TORONTO – Calling 2013 “a pretty good year”, SaskTel president and CEO Ron Styles said this week that the provincial Crown corporation will come close to its financial targets ($1.2 billion in revenue, $93 million in net income) when it announces its annual results in April.
Styles was in Toronto on Monday and sat down with Cartt.ca to discuss the year past, the year ahead and some of the challenges posed by current regulatory uncertainty in Canada’s telecom industry.
The past year saw SaskTel continually add capacity to its wired and wireless network, continue to grow its fibre to the premises…
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NORWICH, ON – Glenn Baxter, a founding member of the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance (CCSA) and the founder of Nor-Del Cablevision, was laid to rest Wednesday in Norwich, ON. He died in hospital on February 28 in his 80th year.
Baxter graduated from the Ryerson Institute of Technology as an engineering technologist in 1956 and carried his love of electronics and system design with him his entire life. His early career included positions at Group Northern Electric, (eventually part of Nortel), where he designed and installed television studios and master control video/audio switching systems for television stations.
At Delta Electronics, he…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has scheduled a hearing next month which will hear a corporate reorganization request from Channel Zero, but it said Wednesday in announcing the hearing, that it will also determine whether four television services operated by the independent broadcaster have failed to comply with their conditions of licence or the specialty services regulations.
The Commission said Wednesday that it “calls the licensees to this public hearing, given the severity and frequency of the instances of apparent non-compliance observed and given the relationship between these licensees." For example, some of the adult services in question may not have shown…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has shot down a request by DiversityCanada Foundation to amend a section of its three-month old wireless code of conduct.
In an application last September, DiversityCanada Foundation, on its own behalf and on behalf of the National Pensioners and Senior Citizens Federation, asked the Commission to review and vary Section J of the Wireless Code regarding prepaid cards.
DiversityCanada submitted that the Commission erred in fact and in law when it determined that prepaid card services provide access to a wireless service provider’s network, subject to both time and usage limitations, and that it would not be…
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DARTMOUTH, NS – Newfoundland Capital Corporation recorded a 148% increase in profits for 2013, while revenues rose by 3%.
The radio broadcaster said there were several factors impacting profit year-over-year which at $27.0 million was $16.1 million higher than 2012. The company recognized a gain on disposal of its operation is Fort McMurray, AB station, benefited from lower mark-to-market unrealized losses in addition to a $5.3 million reduction of the income tax provision. In contrast during 2012, the company recorded a net impairment charge of $6.6 million, and $2.2 million of mark-to-market unrealized losses which negatively impacted profit.
Revenue for the…
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TORONTO – The Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television will posthumously award Alan Sawyer the Digital Media Trailblazing Award for outstanding achievement in Canadian digital media. The award will be presented Tuesday evening at the Canadian Screen Awards’ television and digital media awards show in Toronto.
As an Emmy-Award winning transmedia-storytelling consultant and content creator, Sawyer (pictured) was at the forefront of merging Canadian digital and conventional platforms. Always curious, he questioned the conventional way of doing things and was intrigued with the implications of emerging media on Canadian content and broadcasting policy. He worked with the CRTC, funding agencies…
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OTTAWA – CBC/Radio-Canada chief executive Hubert Lacroix shot back at those who think the public broadcaster should only be to Canadians what the privates are not.
“I do not believe that the answer is to become some kind of niche broadcaster limited to only doing what private broadcasters will not do or have no business incentive to do. No other public broadcaster in the world is put in that kind of a box,” he said during an appearance before the Senate Standing Committee on Transport and Communications this week.
Lacroix was responding to statements made by both the Continue Reading
MONTREAL – Some would-be Montreal television producers have had it with Vidéotron's community television service in the city, so much so that they have filed a complaint with the CRTC and are demanding that the cable provider give them $23 million a year so they can create their own community channel.
The group, composed mainly of people whose resumes include Concordia University Television or CKUT Radio McGill, alleges that MAtv, the French-language community channel run by Vidéotron, airs no community access programming whatsoever, despite CRTC policy (set in 2010) requiring that 45% of programming aired on…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC on Friday fined four telemarketers a total of $38,000 for various violations to the country’s telemarketing rules.
Lev Olevson, carrying on business as Capital Windows and Doors and Advantage Pro, was fined $8,000 for initiating telemarketing telecommunications to consumers whose numbers were registered on the national do not call list (DNCL), for doing so when he was not a registered subscriber of the national DNCL, and had not paid all applicable fees to the national DNCL operator.
Advantage Pro Portes et Fenêtres was fined $6,000 for initiating telemarketing telecommunications to consumers whose telecommunications numbers were…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC is calling for comments on amendments to certain rules pertaining to the implementation of the national emergency alerting system.
The Commission said Thursday that the rules in question relate to the Radio Regulations, 1986, the Television Broadcasting Regulations, 1987, the Broadcasting Distribution Regulations, the standard conditions of licence for video-on-demand undertakings, and exemption orders governing the operation of certain types of undertakings.
The proposed amendments would implement the mandatory distribution of emergency alert messages by December 31, 2014, thereby ensuring that Canadians receive timely warnings of imminent perils. The Commission also wants input on certain policy considerations…
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