OTTAWA – The local news business, while still attracting eyeballs, has ceased working from a financial perspective, Bell Canada told a Parliamentary committee on Tuesday. Echoing its appearance in front of the CRTC earlier this year, the company argued in front of MPs that creating a fund dedicated to local news programming would definitely help counteract falling advertising revenue.
Speaking at the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, Wendy Freeman, president at CTV News, noted that 2011 advertising revenue from private Canadian conventional TV stations has declined by $325 million, $91 million at Bell Media…
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MONTREAL and WINNIPEG – BCE Inc. is buying Manitoba Telecom Services (MTS) in a transaction valued at $3.9 billion, the companies announced early Monday.
The combined company's Manitoba operations will be known as Bell MTS, recognizing the power of the MTS brand in the province. Winnipeg becomes Western Canada headquarters for Bell and, with the addition of MTS's 2,700 employees, Bell's Western team grows to 6,900 people.
Bell pledged to invest $1 billion in capital throughout Manitoba after the transaction closes to extend the availability of its Gigabit Fibe Internet, rollout Fibe TV and expand its LTE wireless network. MTS' data…
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OTTAWA – Sudbury, ON could soon have a new radio station after the CRTC issued a call for comments on market capacity and on the appropriateness of issuing a call for radio applications to serve the area.
The Commission said Friday that it issued the call after receiving an application from Larche Communications Inc. for a new English-language commercial radio station to serve that market. Based in Midland, ON, Larche currently operates four radio stations in Ontario including KICX 91.7 FM in Sudbury.
Interventions are due by June 1 and the deadline to file replies is June 10, 2016. Following receipt of…
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GATINEAU – The telecommunications regulator should let market forces and targeted government funding finish the broadband job, according to Quebecor Media. The company told the CRTC on Thursday that it should coordinate efforts on affordability and adoption with the federal government, something other companies have also said during the hearing.
Manon Brouillette, president and CEO of Quebecor’s cable, broadband and wireless division Vidéotron, noted during her opening remarks that private sector efforts along with government programs are showing results. In fact, she said that by 2017, 97% of Canadians will have access to broadband as a result of the Connecting…
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OTTAWA – Quebec City may soon have a new radio station after the CRTC issued a call for comments on market capacity and on the appropriateness of issuing a call for radio applications to serve the area.
The Commission said Thursday that it issued the call after receiving an application from Dufferin Communications Inc. for an English-language commercial radio station, as well as an application from Gilles Lapointe and Nelson Sergerie (OBCI) for a French-language commercial radio station in that market. Both applicants proposed to use 105.7 MHz FM, one of the last known FM frequencies available in the region.
Interventions are due by May 30…
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TORONTO – Just ahead of its Discoverability Summit next month, the CRTC and NFB announced plans to co-host a youth edition on Monday at the CBC Atrium in Toronto.
The event will feature discussions with millennials on how they consume and discover content, and the ideas and strategies generated from the Youth Summit will not only help experts and leaders better understand this generation, but directly be embedded into the program for the Discoverability Summit on May 10 – 11, 2016.
Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly will be a guest of honour at the event,…
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Focus on transport, says Shaw
GATINEAU – The Joint Task Force (JTF) of small incumbent local exchange carriers (SILECs) in Canada offered a rather different option to the CRTC on Tuesday when it comes to ensuring there is broadband to every household in the country.
Rather than a blanket subsidy available for all so-called high cost serving areas, it should only be available in under and unserved communities.
In addition, the subsidy shouldn’t be available on a per exchange basis, but rather on a household or NAS level. If there are two ISPs (i.e. telco and cableco) providing service into a particular…
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Feds must study past report to lead the future, according to Audet
TORONTO – The Canadian financial markets suffer a bias against risk, which has led to an unfortunate under-investment in innovation, Cogeco Inc. CEO Louis Audet told the Canadian Club today at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto.
In a wide-ranging speech that touched upon a wide number of things, Audet tied them all to the problems he believes are afflicting Canada and its economy. He noted many of the developed economies around the world are now facing stagnant growth rates – but noted that as Canadians, we have the…
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GATINEAU – Three of the country’s smaller, but major, ISPs have told the CRTC’s basic service objective hearing that it shouldn’t micromanage the broadband file by explicitly developing mechanisms to deal with service gaps. SaskTel, Cogeco and MTS all believe that governments are far better positioned to handle infrastructure and affordability issues.
In his opening remarks on Monday, SaskTel president and CEO Ron Stiles argued market forces combined with targeted government funding has worked for the vast majority of communities in Saskatchewan. To encourage additional broadband deployment, the CRTC should stay away from “prescriptive” approaches but rather set new higher…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Canada’s commercial radio stations held their own in the face of competition from satellite, online and mobile services, with revenues dipping slightly for the 2015 broadcast year, according to the CRTC’s statistical and financial results for this sector released Monday.
Commercial Radio 2011 – 2015 National Statistics, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Markets said that total revenues for the country’s 704 commercial radio stations decreased 0.7% to hold steady at $1.6 billion for the broadcast year ending August 31, 2015. These revenues enable commercial radio stations to offer a variety of programming to Canadians, to support established and emerging…
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