimes entertainingly worded decision, Ontario Superior Court of Justice judge Fred Myers sided with Bell Media in saying VMedia’s new Roku TV skinny basic cable application launched in September breaks the law and that Bell’s channels CTV and CTV2 must be removed from the service.
He also awarded $150,000 in costs to Bell Media. The case over the app, which we reported on previously, was heard last week in Toronto.
While noting “some of the statutory drafting and terminology used in…
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OTTAWA – The disruption of the traditional broadcast TV model – the one-to-many into a one-to-one relationship – means that data has become critically important to the future of broadcasting.
Kelly Steen, partnership strategy lead at Wattpad, highlighted how data from its storytelling application is leading to the creation of new types of programming during a session at last week’s International Institute of Communications Canadian chapter conference in Ottawa. For reference, Wattpad has 45 million monthly visitors, adds 103,000 new users every day and has an average viewing time of 30 minutes. All this from a large millennial audience.
She noted…
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LAVAL – “There’s so much discussion of flexibility that you’d think we were at a yoga club,” cracked CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais during day one of the license renewal hearing for Canada’s French-language TV broadcasters.
The broadcasters, as is their wont, called for more flexibility and reduced quotas for Canadian programming – and both Quebecor Media and Groupe V Média took shots at the national public broadcaster, even though it’s not part of the hearing.
“We’re worried about the fact that Radio-Canada continues to stray from its mandate to adopt a resolutely commercial approach,” said TVA president Julie Tremblay (pictured), in…
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Also offers up new best practices: PIAC says not far enough
GATINEAU – While noting Canadian subscription TV carriers are operating within the rules, the CRTC made the unprecedented decision to renew the large carriers' broadcast distribution undertaking licenses for just a single year, as opposed to the usual seven-year term.
To the CRTC, this continues its efforts to put consumers at the centre of the Canadian broadcasting system. In the November 21 decision, the Regulator offered what it sees as the best practices that broadcast distributors should undertake to ensure that Canadians are aware of small basic packages, their limits and offers related to them.
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TORONTO – Bell Media told an Ontario Superior Court of Justice this week that VMedia is in breach of its agreement to distribute Bell Media content, in part because the small company is using the public internet instead of a private managed network to distribute content.
In September, VMedia launched an app on OTT streaming ecosystem Roku that will enable subscribers to stream live over-the-air television stations, like CTV and CTV2, to anyone with an Internet connection and a Roku device.
VMedia, which filed the affidavit with the court in October to avoid a lawsuit, maintains it is not using the public…
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Minister Bains wouldn’t say, except perhaps between the lines
OTTAWA – It’s been nearly seven months since Bell Canada announced an agreement to buy Manitoba Telecom Services for $3.9 billion and still there has been no official word from the federal government on what it thinks of the deal.
The Competition Bureau is the primary regulator Bell has to satisfy with this purchase, but since the Bureau doesn’t do public hearings the way the CRTC does, we really don’t know what it is telling BCE officials about the deal, or the questions it has, but the six-plus…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC has signed a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that will see the two regulators work more collaboratively on the growing threat that unwanted robocalls pose to citizens in Canada and the United States.
This agreement will enable the CRTC and the FCC to facilitate research and education related to robocalls and illegitimate caller ID spoofing, says Thursday's press release. “The organizations have also committed to sharing knowledge and expertise through training programs and staff exchanges, as well as inform each other of legal developments in their respective jurisdictions,” it reads.
The agreement, signed…
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