TORONTO – SiriusXM Canada shareholders have voted in favour of a plan to recapitalize the company by way of a go-private transaction.
The deal, first announced in May, was approved Tuesday by 89.14% of the 121,792,144 votes cast by company voting shareholders, and 65.91% of the 38,781,229 votes cast by disinterested company voting shareholders, present in person or represented by proxy at the special meeting held in Toronto.
"The strong voting support in favour of the transaction clearly demonstrates that our shareholders recognize that it is an opportunity for them to best maximize the value of their current investment, be…
Continue Reading
STARTING SEPTEMBER 7, BROADCAST distributors (a.k.a. cable, IPTV and satellite TV providers) will go before the CRTC trying to convince the regulator they are providing consumers with the choice required under rules adopted last year and that no further regulation is necessary.
Groups representing consumers will be there too, arguing, among other things, the way BDUs are offering the new so-called skinny basic package is inadequate. The Consumers Association of Canada (CAC) and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) say the Commission needs to address the issue of unfair practices being employed by some BDUs.
The groups say that…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA–GATINEAU – The CRTC has issued 10 citation letters for alleged violations under the Voter Contact Registry during the 2015 federal election.
The registry, which came in to force in August 2015, is intended to protect Canadian voters from rogue and misleading telephone calls during federal elections, and to help to ensure that anyone who contacts voters during an election does so transparently. The CRTC can send warning letters, issue citations or impose penalties of up to $1,500 per violation per day for individuals and up to $15,000 per violation per day for a corporation.
The citations, made public Monday, are…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The CRTC has turned down a request from three consumer groups asking it to expand and/or revise the geographic boundaries for local number portability (LNP) to more accurately reflect the current network and marketplace structure for telephony services.
LNP allows subscribers to keep the same telephone number when changing service providers. The Commission required all wireline local exchange carriers to implement LNP as part of its framework for local competition established in May, 1997.
In an application dated June 15, 2015, the Consumers' Association of Canada, the Council of Senior Citizens' Organizations of British Columbia, and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre proposed…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – In what it says is an effort to provide greater flexibility in the funding of Canadian programs, the CRTC has unveiled changes to its policy framework for Certified Independent Production Funds (CIPFs).
As part of the current funding system, the Commission mandates certain indirect financial contributions by BDUs to the creative sector through production funds, including the Canada Media Fund (CMF), which receives funding from both the mandated contributions of BDUs and the federal government. A number of independent production funds, known as CIPFs, have also been certified by the CRTC to receive funding from BDUs and tangible benefits…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – Canada should learn from Europe’s “mismanagement of broadband” and discontinue attempts to artificially create competition in the marketplace, says a new report from independent national public policy think tank Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
Winners and Losers in the Global Race for Ultra-Fast Broadband says that European governments’ “state-imposed mandates and top-down regulations have contributed to underinvestment and poor network quality”. It also criticizes recent Canadian federal telecommunications policies such as mandatory network sharing, the so-called “fourth player” policy, and the CRTC’s decision to impose the unbundling of fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) as examples of “Canada taking a heavy-handed regulatory approach to network…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – The CRTC shouldn’t bow to pressure from the vertically integrated (VI) entities and loosen any regulatory measures on their activities, according to comments from the non-VI broadcast distributors.
In comments to the licence renewals of the large English and French-language ownership groups (for which a public hearing is coming in November), the non-VI BDUs tell the Commission that in fact it needs to strengthen regulations ensuring the VI companies (Rogers, Bell and Quebecor) don’t exhibit any anti-consumer and anti-competitive behaviour.
Telus says the Commission has rules to ensure carriage contracts for TV channels are done on…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – Canadians may be able to watch U.S. ads in next year’s Super Bowl after the CRTC officially moved to prohibit simultaneous substitution for the big game starting in 2017.
The Commission issued a distribution order on Friday that effectively halts simultaneous substitution (simsub) for the event starting with Super Bowl 51, scheduled for February 5, 2017. Simsub occurs when a BDU temporarily replaces the signal of one TV channel with that of another channel showing the same program at the same time. According to the CRTC, during the Let’s Talk TV proceeding Canadians expressed ongoing frustration with the practice,…
Continue Reading
“When the colour of the night
And all the smoke for one life
Gives way to shaky movements
Improvisational skills
A forest of whispering speakers
Let's swear that we will
Get with the times
In a current health to stay
Let's get friendship right
Get life day-to-day”
“IT’S A GOOD LIFE If You Don’t Weaken” may be one of the few wonderful Tragically Hip songs the band left tucked under Gord Downie’s magic hat on Saturday night. But the transcendent nature of the show from Kingston was rife with other epiphanies, not the least of which concerns a late-breaking story on our CBC.
We spend so much time today –…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – A squabble between a Canadian telco and an American reseller that saw 27,000 Canadians temporarily lose their phone services has prompted the CRTC to evaluate the disconnection practices between telecommunications service providers.
The Commission issued a call for comments Thursday as part of a proceeding to consider whether regulatory measures are required to mitigate future occurrences of situations similar to the dispute between Toronto-area telecom Iristel Inc. and American VoIP provider netTALK that played out earlier this year.
Specifically, the CRTC is seeking feedback, with supporting rationale, on the following questions:
Should the Commission impose an obligation that contracts…
Continue Reading
