By Steve Faguy
MONTREAL — The first paragraph of the CRTC’s decision to renew CBC/Radio-Canada’s TV and radio licenses was no surprise. The Commission is never going to deny a license to the national public broadcaster.
But many of the changes to its conditions of licence — and in particular the conditions it chose not to impose any more — are a major step toward implementing the new philosophies of the Ian Scott-led Commission. And that step does not come without some resistance — including from within the Commission.
Four paragraphs into the introduction of its mammoth, 68,000-word renewal decision issued…
Continue Reading
Two dissenting positions included with final decision
OTTAWA – The CRTC is forcing national public broadcaster Société Radio-Canada (SRC) to make a public written apology to a complainant who asked the Commission to reconsider the findings of the SRC’s French services ombudsman regarding the use of the “N-word” in French on the program Le 15-18.
A decision on the matter, issued today, specifies the SRC is also required to report to the Commission by Sept. 27 “on internal measures and programming best practices that it will put in place to ensure that it better addresses similar issues in the future.”
As…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – City Wide Communications, a Dartmouth, N.S.-based independent telecommunications service provider, has asked the CRTC to review and vary its recent decision to deny City Wide’s 2020 application asking the Commission to order Bragg Communications (Eastlink) to move its third-party Internet access (TPIA) point of interconnection (POI) in Nova Scotia from its current location in the rural community of Pennant Point to a location in the core of Halifax.
In a decision issued on March 25, 2022, the Commission noted it found “that while Eastlink is subjecting City Wide to a disadvantage and providing itself with a…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – The CRTC said today that telecommunications service providers will have to adhere to a regime that will set a minimum standard for blocking botnet traffic, which it said constitutes a “significant issue for cyber security, both in terms of volume and severity of harm.”
Botnets are networks of malware-infected devices that are controlled from a central location and used to do things like steal data and/or send an overwhelming number of communications to a server, which causes it to fail (denial-of-service attack). The increasing number of internet-connected devices coming to market, a lot largely with flimsy security measures, are…
Continue Reading
Licencing decision gives CBC more latitude, concerning some commissioners about mandate
GATINEAU — Canada’s broadcasting regulator is taking a new approach to the objectives of the government-funded CBC/Radio-Canada Wednesday, as it shifts the focus on spending over certain hourly quotas in the hopes of supporting a broader range of diverse Canadian programming over more platforms.
Following a lengthy proceeding that included a 14-day public hearing in January 2021, the CRTC announced today the five-year renewal of CBC/Radio-Canada’s broadcasting licences until August 31, 2027, saying the commission is adopting a “modern approach”…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU — Following a lengthy proceeding that included a 14-day public hearing in January 2021, the CRTC announced today the five-year renewal of CBC/Radio-Canada’s broadcasting licences until August 31, 2027, saying the commission is adopting a “modern approach” for the public broadcaster’s traditional and digital services.
“The emergence of online platforms has changed the way Canadians consume audio and audiovisual content, including the CBC/Radio-Canada’s programming. The CRTC is adapting the way in which it regulates the national public broadcaster to provide it with more flexibility to fulfill its mandate across traditional and online platforms, while recognizing…
Continue Reading
BILL C-11, THE Online Streaming Act, rightly raises important questions about transparency and trust — but not necessarily the ones that its critics would have you think.
I believe that C-11 is generally a good law that does what it purports to do: modernize the Broadcasting Act to ensure that online streamers and platforms play by the same rules as Canadian broadcasters do when it comes to investing in and promoting Canadian content….
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – It has been well over a year since the federal government sent the CRTC a letter asking it to come up with a three-digit suicide crisis support phone number.
Last June, the CRTC opened a proceeding asking for comments on the implementation of such a number. The original deadline for submissions was Sept. 1, 2022, but on Nov. 30, the Commission extended the deadlines for interventions to January 31, 2022, and the deadline for replies to March 17, 2022.
It is unclear at this point how much longer Canadians will have to wait to have the phone…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA and GATINEAU — Having determined last year Bell Canada violated the Telecommunications Act by denying Videotron access to Bell’s support structures such as telephone poles, the CRTC announced today it has imposed a total of $7.5 million in penalties on Bell for three violations of the act.
“The CRTC found that Bell Canada denied permit applications for access to its telephone poles from Videotron, its main competitor in Quebec. As a result, Videotron was not able to access Bell Canada’s poles, which delayed its network deployment and created a competitive advantage for Bell Canada,” reads a CRTC Continue Reading
By Bill Roberts
BANFF – One of the more nicely grounded sessions so far at the 2022 Banff World Media Festival (BWMF) featured Ian Scott (above, right), chairperson and CEO of the CRTC, and was moderated by Monika Ille (left), CEO of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network Inc. (APTN).
APTN has long been concerned that smaller broadcasters like theirs would be at risk under Bill C-11 because they do not possess the market clout to negotiate with online, streaming distributors without CRTC help.
So, it was a nice piece of meaningful and enlightened programming to have the accomplished and trilingual Ille in…
Continue Reading
