OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC has postponed the CBC’s licence renewal hearing from this September until June 4, 2012.
The Commission said Friday that the decision was made for two reasons. First, in response to a request by the Quebec English-language Production Committee (QEPC) for the ‘pub caster’s “aggregate financial production information”, similar to that made available by the private English-language television broadcasters for their group-based licence renewals last April.
“The (CBC’s licence renewal application and appendices) do not provide the data that the commercial broadcasters publish in their annual independent production reports, such as the number of projects, aggregate length, region…
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CONSUMER ADVOCACY ORGANIZATION OpenMedia.ca said that it will boycott the CRTC’s “controversial hearing” on over-the-top (OTT) content. That is, if the matter ever progresses to a hearing.
As Cartt.ca reported in May, the Commission kicked off a month-long fact-finding exercise on over-the-top programming services in the Canada. The deadline for comments was Tuesday, July 5.
In a statement on Wednesday, the pro-Internet group accused the CRTC of becoming “overly entangled with the interests of powerful stakeholders", and said that the proceeding has been structured "to yield results that favour industry interests over Canadian interests”.
"The CRTC is supposed to work for the Canadian public,…
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GATINEAU – Shaw Communications used its submission to the CRTC on 2011-344 (the Commission’s fact-finding exercise on over-the-top video) to make some very specific requests the company says will bring regulatory parity between it and OTT providers such as Netflix.
The country’s largest BDU and second-largest broadcasting company wants the Commission to scale back and then eliminate the Canada Media Fund and abolish the Local Programming Improvement Fund, among other things.
Characterizing the entire Canadian TV regulatory framework as “no longer sustainable” in the face of global competition where Canadians can increasingly get access to media from anywhere at any time,…
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MANY TAKE IT AS GOSPEL in this business that without rules to force Canadian broadcasters to make (or at least pay for) and air Canadian content, they just wouldn’t. Instead, they’d more cheaply buy foreign (i.e. U.S.) television shows to fill out their entire schedule.
Go ahead. Ask anyone. We’ve all said it.
The record of regulatory resistance over the years mostly bears that opinion out – as do the prime time schedules of the major private conventional broadcasters. What I’m not sure about is whether that will continue to hold true in the future.
Now, the only prognosticating I’ll allow myself…
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GATINEAU – An annual report commissioned by the CRTC confirms what the telecom industry has been saying for a while about their broadband and wireless plans: It ain’t so bad here…
Prepared for the Commission by Ottawa’s Wall Communications, the annual “Price Comparisons of Wireline, Wireless and Internet Services in Canada and with Foreign Jurisdictions” report combines and averages wireline, wireless, broadband and bundled rates in Canada and compares them with plans with other international jurisdictions. The report found that while Canadian rates aren’t the most expensive, they aren’t the cheapest either, that while Canadian broadband speeds aren’t the fastest,…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has laid out the ground rules for its hearing into usage-based billing (UBB) which begins on Monday.
In a letter to stakeholders dated July 4th, the Commission instructed those planning to appear to “present their submissions at the oral hearing in as plain language as possible” and to “support their recommendations with appropriate rationale and to quantify the impact of these recommendations to the fullest extent possible”.
Oral submissions must be structured as follows:
1. Which of the billing models proposed by interveners should the Commission adopt?
2. If a usage component is adopted, which of the two different…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC will take a good look at broadcasting veteran Michael MacMillan’s plans to buy independent broadcaster Glassbox Television.
MacMillan’s company Blue Ant Media agreed to acquire Glassbox in April, as Cartt.ca reported. Glassbox, which is owned by a number of shareholders and controlled by a board of directors, owns and operates digital specialty channels Aux TV, Bite TV and recently acquired category 1 specialty channel Travel + Escape.
In the application, made public by the Commission on Tuesday, the total purchase price for the various transfers amounts to $32.5 million. Of that, $10 million is assigned to…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC is asking for feedback on new draft regulations meant to regulate certain forms of spam, or commercial electronic messages (CEMs).
The proposed regulations detail the form and certain information to be included in a CEM, and with respect to requests for consent for the sending of CEMs, the alteration of transmission data in electronic messages, plus the installation of computer programs.
Comments are due by August 29, 2011. For more on the proposed regulations, click here.
www.crtc.gc.ca
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OTTAWA – The CRTC will add a new programming category known as ‘Reality Television’ to its broadcasting regulations this fall.
Broadcasters must enter on their logs the program category associated with each program that they broadcast. This amendment will add the new category 11(b) Reality television to the schedule of program categories starting September 1st.
Click here for more on the new category.
www.crtc.gc.ca
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OTTAWA – The CRTC may grant a new radio licence to serve Calgary.
After receiving an application for a commercial radio service from Harvard Broadcasting Inc., the Commission said Thursday that it is opening up the process to other parties wishing to obtain a radio licence (or licences) to serve the city. It did note however, that applicants must prove that there is demand and a market for the station, and, that it has not reached any conclusion in regard to the licensing of any service at this time.
Applications will be evaluated on their quality, the diversity of voices in…
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