Rogers Communications last week announced it has received clearance from the Competition Bureau to proceed with its acquisition of Bell’s 37.5-per-cent stake in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE).
Rogers said the two telecom giants received a “no-action letter” on Dec. 12 from the Bureau, indicating the Commissioner of Competition will not challenge Rogers’s acquisition of Bell’s interest in MLSE, a deal announced in September and valued at $4.7 billion. The acquisition is still subject to league approvals and approval from the CRTC.
MLSE owns the Toronto Maple Leafs, Toronto Raptors, Toronto FC and Toronto…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
The Federal Court of Appeal ruled Monday that the major foreign streamers may have a legitimate grievance against the imposition by the CRTC of a base financial contribution levied on them to support Canadian content.
The high court granted a hearing to Apple, Amazon, Spotify, and the Canadian affiliate of the Motion Picture Association (MPA) – which represents Netflix, Paramount, Pluto, and Crunchyroll – after the parties filed their own applications against the proposed June decision, which was finalized in August. The court consolidated all the leave applications before making the decision.
In approving the applications,…
Continue Reading
By Connie Thiessen
The CRTC has issued an order prohibiting Gill Broadcasting from illegally operating a South Asian radio station in Winnipeg.
The decision follows numerous complaints from Winnipeg multi-ethnic station CKJS-FM, owned by Evanov Communications, over the past eight years that a tourist information station was carrying on programming without a broadcast licence. Gill Broadcasting, helmed by Gill and Baldev Gill, had been operating CKYG-FM Winnipeg at 90.5 MHz as an exempt low-power tourist information radio station.
Following a hearing last month, the commission has barred the Gills from having any involvement with any broadcast undertaking that isn’t in full compliance…
Continue Reading
By Connie Thiessen
The CRTC has released the mandatory bargaining framework that will apply when major online platforms and eligible Canadian news organizations negotiate agreements under the Online News Act.
The Act sets out a mandatory bargaining process that stipulates that if the two sides cannot come to an agreement during a 90-day bargaining period and 120-day mediation period, a final 45-day arbitration period would follow where a panel of independent arbitrators will select the final offer made by one of the parties. The commission will serve in an oversight role to ensure parties participate in good faith.
To allow…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC said Thursday that it has streamlined the process by which it evaluates Broadband Fund applications to speed up the process and has given indigenous communities more flexibility and control over their subsidized builds.
The regulator said it is implementing a new system that includes triaging applications so that it can focus on approving builds in priority underserved areas first, suspend the evaluation of applications that do not meet key assessment criteria, and defer some information submitted by the applicants so they are not bogged down by data collection upfront, only to repeat that process when more…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
Representatives from the country’s largest telcos urged Senate members to consider legislation that would make copper theft a serious crime to deter what they say is becoming an increasing problem as the value of the element rises.
Currently, the criminal code penalizes copper theft as “theft under $5,000,” which the telecoms say does not align with the significance of the impact of that crime and doesn’t match what other jurisdictions have been doing – which is to charge the matter more severely.
Over the first two days of hearings on copper theft on Tuesday and Wednesday, members of the…
Continue Reading
In a decision published on its website Wednesday, the CRTC has approved Access Communications Co-operative’s April application to acquire Regina community radio station 91.3 FM CJTR from non-profit corporation Radius Communications.
The CRTC said the proposed transaction is in the public interest and will ensure the continuation of community-based radio programming for the Regina area.
In its application to the broadcasting regulator, Access indicated it will invest in equipment upgrades, expand volunteer opportunities in the community, and integrate CJTR-FM into its existing community engagement department, which “would help continue CJTR-FM’s unique voice and provide the…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
Television network TV5 Quebec Canada is asking the CRTC in a Part 1 application to raise the rate at which broadcasters must carry its channels by two cents to get through a difficult financial period before the next licence renewal date in August 2026.
The request would increase the rate to 30 cents per subscriber, per month in French-language markets and 26 cents in English-language markets. The station reasoned that the commission hasn’t adjusted the rate for the former market in 35 years and hasn’t budged on the latter market in 10 years.
It is proposing that the change…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
A group of internet service providers has filed a petition to cabinet on a precautionary basis asking it to vary the CRTC’s wholesale framework decision from August in case the regulator decides, after its latest consultation, not to ban the three largest ISPs from accessing the regime.
The launch of the CRTC’s latest consultation came at the behest of cabinet, which ordered the CRTC to revisit an interim decision from November 2023 that did not exclude Rogers, Bell and Telus (Big 3) from accessing the last-mile fibre networks of the latter two…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
The Senate Transport and Communications committee is scheduled to hold hearings starting next week looking into the issue of copper wire theft that has plagued the telecom industry.
Industry Canada, Public Safety Canada, and the Department of Justice are all scheduled to appear on the first day, Tuesday, December 10, while the industry association Canadian Telecommunications Association (CTA), Bell, Telus, and Electricity Canada are scheduled for the day after, according to the committee website.
The study comes after a number of incidents reported by telecoms, specifically telco Bell, in which individuals have cut and stolen the copper wire to…
Continue Reading
