OTTAWA – Blue Ant Media is paying $85 million to buy independent broadcaster High Fidelity HDTV, according to a CRTC application made public on Wednesday.
As Cartt.ca reported, the deal called for the company to initially purchase 29.9% of shares in High Fidelity HDTV and its four premium high definition television channels – Oasis HD, eqhd, radX and HIFI HD, with the remaining 70.1% closing subject to CRTC approval.
Led by broadcast veteran Michael MacMillan, Blue Ant Media holds a controlling interest in GlassBox Television, which operates Travel+Escape, Bite TV and Aux TV, as well as a minority interest…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Broadcasters and television service providers will have to turn down the volume on loud television commercials starting this September.
The Commission published its final regulations on Tuesday after calling for comments on draft regulations in December. The move follows a public hearing held in February 2011 in which Canadians flooded the CRTC with complaints about the excessive loudness of television commercials.
The regulations require Canadian broadcasters to adhere to the Advanced Television Systems Committee’s (ATSC) standard for measuring and controlling television signals to minimize fluctuations in loudness between programming and commercials. The Commission similarly amended the exemption order for BDUs…
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TORONTO – SCN was a publicly-owned educational broadcaster which the Saskatchewan provincial government decided to shutter in 2010. After some local complaints, the politicians instead made the decision to try and sell it.
After hearing mostly crickets, the only offer that didn’t include any ongoing government financial support came from Bluepoint Investments, a private company backed by a former advertising executive from Toronto, Bruce Claassen. Bluepoint’s $350,000 offer was accepted by the provincial government mere days before the plug was to be pulled on the broadcaster. Then, in approving the sale months later in early 2011,…
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STOP US IF you’ve heard this before: “Psst, I hear (insert name here) is going to be the next CRTC chair.”
Today it’s Jean-Pierre Blais, a former executive director, broadcasting at the CRTC (during CRTC chair Francoise Bertrand’s tenure), former assistant deputy minister of international and intergovernmental affairs and former ADM of cultural affairs both at the Department of Canadian Heritage – and current assistant secretary of the government operations sector at the Treasury Board. He was the senior bureaucrat in charge of the federal government’s pre-budget strategic and operating review, so he is quite familiar now to the Conservative…
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CAMBRIDGE, ON – The CRTC must move beyond its traditional “gatekeeper” approach to broadcasting to one that offers more flexibility and ensures “that the players in the broadcasting industry have all the oxygen they need to make the system flourish”, according to the Commission’s broadcasting vice-chair, Tom Pentefountas.
In a speech at the annual Broadcasting Invitational Summit in Cambridge late last week, Pentefountas advocated for a “less dogmatic approach to regulation” that takes advantage of "innovation from both the business and creative communities”.
“The Regulator should lay out the lines of the big picture, and leave it to the members of…
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OTTAWA – Canada’s biggest telecom companies have joined forces in calling for a national set of standards to regulate wireless contracts.
In a shared position statement submitted to the CRTC on Thursday, the regulatory heads of Bell, Rogers, Telus as well as the Public Interest Advocacy Center (PIAC), on behalf of the Consumers’ Association of Canada and Canada without Poverty, said that there is “a clear need” for the Commission to “lead an initiative involving all stakeholders with the ultimate objective of bringing cohesion and uniformity to this area for the benefit of consumers and the industry alike”.
Noting that five…
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OTTAWA – Novus Entertainment has received CRTC approval to begin offering its services in Toronto.
The independent telco currently provides TV, digital phone and Internet services to apartments, condominiums, and businesses in Metro Vancouver via a fibre optic network.
The Commission said Thursday that Novus’ broadcasting licence to operate a terrestrial broadcasting distribution undertaking will expire on August 31, 2018.
www.crtc.gc.ca
www.novusnow.ca
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has greenlit a new Canadian TV channel to be known as Bulb Televsion.
The specialty Category B service, headed by Evan Kosiner, is described as a national, English-language service that would offer programming consisting of innovative conferences, speakers and lectures from top Canadian and international presenters.
The channel’s licence will expire on August 31, 2018. Click here for more details.
www.crtc.gc.ca
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OTTAWA – The Competition Bureau confirmed Wednesday that it does not plan to challenge Rogers' acquisition of an ownership position in Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE). The Competition Bureau noted that it has one year following completion of such transactions during which it can bring the matter before the Competition Tribunal.
MLSE is Canada's largest sports and entertainment company, and owns and operates the Air Canada Centre, the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Toronto Raptors, the Toronto FC, the Toronto Marlies, Leafs TV and RaptorsTV. Rogers announced on December 9, 2011 that it, along with Bell…
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MONTREAL and TORONTO – Citytv is going to Montreal as Rogers Media announced the purchase of Metro 14 (CJNT-TV) from Channel Zero today.
While CJNT is licensed as a multicultural station, Rogers wants to spread the Citytv brand across the country and has chosen not to brand it an OMNI station, which is what its multicultural stations in Ontario, B.C. and Alberta are called.
Terms of the sale of the station were not disclosed (but we bet the sale price is for more than the 12 bucks Channel Zero bought it for from former owner Canwest Global…
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