GATINEAU – When Bell Canada and Telus each spoke to the issue of exclusive content on Tuesday morning during their turns at the CRTC’s hearing into vertical integration of media and distribution companies, we thought to ourselves: “this, we’ve heard before.”
Telus, the biggest carrier in the country without media assets, is worried the likes of Rogers, Bell, Shaw and Quebecor will make acquiring ancillary content for wireless, online, and any other devices that pop up, too difficult or expensive – or give themselves unfair head starts, much to the disadvantage of Telus and other companies like it.
Allowing the Canadian…
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GATINEAU – With the deregulation of the mainstream sports and national news taking effect as of September 1st, the entire industry knew to brace itself for what TSN was about to ask for.
Having owned genre protection for two decades, TSN also owned a CRTC regulated rate of $1.07 per subscriber per month as long as a distributor kept the channel in its basic package.
But with genre protection going away (thanks to 2008-100), so is that rate. While the country’s most popular specialty channel won’t, of course, say what rate they are asking for from Canadian distributors (we’ve heard…
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TORONTO – Canadians need more time to weigh in on the licence renewals of the CBC’s various services, according to Friends of Canadian Broadcasting
The self-proclaimed independent watchdog for Canadian programming wrote an open letter to CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein on Monday asking to extend the deadline of the on-line consultation from July 18 to August 2 to allow ample time for “the first opportunity this century for Canadians to comment on the CBC’s performance under its Broadcasting Act mandate”.
“The Corporation’s statutory independence from political interference means that the Commission is uniquely placed to ensure accountability to…
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GATINEAU – We don’t only pay attention to the big companies and their primary talking points. Of course, we do end up telling their stories first, but there are always few other noteworthy hits during hearings such as this week’s CRTC proceeding on Vertical Integration.
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CRTC CHAIRMAN KONRAD von Finckenstein on Monday apologized for overstepping his bounds a little when he put the brakes on a line of questioning from new Commission vice-chair Tom Pentefountas. Rogers Communications EVP regulatory, Phil Lind had mentioned in the company’s opening statement how the CRTC should use this hearing to…
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GATINEAU – If the Canadian TV industry is to fend off the growing power of unregulated sources of video (yes, especially Netflix), exclusive deals on content must be allowed, Quebecor president and CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau told the CRTC Monday afternoon.
He was appearing in front of the Commission on day one of its hearing into the regulatory framework on vertically integrated corporations (those big four companies which own big broadcast assets and big distribution companies: Bell, Rogers, Shaw and Quebecor).
While noting “vertical integration is the only viable tool to allow us to protect the Canadian broadcast system,” Péladeau also…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC is asking Canadians to have their say on the country’s national broadcaster.
As it gears up to renew the CBC’s radio and television licences for the first time in 12 years this fall, the Commission has launched an on-line consultation seeking input that it will consider during the renewal hearing. That hearing is scheduled to begin on September 12, 2011, in Gatineau.
Specifically, it would like to hear from Canadians on the following questions:
– How can the CBC be relevant and meaningful in the future?– How can the CBC best deliver content to all Canadians?– Should…
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FOR THOSE AMONG you who use Twitter, you’ll recognize the hashtags in the headline. For those who don’t, the hashtags are those # signs attached to words or acronyms that help those of us who use and like Twitter to keep track of topics and conversations on the micro-blogging site.
There are a number of conversations I follow when I “tune in” to Twitter, like #CRTC and #UBB for example, or #cts11 during the recent Canadian Telecom Summit (although this week, that hashtag means California Travel Summit). This week, we have a new one, #ivi, which is…
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IN OUR EVER-MORE connected world, there are fewer secrets. People talk, they e-mail, they SMS, Facebook, tweet and YouTube.
They often use those outlets to speculate, pontificate, fustigate, postulate and guesstimate. Which means those “secrets” are sometimes true. Sometimes not. Sometimes educated guesses. Sometimes hopeful. Sometimes fuelled by less than good intentions.
So, it’s a good idea once in a while to take a few of those secrets and rumours floating around and ask someone in charge about them – and also to put the issues of the day facing our industry in front of someone at the top.
For this Cartt.ca…
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GATINEAU – There is no undue preference, no undue disadvantage in the fact that Sun TV News is not available to Bell Satellite TV customers.
In fact, it’s all Quebecor Media’s fault, according to a letter to the CRTC from Bell filed last week. Quebecor, Sun TV News’ owner, didn’t play fair, kept what it was doing a secret until the last minute and proposed a first offer that was a “take it or leave it” proposition according to Bell’s response to Quebecor’s complaint to the CRTC over the matter filed last month.
As first reported by Cartt.ca, Quebecor had…
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LOOKED AT THROUGH A Darwinian lens, the current Canadian television industry is at an evolutionary crossroads.
Changes in the ecosystem have resulted in a new species of TV-content provider: the non-Canadian, unregulated video sector, known as over-the-top (OTT). Among those migrating into the country are Netflix, Boxee, Apple and Google TV (oh, there are more – and more to come).
Like any addition to an environment, it’s changing the landscape, but the question is whether it’s a threat or will it be assimilated.
“We don’t see a big problem at this point. Look at OTT, whether Netflix or Apple TV or Google….
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