GATINEAU – Access Communications Co-operative told the CRTC Wednesday while it’s not opposed to the establishment of a local news fund, it shouldn’t mean cuts to community channel funding.
Speaking at the commission’s local and community TV hearing on Wednesday, Carmela Haines, VP of finance and administration for the cableco co-op which serves Regina and many other small communities in Saskatchewan, noted funding reductions to its community channels “would have a serious impact” to the communities it serves. Besides, Access shouldn’t be providing funds to the vertically integrated (VI) broadcasters.
“A not-for-profit, community-owned co-operative should not be giving a subsidy to…
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GATINEAU – A new fund or reallocated money dedicated to supporting local news, would do little to provide a long-term solution to the financial situation facing local TV, Shaw Communications and Telus told the CRTC on Tuesday.
Telus noted in its opening remarks that any funding for local conventional stations to subsidize their news productions shouldn’t come at the expense of community TV and the diversity it provides to the system. As well, “subsidizing the commercial business models of traditional television stations will not incent the innovation required of these stations to provide sustainable programming opportunities in the long run,”…
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GATINEAU – The industry needs increased levels of funding for access programming said executives from MTS, who appeared before the CRTC’s local and community TV hearing on Monday. The company has proposed that the more access programming BDUs carry on their community TV channels, the more money they should get.
In opening remarks, Paul Norris, VP of residential solutions at MTS, noted viewers want to see local programming that goes beyond news and that access programming is important for locally reflective expression.
“Access programming fulfills a unique role that is not available from conventional broadcasters or from social media…
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LEST YOU BE IN DOUBT that the CRTC believes it has authority over video delivered across the Internet, I refer you to the transcript of the hearing currently underway in Hull regarding the policy framework for local and community television.
In this portion the Chairman took issue with the way the counsel for Cogeco, Yves Mayrand, was speaking about the "unlicensed" portion of the broadcasting system, but this term includes the Internet, as I will explain. Yves Mayrand had referred to it as "unregulated" during the company’s appearance last Tuesday.
Mayrand said:
Now with respect to the notion that…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC’s National Do Not Call List continued to grow last year though Canadians lodged fewer complaints, according to the annual report released Monday.
During the 2014-2015 reporting period, from April 1, 2014 to March 31, 2015, Canadians registered 589,286 numbers, adding an average of 1,600 new numbers to the list every day, to bring the list’s total to 12,773,208 numbers.
Last year, Canadians filed 115,135 complaints via the National DNCL toll-free line and website, a decrease of over 11% from the year before. These complaints were related to each part of the Rules, including those related to…
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OTTAWA – Alberta-based telecom service provider VOIS is continuing to ignore its obligations to its customers, the CRTC, and the Commissioner of Complaints for Telecommunications Services (CCTS), says the CCTS.
In October 2015, CCTS announced that VOIS had failed to refund $640 in fees it had improperly charged to a customer. CCTS had instructed VOIS to refund this money following an investigation of the customer’s complaint.
The CCTS then issued a decision in the investigation of another complaint from a VOIS customer in November. In that case, the customer was contacted by a collections agency demanding payment of $208 allegedly…
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GATINEAU – CBC told the CRTC on Friday that if it decides there should be a fund dedicated to supporting local news production in the Canada, then it should only open it to broadcasters which commit to produce additional news programming.
The Commission has been exploring the concept of a Local News Incentive Fund (LNIF) during local and community TV hearing and the idea has been endorsed in various forms by many intervenors.
“The purpose of the LNIF would be to provide incentive funding for incremental expenditure on and exhibition of local news programming beyond a specified threshold,” Bev Kirshenblatt (pictured),…
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GATINEAU – Many parties to the CRTC’s local and community TV consultation have proposed funding approaches (each with their own acronyms we’re having trouble keep track of) which could financially support these struggling services. Rogers Communications Inc. has now joined them, unveiling its own approach to a local programming fund.
In its appearance before the Commission on Thursday, the media and communications giant argued while it still prefers its original proposal calling for greater flexibility to move local programming funds from larger to smaller markets, it offered up another model that it says is workable and would provide financial benefits…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Using its anti-spam powers, the CRTC said Wednesday that it has executed a warrant under Canada’s anti-spam legislation (CASL) at two locations in Ontario's Niagara region.
The warrant was obtained as part of an ongoing investigation further to a lead from FireEye Inc., a vendor specializing in cyber threat protection and forensics. The CRTC does not comment on active investigations, nor does it name the individuals or companies under investigation. It did say, however, that the investigation related to the installation of malicious software (malware) and the alteration of transmission data.
The warrant was granted by a Justice of the…
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Commission is told small TV stations are living on borrowed time
GATINEAU – The local TV environment is so bad for some small independent over the air broadcasters that they risk shutting their doors in the coming months if they don’t get financial assistance from the CRTC. A case in point is Dougall Media’s Thunder Bay Electronics, the owner of two stations in the northwestern Ontario city.
VP and GM Don Caron explained during a closing statement to the Small Market Independent Television Stations Coalition (SMITs) appearance that his two stations (a CTV and Global affiliate) have remained open…
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