OTTAWA – With the Throne Speech still ringing in our ears, the Feds were quick to applaud the CRTC’s ‘Let’s Talk TV’ discussion which kicked off this week.
Shelly Glover, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, issued a statement Thursday reiterating the government’s pledge to unbundle TV channels while also protecting Canadian jobs.
“Consistent with that commitment, the Canadian Radio-television Communications Commission has today launched a dialogue with Canadians on the future of television”, the statement reads. “The dialogue launched today will play a part in fulfilling our Speech from the Throne…
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GATINEAU – “Canadians have an unprecedented choice of television programs that includes the best of what Canada, and the world, has to offer,” said Jean-Pierre Blais, chairman of the CRTC this morning in kicking off “Let’s Talk TV: A Conversation with Canadians,” which is to be a month-long discussion about the future of Canada’s television system.
“Many still enjoy network-scheduled programming on their TV sets, but the viewing habits of many others are changing. Let’s Talk TV: A Conversation with Canadians is an opportunity for all Canadians to tell us what they think of their television system and…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC should prohibit telecommunications companies from charging for paper bills and order refunds for fees already charged to regulated phone customers, says the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC).
In an application filed with the Commission Wednesday, PIAC, in conjunction with the Consumers’ Association of Canada (CAC), argued that fees charged to receive bills in paper format are an “unauthorized rate increase” for regulated landline customers, and "unjustly discriminatory" towards all telecommunications customers.
“By charging a paper bill fee, telecommunications service providers assume that all Canadians are comfortable with, or have access to, electronic…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has updated its regulatory framework for pay-per-view services.
The revised framework, released Wednesday, simplifies its policy and makes it more consistent with the regulatory framework for video-on-demand services, with which PPV services compete, the Commission said.
In determining the most appropriate approach for PPV services, the CRTC said that it considered a number of issues, including:
– licensing criteria;
– Canadian content exhibition requirements;
– the promotion of Canadian programs;
– support for Canadian feature films;
– programming packaging;
– the broadcast of…
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MONTREAL – CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais will begin his TV conversation en francais, first.
Blais will deliver a speech at Université Laval on Thursday morning to explain why the CRTC is launching a national conversation about TV, what it entails, and how Canadians can participate in this conversation. He’ll have the same conversation, in English, later that afternoon at Ryerson University in Toronto.
For more information about ‘Let's Talk TV: A Conversation with Canadians’ check out the explanatory video here.
The event will be webcast at: https://new.livestream.com/ulaval/crtc.
Follow the events on Twitter…
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MONTREAL – Bell Canada confirmed Wednesday that it is tracking its mobile customers’ web habits, but that data will only be used to deliver customized ads, and customers may opt out of the program at any time.
Bell said that it is collecting data such as web sites visited, apps downloaded and search terms from its mobile customers now, and that starting November 16, will use this data to deliver advertising that is “most relevant” to them. Customers were informed of the program through invoice messages, texts and emails over the last few months. It's worth noting here that Google, Twitter, Yahoo!,…
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OTTAWA – The number of new telephone and fax numbers added to the country's national do not call list (DNCL) shot up in September, though telemarketing complaints increased only slightly over those in August, 2013.
According to the Commission's most recent status report just over 50,000 new phone or fax numbers were added in September, a marked increase from the 30,000 new numbers added during August. A total of 11,890,788 numbers were registered with the DNCL as of September 30.
The total of telemarketing complaints filed in September was just under 8,000,…
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OTTAWA – Consumer complaints received by the CRTC regarding bandwidth throttling by their Internet service providers (ISPs) for the last quarter are on par with those reported in the first quarter of this year.
The Commission reports it received a total of 17 complaints regarding Internet Traffic Management Practices (ITMPs) from July 1 to September 30, 2013, the same number of complaints that were filed from January 1 to March 31. Six were filed from April 1 – June 30, 2013.
The complaints are grouped into two categories:
– ITMP disclosure complaints are those related to whether the ISP has disclosed…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC is rethinking the way it approaches tangible benefits and how it determines the value of a transaction in the broadcast world.
On Monday, the Commission called for comments on various aspects of its approach to tangible benefits. Among other things, it is asking for feedback on its preliminary view that at least 80% of tangible benefits for television services should be allocated to specific third-party funds and that the allocation of no more than 20% of tangible benefits should be left to the discretion of the purchaser.
It also seeks comment on…
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GATINEAU – More than 3,000 comments were filed with the CRTC in connection with its hearing into a potential Canadian video relay service (VRS), including, for the first time, submissions made using sign language through the Commission’s YouTube channel, said vice chair Peter Menzies.
Opening the week long hearing on Monday morning, Menzies instructed appearing parties that their presentations should include views and evidence to address the following:
– What are the benefits of video relay service? To what extent, if any, does it meet the needs of people who are deaf, hard of hearing…
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