OTTAWA – The CRTC is expected to hand down its decision on group-based licence renewals for English-language television groups this week, Cartt.ca has learned.
After a week-long public hearing in April, it will be interesting to see how the Commission navigates the big broadcasters’ various takes on Canadian programming expenditure (CPE) and programs of national interest (PNI) proposals. Cartt.ca was there every step of the way during presentations made by Bell Media, Rogers Broadcasting, Corus Entertainment, and Shaw Media, as well as the Independent Broadcast Group which called on the CRTC to establish a new, flexible framework for…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Toronto will be getting a third area code within the next two years, the CRTC confirmed Friday.
Area code 437 will begin in March 2013 and will be in addition to the 647 area code which was rolled out in the original 416 region in 2000. The Commission also said that it would set aside the 387 area code for “future relief”.
The move comes in in response to the Canadian Numbering Administrator’s assessment that the region will run out of telephone numbers by July 2015. Existing customers will keep their current area code and phone numbers.
www.crtc.gc.ca
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The Weather Network and MétéoMédia have had their broadcasting licences renewed for a full seven years after pledging to continue to work towards finalizing a national emergency alert system in Canada.
The CRTC said Friday that the two weather services must continue to be offered as part of the basic television package, including the digital basic service, through 2018 provided that parent company Pelmorex Communications:
– ensures that the appropriate federal, provincial and territorial organizations, including Environment Canada, are authorized to issue alerts through its system by January 1, 2012;
– takes all necessary steps to ensure the participation of broadcasters and…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has approved, for the most part, the revised structural and operational plan proposed by the Community Radio Fund of Canada (CRFC).
The CRFC is a not-for-profit organization that supports the development of non-commercial, community-based broadcasters including campus radio stations. Its plan must receive CRTC approval before the organization can begin administering mandatory basic annual Canadian content development contributions from the big commercial radio broadcasters, as well as tangible benefits arising from transfers in the ownership of commercial radio undertakings.
The Commission said Wednesday that it would accept the plan once it was tweaked to include amendments related to…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC will roll out a new area code in Quebec starting next fall as the 819 region begins to run out of numbers three years earlier than originally anticipated.
Starting September 15, 2012, new telephone numbers assigned in the region currently covered by 819 may be given the area code 873, the Commission announced Wednesday.
Existing customers will keep their current area code and phone numbers.
www.crtc.gc.ca
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OTTAWA – As the CRTC turns to the gargantuan task of sorting through the issues surrounding usage-based billing, at least one of its Commissioners decided to have a little fun and flex his creative muscle upon the conclusion of the hearing.
An ode to UBB, as penned by Commissioner Timothy Denton:
On Usage Based Billing
On usage-based billing, oh let’s take a stab!Perhaps it’s no more than a revenue grab.Capacity constraints, which we try to fix,May be as real, as in IPv6.
Whose size is so large, so vast and so great,Like stars…
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OTTAWA – Canada’s satellite relay distribution undertakings (SRDUs) should be exempt from licensing requirements, say Canada’s only two SRDU operators – Shaw and Bell – in their submissions to the CRTC’s consultation on that market.
SRDUs transport broadcasting signals to broadcasting distribution undertakings (BDUs) that do not have access to fibre interconnections to receive their television signals, and, are often located in rural and remote parts of the country.
Both Shaw and Bell stress in their submissions dated July 11th that other technologies create enough competition in the signal transportation field to negate the need for licensing requirements….
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TORONTO – Shaw Media’s proposed new morning news shows and public affairs program have been shelved as the company grapples with a labour dispute that could result in a strike by its unionized workers later this summer.
After presenting a new collective agreement to the eastern bargaining unit of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers union (CEP) earlier this month, Shaw Media president Paul Robertson confirmed in a note to staff that the company is putting the new initiatives “on hold indefinitely”. “Despite our efforts to reach an agreement with the CEP, we are still in a very uncertain labour environment”,…
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GATINEAU – Tuning into the CRTC’s usage-based billing hearing on Monday morning, you may have thought that the Commission was dealing with urban planning issues around road congestion rather a billing model for wholesale Internet services. Several parties tried, at times convincingly, to rely on streets, side streets, on-ramps and cars on a road to parallel wholesale traffic congestion, where network investments would be required and just how those costs should be recovered.
After a somewhat technical exchange among the Commission, independent ISP group CNOC, and Bell Canada on network topology and what the independent ISPs actually pay for the use…
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GATINEAU – Today, Bell Canada backtracked from its two-tiered bandwidth rate structure in its aggregated volume pricing (AVP) model. The move is designed to address concerns raised by the CRTC last week that its approach penalizes independent internet service providers with higher rates for more capacity.
Under Bell’s original proposal, initial bandwidth would be charged at $0.195 cents per GB per month when the independent ISP pre-purchased capacity. If the indie Internet provider needed more, bandwidth would be charged at $0.295 cents per GB.
In opening remarks to its rebuttal during the second week of the Commission’s hearing into…
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