QUISPAMSIS, NB — The Canadian Communication Systems Alliance (CCSA) said today it has called on the CRTC to stop Rogers Communications “from shutting down the satellite delivery of television signals to thousands of Canadians living in rural communities and the Far North.”
Just prior to the Commission’s March 24 approval of Rogers’ purchase of Shaw Communications, which includes Shaw Broadcast Services (SBS), “Shaw announced that a critical component of the SBS service, known as HITS-QT Plus, would be shut down by year end,” according to the CCSA’s press release.
The CCSA has been calling on the…
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By Howard Law
IT’S FIVE YEARS since the Public Policy Forum published The Shattered Mirror calling for Facebook and Google to become major funders of the journalism ecosystem that their digital advertising oligopoly impoverished.
Bill C-18 the Online News Act will do just that. The legislation is about a year behind the Liberal government’s schedule, having been derailed last spring by the Conservative filibuster of the Netflix Bill C-10 and a federal election.
That unanticipated delay after years of lobbying by news publishers discouraged most of them enough to sign take-it-or-leave-it deals with Google and Facebook on compensation for…
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Also proposes $5M for new Changing Narratives Fund
OTTAWA – While Minister of Canadian Heritage Pablo Rodriguez has sought to reassure Canadians the CRTC will have the resources it needs to take on the new responsibilities proposed for it in the recently introduced Bills C-11 and C-18, today’s budget provides a few actual details.
Tabled by the federal government today, Budget 2022 proposes to provide the CRTC with $8.5 million over two years, beginning in 2022-2023, “to establish a new legislative and regulatory regime to require digital platforms that generate revenues from the publication of news content to…
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OTTAWA – With lots of people busy posting spicy takes on the federal government’s recently introduced Bill C-18, it is worth a reminder we are coming up on a year since two major CRTC decisions were issued.
The first is the CRTC’s decision on mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), issued April 15, 2021, and the second is its decision on wholesale Internet rates, issued May 27, 2021.
Both have proved controversial, and CRTC chair Ian Scott has found himself in the position of defending each decision on multiple occasions in the past year. (You can catch up on…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC yesterday initiated a show cause proceeding and call for comments on the use of the term “manufacturer’s suggested retail price” (MSRP) in the Wireless Code.
The CRTC is examining the term after Quebecor submitted a letter to the Commission last March, which claimed it had observed Bell, Rogers (RCCI) and Telus “appear to be inflating the retail price of their mobile devices,” the CRTC’s notice of consultation says.
The retail price of mobile devices is relevant to the fees consumers are on the hook for if they terminate their wireless contracts early.
Termination costs are limited “to the…
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TORONTO – CRTC chair Ian Scott told Ryerson students last Friday the Commission supports the approach of the government’s Bill C-11, known as the Online Streaming Act, and indicated he agrees with Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez’s assertion that it will not regulate user-generated content.
In his speech, a copy of which was distributed by the CRTC today, Scott said that while some argue Bill C-11 will give the Commission the authority to regulate users’ content on social media sites, “That’s just not true.
“As it’s drafted at the moment, the Bill draws a distinction between the users of…
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OTTAWA – The National Post reported earlier this week the CRTC could be named the regulator in charge of the upcoming legislation that will compel platforms including Google and Facebook to share revenue with Canadian news organizations.
“Several industry sources told the National Post that, following meetings with the government, they expect the CRTC could be tasked with the new regime,” an article from the National Post says.
A government source told the newspaper the CRTC will have a “light touch” and “will not be doing the arbitration itself – that will be left to an independent arbiter that both…
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OTTAWA – Distributel Communications has asked the CRTC to revise the interim access rates for disaggregated wholesale high-speed access (HSA) services to bring them in line with those of aggregated HSA services.
In a Part 1 application posted to the CRTC’s website today, Distributel asks the Commission to establish the revised rates “to ensure that disaggregated HSA access rates are not higher than the access rates for aggregated HSA services where the access components for each HSA service use the same underlying technology and are within the same tariffed speed band.”
Distributel says the revised rates will remove a barrier “that…
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OTTAWA and GATINEAU — The CRTC announced today seven projects in British Columbia and Alberta will receive up to $19.5 million in funding from its Broadband Fund.
In total, the projects will benefit approximately 1,255 households in 10 communities, including seven Indigenous communities, across the two provinces, according to the CRTC’s press release.
A backgrounder for the announcement says the CRTC’s Broadband Fund will allocate the money to four service providers in the following way:
ATG Arrow Technology Group Limited Partnership (Arrow) will receive up to $4 million to build or improve fixed broadband Internet access services for…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC today approved the broadcast side of the merger between Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications, with several conditions attached.
The Commission concluded the transaction – when modified – “is in the public interest and advances the objectives set out for the Canadian broadcasting system in the Broadcasting Act,” its decision reads. “Canadians as consumers will benefit from this transaction.”
One of the conditions included in the decision requires Rogers to submit a revised tangible benefits proposal. Tangible benefits were a significant topic of discussion during the CRTC’s hearing last November.
Originally, Rogers proposed a tangible benefits package…
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