OTTAWA – Quebecor doesn't mince words in its complaint against the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund: "The decisions made by the board of directors of the Bell Fund in regard to three projects submitted in 2013 and set to be broadcast on TVA channels were not made in an objective manner and were discriminatory against TVA."
In a letter to the CRTC dated February 5 and made public on Monday, Quebecor's regulatory affairs director Peggy Tabet argues that the fund's decisions to refuse the three projects were made for "non-justified reasons" and concludes that they were made in a…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC launched an interactive questionnaire Tuesday to poll Canadians’ thoughts on issues affecting the country’s television systems in the newest phase of its Let’s Talk TV campaign.
Let’s Talk TV: Choicebook follows the first phase of Let’s Talk TV: A Conversation with Canadians, which began in October 2013. The Commission said it used the comments submitted by Canadians during Phase One to prepare Choicebook.
The interactive questionnaire contains a series of scenarios that reflect the realities Canadians face daily with respect to the television system.
While the purpose of Phase One was to collect more personal comments on what Canadians think of…
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GATINEAU – Rogers Communications refuted accusations of charging unjust wholesale rates for Canadian wireless carriers and denied undue preference for U.S. Wireless carriers in its 32-page reply to the CRTC’s proceeding investigating domestic wholesale wireless roaming rates.
The Commission is investigating whether there has been discrimination in higher wholesale rates charged to domestic wireless companies while American carriers receive preferential deals.
The CRTC received interventions and replies over the past two weeks from Bell Canada, Quebecor Media, Telus, EastLink, Wind, Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC), Benjamin Klass, Canadian Network Operators Consortium Inc. (CNOC), Commissioner of Competition, Fibernetics, Lynx Mobility Inc., MTS…
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GATINEAU – We're about a month away from all Canadian television distributors being required to make all Canadian national news channels available to all of their subscribers, but one seemingly basic question remains unanswered: Will Sun News Network be made available on analog cable?
Two months after the CRTC issued an order requiring that Sun News and the four other Category C national news channels be made available to subscribers of "all licensed distribution undertakings", there doesn't seem to be a consensus on this question.
The order and accompanying decision don't include the word "analog" at…
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OTTAWA – Canada’s national do not call list (DNCL) registry now contains more than 12.1 million phone numbers, as 109,333 phone were added to that figure between November 1, 2013, and January 31, 2014.
The official number of telephone or fax numbers stands at 12,118,658, according to the CRTC’s most recent status report. Approximately 40,000 numbers were added in November, with another estimated 31,000 in December, and approximately 37,000 more in January.
The number of telemarketing complaints filed between November and January was 25, 426. Since the DNCL’s launch in 2008, 781,008 telemarketing complaints have been logged.
Five new investigations were…
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MONTREAL – SourceKnowledge, a Canadian video advertising exchange company, today announced it has partnered with San Francisco-based adRise, considered one of the largest video ad distributors on connected TV.
The partnership means that brands and agencies represented by SK can now run their online video campaigns across 16 connected TV devices including all gaming consoles such as Xbox, streaming boxes such as Roku, smart TVs, Blu-ray players and tablets.
As TV consumption habits change, so do the flow of ad dollars. Canadian viewing habits are changing the landscape considerably. The CRTC reported in 2013 that one-third of Canadians watch TV online…
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TORONTO – Bell Media will open two new regional production development offices in Vancouver and Winnipeg, the company announced Wednesday.
Bell Media has hired senior industry executive Michele McMahon (pictured) as a development manager to run the new Vancouver office, which is set to open on Monday, Feb. 17.
The office in Winnipeg will open on March 3, and will be headed by new development manager Brandice Vivier.
Both McMahon and Vivier will report to Susan Makela, Bell Media’s director of independent production and Canadian programming management.
“These appointments reiterate Bell Media's commitment to Canada's creative and vibrant independent production community,” said Corrie Coe, SVP of independent production,…
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OTTAWA – A Senate committee turned to a former broadcast regulator for insight on how to address the challenges facing CBC/Radio-Canada in light of its loss of Hockey Night in Canada to Rogers Communications last year.
Appearing via video conference from Florida, former chair of the CRTC Konrad von Finckenstein told the Standing Senate Committee on Transportation and Communications what he believes could be done to improve the chances for success of Canada’s public broadcaster. He pointed to unloading the corporation’s vast over-the-air broadcast network, refocusing of the public broadcaster’s content as well as changing the governance structure and oversight…
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TORONTO – Tuesday’s federal budget is being characterized as a “do-nothing” budget by opposition politicians and the “one before the big one” by business journalists, as Canada prepares for an election year in 2015. The small advances made in Budget 2014 to wireless telecommunications and broadband Internet policies would seem to support those views.
Tabled in the House of Commons along with Economic Action Plan 2014, the Canadian government’s Budget 2014 provided little real news value for the telecommunications sector. What was included amounted to a re-announcement of the federal government’s intentions with regard to capping wholesale domestic roaming fees…
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GATINEAU – Without domestic roaming rate caps Wind Mobile can’t compete in the Canadian marketplace and despite what the incumbent wireless companies have to say, the high wholesale rates they charge the newcomers prevent some Canadians from choosing Wind as their provider.
So, the CRTC must step in, the company told the CRTC in the reply phase of the Regulator’s dive into wholesale wireless domestic roaming rates, the initial comments for which we summarized here last week.
In its reply, Wind noted several consumer groups told the CRTC that the fact Wind offers “home” rates for when…
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