OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Book and DVD retailer Québec Loisirs has paid $200,000 as part of a settlement over violations to the country’s telemarketing rules, plus agreed to end its previous telemarketing practices and help promote awareness of the rules, the CRTC said Wednesday.
Acting on complaints, the Commission investigated Québec Loisirs for alleged violations of the Unsolicited Telecommunications Rules and found that it made unsolicited telemarketing calls advertising its products to consumers whose numbers were registered on the National Do Not Call List (DNCL). These calls also resulted in violations of the rules because the company failed to subscribe to the national…
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TORONTO – Bell, Rogers and Videotron have some explaining to do over the way that they charge customers for live and on-demand television programming on mobile applications.
According to a Globe and Mail report, the CRTC has asked the three big providers a series of questions about their respective apps, such as how many subscribers the services have, how much data they tend to use, and how exactly the content is delivered.
The report raises the issue of net neutrality, noting that the apps allow viewers to use their smartphone or tablet to watch up to 10 hours per month of…
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TORONTO – The Ontario Court of Justice is allowing a potential multi-million-dollar class action lawsuit against Bell Mobility to proceed.
According to a Toronto Star report Monday, the lawsuit stems from the expiry of a Bell-owned Virgin Mobile prepaid card with a balance of about $58.60 belonging to Celia Sankar. Sankar alleges Bell “seized” money remaining on her card after its expiry date, arguing that prepaid phone cards are “gift cards” under the Consumer Protection Act and therefore not subject to expiry dates.
She is seeking $100 million in general damages for herself and some one million fellow complainants, $10…
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OTTAWA – In move that could have implications for a number of cross-border broadcasters, the CRTC has summoned three B.C.-based radio companies to a hearing in October for allegedly broadcasting in Canada without a licence.
According to the Commission, Radio India, which is owned and controlled by Baljit Kaur Bains; Radio Punjab, owned and controlled by Gurpal S. Garcha; and Sher-E-Punjab, owned and controlled by Surinder Kaur Badh are all producing programming for broadcast on the radio and over the Internet without licences to carry on a radio programming undertaking in Canada, contrary to the Broadcasting Act. Their primarily South…
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GATINEAU – Rogers Communications and Corus Entertainment have told the CRTC that it must reconsider the usefulness of Terms of Trade (ToT) agreement between broadcasters and independent producers in creating independent Canadian programming. On the other hand, the Canadian Media Production Association (CMPA) argues that in a new broadcast environment with greater pick and pay options ToT will become increasingly important.
In their respective interventions to the Commission’s Let’s Talk TV Conversation with Canadians, Rogers and Corus claim that ToT (a deal hard-fought for by the CMPA and others which was developed and demanded over a number of years) is…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) has paid $50,000 as part of a settlement over violations to the country’s telemarketing rules, plus agreed to end its previous telemarketing practices and help promote awareness of the rules, the CRTC said Wednesday.
The AFL is a voluntary organization consisting of 29 union affiliates and representing 160,000 workers in Alberta. Acting on complaints, the Commission investigated the AFL for alleged violations of the Unsolicited Telecommunications Rules and found that through a third-party firm, the AFL made unsolicited telemarketing calls via an automatic dialing-announcing device (ADAD). These calls did not comply with the…
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JUST BECAUSE BELL Canada, Quebecor Media, Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications are all broadcasters, specialty service operators, TV distributors, phone companies and broadband providers doesn’t mean they think alike. They do, however, agree on this generation’s “Death Star”. We’re looking at you, Netflix.
In their submissions to the CRTC’s TV Policy Review, the four big vertically integrated behemoths are on board together with certain things, such as maintaining simultaneous substitution (which is actually something virtually every industry submission we’ve read demands be kept), decreasing the amount of Canadian content which must be shown, while spending more money on fewer big…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has approved changes in ownership to Channel Zero’s English‑language specialty Category B services Moviola: Short Film Channel and Silver Screen Classics, as well as conventional television station CHCH-DT Hamilton. It also approved the change in effective control of Movieola.
In a decision announced Friday, the Commission also renewed the broadcasting licences for Movieola and Silver Screen Classics from September 1, 2014 to August 31, 2017, noting that the short-term licence renewals will allow for an earlier review of the licensees’ compliance with the CRTC’s regulatory requirements, including requirements regarding the level of Canadian programming that…
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VANCOUVER – For a guy who has supposedly moved to the boardroom from the CEO’s chair, Darren Entwistle still did a lot of talking during the Telus Q2 conference call with financial analysts.
The Telus executive chairman primarily spoke to a pair of important regulatory files which have the potential to dent the big wireless and wireline carrier’s performance (along with Rogers and Bell, for that matter): wholesale wireless roaming rates, and wholesale wireline broadband access.
Entwistle hammered home his point that facilities-based competition (where operators are required or incented to build…
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GATINEAU – Despite the fact cable and other TV carriers in many countries are compiling and using data gleaned from customer set top boxes to modify their programming and advertising, Canadian companies seem loathe to do the same or are apathetic about moving quickly to gather that real-time information, according to their submissions to the CRTC’s TV Policy Review, slated to get under way a month from tomorrow.
The Commission asked nine different questions about establishing a set-top box (STB) audience measurement system in Canada, covering issues from consumer privacy to costs and governance. With a few exceptions (especially from…
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