DARTMOUTH, NS – Bell Media has agreed to sell five of the 10 radio properties that it must divest as part of its acquisition of Astral to Newfoundland Capital Corp.’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Newcap Inc., for $112 million.
For Newcap, which already owns 88 radio stations across Canada, today’s deal marks the company’s foray into two of Canada’s largest radio markets, as it picks up two Toronto and three Vancouver Bell radio stations.
Newcap will acquire the radio broadcasting licenses of CHBM-FM (Boom 97.3) and CFXJ-FM (93.5 Flow) in Toronto, and CKZZ-FM (Virgin Radio 95.3), CHHR-FM (Shore 104.3 FM), and CISL-AM (AM 650)…
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VANCOUVER – A new report from The Fraser Institute this morning says that Ottawa will only achieve its stated goal of providing Canadians with more choice and competition in the wireless marketplace if it removes restrictions on foreign ownership of telecommunication companies.
“The goal of achieving and maintaining a competitive market is not the same as having a minimum number of competing firms,” said Steven Globerman, Fraser Institute senior fellow and Kaiser Professor of International Business at Western Washington University, in the official press release. “By setting up rules that handicap the three large Canadian telecoms and favour small or…
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MONTREAL — Vincent Geracitano runs the gamut of emotions describing the future of his television channel: pride, enjoyment, worry, but mostly anger about how it's being taken away from him. More than once during an interview with Cartt.ca, he's brought to tears.
When the CRTC made its decisions on mandatory carriage public August 8, it denied most of the applications from existing or proposed channels seeking the status for the first time, and approved most of the applications for renewal. Géracitano's channel, Avis de recherche, was the only service with mandatory carriage that had its renewal denied. And he doesn't…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has dismissed a complaint filed by former-Astral Media against Videotron which alleged that Videotron's illico Club Unlimited service unfairly competes with Astral's (now Bell Media's) Super Ecran network.
In its decision the CRTC disagreed with Astral's argument that Illico Club, launched by Videotron in February, had violated the regulatory framework and certain conditions of Videotron?'s video on demand licence.
The condition in question states that a licensee is prohibited from offering a Canadian SVOD package that is directly competitive with a genre-protected Canadian linear…
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TORONTO – The CBC will begin airing advertisements on CBC Radio 2 and Espace musique this fall, as the Corp announced a deal today with Canadian Broadcast Sales to represent advertising sales for both properties.
The radio sales organization will work with CBC and Radio-Canada's sales and marketing teams. In Quebec, Espace musique will be represented by Groupe Force Radio, a CBS partner.
"?I?'m confident that by working closely with our team at CBC and through their unmatched experience in radio advertising sales, together we will deliver to our clients a streamlined and effective way to access…
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TORONTO – A number of multicultural organizations have added their voices to calls for a CRTC public hearing into cuts made by Rogers to OMNI TV's multicultural programming.
More than 20 organizations, including the National Congress of Italian Canadians, the South Asian Women?s Centre (SAWC), the Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention (ASAAP), the South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario (SALCO) and the Council of Agencies Serving South Asians (CASSA), as well as two federal MPs are reported to support an application made by the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union requesting a public hearing…
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HAMILTON – The CBC’s new local digital setup isn’t good enough to serve the Steel City, says city councillor Brian McHattie, who insists Hamilton needs its own CBC radio station.
The councillor (who serves the ward where Cartt.ca is based) has sent a letter to CBC CEO Hubert Lacroix as well as all of the local MPs saying that since there are no available frequencies for another radio station in Hamilton, the CBC should instead purchase one of the Toronto stations which Bell Media has promised to divest as part of its purchase of Astral Media.
The Toronto stations put on…
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MARKHAM, ON – Raj Shoan, Ontario Commissioner at the CRTC, will be the luncheon keynote speaker at Connection 2013, the Ontario Association of Broadcasters announced Friday.
Shoan was appointed to the Ontario Commissioner position in June and has broad public and private sector experience in communications law and regulatory affairs.
He previously served as the CBC/Radio Canada's director of regulatory affairs, where he led the Corp's…
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OTTAWA – The number of telemarketing complaints dropped in July, and fewer new phone or fax numbers were added to the country?'s national do not call list (DNCL) during this period compared to June 2013.
According to the Commission'?s most recent status report as of July 31, 37,386 new phone or fax numbers were added in July, a marked decrease from the 163,915 numbers added during May and June. A total of 11,858,562 numbers were registered with the DNCL as of July 31.
The total of telemarketing complaints filed in July was at 8,664,…
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GATINEAU – With weeks to go before the Local Programming Improvement Fund gets cut in half, two independent television stations that rely on it are seeking access to a different fund designed to help small-market stations.
CJON (NTV) in St. John's, NL, owned by Newfoundland Broadcasting, and CHEK in Victoria, which is owned in part by its employees who bought it from Canwest, have asked the CRTC to add their stations to the Small Market Local Production Fund. The fund was established in 2003, to help compensate small-market stations for the audience fragmentation caused by direct-to-home satellite distributors. Funded by…
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