By Len St-Aubin, a policy consultant who has worked for clients including Netflix, and was a member of the policy teams that developed the 1991 Broadcasting Act and the 1993 Telecommunications Act
Online streaming has been the goose that laid the golden egg for original Canadian made-for-TV drama, comedy and documentaries, increasing production and budgets and winning global audiences.
Now the government and regulator are out to kill the goose. With the Online Streaming Act (Bill C-11) and the CRTC’s June 4 policy decision 2024-121, they are determined to apply to online streaming outdated and intrusive regulation that risks undermining CanCon’s…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Iristel is claiming that the CRTC made a mistake by not committing to investigating whether Bell contravened its tariff by allegedly refusing to add a point of presence in northern Quebec that would have allowed the far north service provider to move more call traffic.
The CRTC last month ordered Iristel to pay overdue bills to Bell and its subsidiary Northwestel – which is in the midst of being acquired by an indigenous consortium – after it found Iristel was not in the right to withhold funds on what it perceived to…
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The CRTC in a decision last week denied an April 2023 application from a group of six public interest organizations asking the commission to accelerate the payment of tangible benefits allocated to the Broadcasting Participation Fund (BPF) as part of the CRTC’s March 2022 approval of Rogers’s acquisition of Shaw’s broadcasting assets.
The group behind the application included the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, the Forum for Research and Policy in Communications, the Consumers’ Association of Canada (Manitoba), the Consumers Council of Canada, Option Consommateurs, and the Union des Consommateurs.
In its Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
Rogers has filed an application to the CRTC requesting that its latest gigabit internet speeds be temporarily exempt from speed matching requirements, which would otherwise provide wholesale-based competitors with the same speeds once its rates are approved.
The cable giant launched new gigabit speed packages this month, including symmetrical 1 Gig download and upload speeds, and 2 Gig download speeds with a choice of 1 Gig and 200 Mbps upload configurations. The new speeds will be over its older hybrid fibre-coax facilities which, unlike its last-mile fibre network, is subject to mandatory wholesaling.
The CRTC has a long-standing rule…
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The CRTC has approved the transfer of ownership and effective control of Indie88 (CIND-FM) to Local Radio Lab Inc. from Rock 95 Broadcasting Ltd., a subsidiary of Central Ontario Broadcasting.
The commission says it will issue a new broadcasting licence to Local Radio Lab to continue operating the Toronto alternative music station under the same terms and conditions as those currently in effect. The new licence will expire Aug. 31, 2026.
As part of its decision to approve the transaction, the commission requires Local Radio Lab to pay $500,203 in tangible benefits, to be paid in equal installments…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The Cable Public Affairs Channel (CPAC) is warning the CRTC that it cannot sustain its Parliamentary and public affairs programming beyond the broadcasting year ending in 2026 because the wholesale rate for broadcasters to carry the channel is too low.
CPAC filed a Part 1 application asking the regulator to consider increasing the rate to carry the channel on basic TV service by three cents to 16 cents per subscriber per month, effective September 1, 2026. CPAC said it had anticipated that it would have been able to bring this request in August 2024, which was the previous…
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By Connie Thiessen
Music Canada, which represents the interests of Canada’s major record labels, says the CRTC’s move to impose mandatory contributions on the biggest music streamers, could amount to a “cultural policy disaster.”
In June, the commission announced that online streaming services not affiliated with a Canadian broadcaster that make $25 million or more in Canada, must contribute five per cent of their Canadian revenues to support the Canadian broadcasting system under the Online Streaming Act. Starting in the 2024-25 broadcast year, the funds will be directed to areas of immediate need, including local radio and television…
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Court opines on meetings between the regulator and the regulated
By Ahmad Hathout
The Federal Court of Appeal has ruled this week that the CRTC has discretion in determining the method it uses to establish wholesale internet access rates, rejecting TekSavvy’s argument on appeal that the regulator failed to institute any method or technique when it rejected its own proposed lower wholesale rates based on methodological errors.
The CRTC had initially proposed significantly lower wholesale rates in a 2019 decision, which would have allowed independent service providers like TekSavvy to lease internet space from the larger players at a reduced cost. But…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Videotron’s Freedom Mobile announced Thursday all monthly plans will now include access to its 5G network and roaming in the United States and Mexico – including new low-cost options starting at $5 per month after a digital discount is applied.
With the $5 monthly digital discount applied across all plans, Freedom subscribers can now start at a mere $5 per month to get access to the next-generation network and roaming in the U.S. and Mexico with 100 MB of data, two hours of talk and unlimited texting. At $20, they can get 3 GB of data with two…
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The CRTC has approved an application from the CBC to exclude programming expenditures on the public broadcaster’s coverage of the Olympic and Paralympic Games from the calculation of its regulatory obligations relating to Canadian programming expenditures (CPE) and expenditures on programs of national interest (PNI).
In its Tuesday decision, the commission said it is granting the relief to CBC’s licensed English- and French-language audiovisual services with the recognition that CBC would have difficulty meeting its overall programming objectives and requirements if the application was denied, which would most likely result in the broadcaster reallocating spending currently slated…
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