Hearing starts Monday
TORONTO — CRTC commissioners have a lot of reading ahead of them, judging by the hundreds of submissions already made to the Commission’s review of basic telecommunications services, from industry players, consumer organizations, end-user businesses, and local and provincial governments. Then there are the thousands of individual consumers who have submitted questionnaires related to their usage of telecom services.
(Ed note: This is a re-post of a story we ran in February previewing the 14-day hearing that begins Monday. Cartt.ca will have daily coverage of the hearing, which will be available to hear…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC is asking for broadcast licence renewal applications from the country’s big English- and French-language ownership groups for their services that have licences set to expire in 2017.
The Commission said Monday that it has sent customized letters to Bell, Corus, Quebecor, Rogers, Shaw and Remstar, given that there is no licence renewal application form for television services owned by large ownership groups. Licensees are required to respond to questions set out in the letter, and the questions and responses provided will comprise the application.
The renewal applications must be submitted prior April 4 unless otherwise required or authorized. …
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TORONTO – CTAM Canada has tweaked its mission statement and membership rules to open the door to employees of satellite and IPTV companies operating in the CRTC-regulated television environment.
The organization, which was geared to cable companies, content providers, and others who supply products and services to the cable industry, said that the changes “will provide increased focus to the industry organization's education and research initiatives and result in a more inclusive space in the advancement of industry solutions and best practices”.
It’s new mission statement reads:
CTAM Canada is the television industry association focusing on the advancement of content distribution across…
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OTTAWA – French-language public safety channel Avis de recherche has lost a bid to continue to be distributed by Bell in Quebec.
On Thursday, the CRTC dismissed the channel’s complaint alleging that Bell’s decision to cease distributing Avis de Recherche while continuing to carry its affiliated service Canal D/Investigation constituted a prima facie case of undue preference.
“The Commission finds that Bell has not conferred a preference upon itself and has not subjected ADR to a disadvantage by ceasing the distribution of Avis de Recherche”, reads the decision. “Moreover, Bell has fulfilled its obligations under the Commission’s dispute resolution regime and has…
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OTTAWA – With just days until Super Bowl 50 kicks off, the CRTC has tabled a distribution order that would implement its decision to prohibit simultaneous substitution for the Super Bowl starting next year.
The order seeks to apply a Commission policy decision resulting from the Let's Talk TV proceeding banning simultaneous substitution (simsub) for the big game starting with Super Bowl 51, scheduled for February 5, 2017.
Simsub occurs when a distributor 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…
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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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