LONDON – Saying the Commission can not and will not tear down what’s working now in favour of what’s coming in the future, CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais announced this morning that local TV stations have to keep running their OTA transmitters – and that simultaneous substitution is here to stay – with some tough new rules.
However, simsub will be eliminated for Super Bowls, beginning with the 2016 National Football League season. The local television decisions announced today by the chairman are part of the Regulator’s conclusions from the 15-month-long Let’s Talk TV policy review launched in the fall of…
Continue Reading
LONDON – In his speech this morning to the London Chamber of Commerce, CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais announced a Commission decision which said Bell and Vidéotron were providing themselves undue preferences by letting customers stream programming without it counting against their bandwidth caps like all other streamed video.
“In November 2013, the CRTC received an application – filed by a University of Manitoba graduate student named Ben Klass – complaining about an alleged undue preference on the part of Bell Mobility. A similar application, filed against Vidéotron, followed a few weeks later,” outlined Blais.
“The problem in…
Continue Reading
WHISTLER – John Gossling, executive VP and CFO at Telus told an investors conference last week that high-end smartphones such as the iPhone 6 and others give the company the ability to address any potential downside from the expiry of a large number of contracts in the latter part of this year.
He was referring to the CRTC’s June 2013 decision, outlawing three-year contracts. It came into force on December 3, 2013, which means that all wireless carriers, not just Telus, will have to deal with the ending of both three-year and two-year contracts this year, a number that…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – After a quarter-century in TV and radio, John Cassaday would like to try something else.
While Corus Entertainment’s founding CEO announced last week he will retire from the company at the end of March, the 60-year-old Cassaday told Cartt.ca he isn’t thinking about riding off into the sunset. It’s just that that now is the right time for him to give up the reins at the Shaw-family controlled TV, radio and production company to his COO Doug Murphy.
“It just seemed like the perfect time for me,” he said in an interview. “February 14 is my 25th anniversary in…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The CRTC has been asked to step in to help resolve a standoff between Bell Canada and the City of Hamilton over a new municipal access agreement (MAA).
In an application to the Commission dated August 22, 2014 but made public recently, the Ontario city said that its previous MAA expired in 2012, and that it notified Bell a year prior to say that it would not renew that agreement as it “provides no mechanism or means of holding Bell to account for its failures to either perform at an acceptable level or comply with the City’s basic…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – Area code 548 will be rolled out in in the region currently served by area codes 226 and 519 in southwestern Ontario starting June 4, 2016, the Telecommunications Alliance confirmed Tuesday.
After this date, residents and businesses requesting a new phone number may get a number with the 548 area code. Numbers with the new area code will only be assigned to customers when the existing supply of 226 and 519 numbers is depleted.
Currently, the 226 and 519 area codes cover most of southwestern Ontario, which includes the communities of London, Windsor, Kitchener-Waterloo, Guelph, Brantford, Sarnia, Woodstock, Stratford…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – Burlington, 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 that area.
The Commission said Friday that it issued the call after receiving an application from Byrnes Communications Inc. for a new commercial mainstream music station in that market. The private broadcaster, based in Woodstock, ON, operates the adult contemporary station 104.7 Heart FM serving the London-Woodstock-Tillsonburg areas.
The city of Burlington is included within both the Hamilton Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) and the Hamilton Central…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA and GATINEAU – Businesses installing software or computer programs on another person’s computer must now have their consent, the CRTC announced Thursday.
Under the new requirements, for example, it is now illegal for a website to automatically install software on a visitor's computer or for an app on a mobile device to be updated without first obtaining consent. The CRTC has the primary enforcement responsibility and is able to investigate, take action against and set administrative monetary penalties against those who are not in compliance.
These new requirements, which are effective immediately, are part of Canada's anti-spam legislation adopted by…
Continue Reading
WINNIPEG – Louis Ralph (Bud) Sherman will be remembered Thursday at a memorial service in Winnipeg after his passing on January 9, 2015 at the age of 88 after a short illness.
Sherman was appointed as a CRTC commissioner in 1985 and worked for the Commission for more than 10 years during which time he became vice-chairman of telecommunications in 1987 until his retirement in 1995. According to an obituary in the Winnipeg Free Press, his proudest accomplishment during his time with the CRTC was “the central role he played in work relating to long distance competition in the…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The Community Radio Fund of Canada (CRFC) said that radio stations may now apply to receive even more money for their local programming thanks to revisions to the latest round of its Radiometres funding program.
Applicants to the fifth round of CRFC’s Radiometres program will be able to ask for an amount up to $50,000 per individual application or between $110,000 and $250,000 for collaborative applications, the organization announced Monday. Stations have until February 27, 2015 to submit their application, and all Canadian campus and community stations are eligible for this round. The revised guidelines and new application…
Continue Reading
