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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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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