TORONTO – Peter Finch, in the 1976 movie Network, may have summed it up best for the U.S. Television Coalition, when his character, Howard Beale screamed, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”
Those sentiments seem to sum up the U.S. Television Coalition’s 17-page submission to the CRTC’s Let’s Talk TV initiative.
And Finch’s famous scene could be replayed at the CRTC public hearings on September 8 in Gatineau, if the Coalition gets their wish to participate as an intervener. The American trade alliance, formed in 2012 by several American over-the-air border television stations, is planning…
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GATINEAU – The place, and prominence, of American specialty networks in Canadian television programming packages may soon be changing as the CRTC grapples with the part that U.S. discretionary services play in our rapidly changing broadcast environment.
When the Commission launched the third phase of Let’s Talk TV: A Conversation with Canadians last April, it also proposed a potential new approach to licensing foreign services for carriage in Canada. That proposal suggested a simple test: a non-Canadian service would be authorized for carriage and distribution unless it would have “an undue negative impact” on the Canadian TV system. Services that…
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MONTREAL – Viewers Choice, the 23-year-old pay-per-view service owned by Bell and Rogers and carried on cable providers in eastern Canada, is winding up operations and will shut down on September 30, Cartt.ca has learned.
Sources at two distributors said that Bell Media, which holds a majority stake in Viewers Choice, recently sent out notifications of the closure to those offering the service. Those companies include Rogers, Videotron, Cogeco, Eastlink, Bell Aliant, Source Cable and select other smaller providers.
Viewers Choice was set up in 1991 as a partnership between Astral Bellevue Communications Inc. (50.1 per cent), Rogers Pay Per…
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GATINEAU – Among the 2,704 official filings to the CRTC for its Let’s Talk TV formal policy review coming in September is an 11-page warning from over-the-top video behemoth Netflix which said, essentially: Don’t slap any new regs on us, thanks.
While the CBC, Canadian Media Producers Association and others want the CRTC to tap Netflix’s Canadian revenue for contributions to Canadian content, the U.S.-based online video provider says the Commission has no right, and besides, it already has a ton of Canadian content, produces some things here and is merely complementary to the regulated system.
The CBC, however, says it’s…
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GATINEAU – The press release headlines sound pretty good, but it’s in the conditions, the details, where all this talk of consumer choice and flexibility gets bogged down.
The three largest Canadian vertically integrated media and carriage companies (Bell, Shaw and Rogers) each issued press releases Friday – the day their submissions to the CRTC on its TV Policy Review were due – saying, and we’re paraphrasing here: “boy oh boy, are we consumer friendly and choice leaders!” The big three each said they support more pick and pay, or a-la-carte channel selection, so that Canadians…
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MONTREAL and TORONTO – Broadcasting and distribution behemoths Bell, Rogers and Shaw said Friday in press releases that they are advocates for more flexible packaging and channel selection options for Canadian consumers. The comments come as part of their respective submissions to the CRTC's Let's Talk TV consultation, (which Cartt.ca will be breaking down in a series of stories over the coming weeks, beginning Thursday).
Bell said that BDUs should have “continued flexibility” to include discretionary Canadian services in basic packages and offer a range of TV packaging options, while also having the ability to make all Canadian discretionary…
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TORONTO – CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais used a speech in Toronto to serve notice to rogue telemarketers, spammers, phishers, spoofers and identitiy thieves that the Commission stands ready, willing and able to pursue and punish those who would use technology to attack or even aggravate Canadians.
In a speech some expected would be about the TV policy review or domestic wireless roaming rates or third party broadband access, Blais instead addressed how the Regulator will help Canadians live more freely, securely and peacefully in a digital world. “Technology is now an integral and ubiquitous part of our daily lives. This…
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OTTAWA–GATINEAU – The CRTC has released an “action plan” designed to improve Canadians’ access to current 9-1-1 services and to prepare for a review of next-generation 9-1-1 services.
Next-generation technologies are expected to improve how Canadians communicate with 9-1-1 call centres by enabling them to send text messages, pictures and videos, as well as interact with emergency operators through other means. The CRTC said Wednesday that adoption of these technologies will occur gradually over the next few years, and that it will launch a proceeding in early 2016 to ensure telecommunications service providers’ networks can support new technologies when 9-1-1…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Canadians tired of receiving unwanted telemarketing calls will welcome Wednesday’s decision by the CRTC making telephone numbers registered on the national do-not-call list (DNCL) permanent.
Initially, number registrations with the DNCL were for a set amount of time, after which Canadians would have had to re-register their numbers. Canadians can, at any time, check the DNCL to find out if their number is on the list and, if they wish, have it removed.
"The National DNCL was created to respect the wishes of Canadians who do not want to receive any more telemarketing calls”, said CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais,…
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JUST WHEN I WAS GETTING used to my phone being a TV and my TV being a phone, life got more complicated. Now we're doing business in an era of commonplace digital mashing of both content creation and distribution.
Multi-channel networks like Base79 in the U.K., MakerStudios in the U.S., and Blue Ant here at home, are popping up everywhere – and primarily (but not exclusively) via YouTube. Comcast, according to its VP new services Himesh Bhise, who spoke at the Banff World Media Fest, is all-over this phenomenon…
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