OTTAWA – Allarco Entertainment, owner of SuperChannel, has lost its bid to have Shaw Communications’ Movie Club and Corus Entertainment’s Movie Central banned by the CRTC. At the heart of the complaint was a dispute over whether on-demand programming offered by Shaw Movie Club can be considered an on-demand extension of its linear service if it does not duplicate all of its linear programming.
The CRTC decision is a welcome one for Shaw which launched its Movie Club service last year in direct response to the increasing competition from…
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MY FIRST MEETING WITH SHAW Communications president Peter Bissonnette in the winter of 1998 seems like a lifetime ago. It was in Richmond Hill, then the home base of Shaw’s substantial Ontario cable operations. I think it was February.
This was before Bissonnette was even president of the company. Before Shaw and Rogers traded their Ontario and British Columbia cable systems to each other. Before Izzy Asper and JR Shaw split up WIC (Western International Communications). Before the Shaw family spun its media assets into Corus Entertainment. Before a Jean Monty-led BCE bought CTV the first time, claiming – a…
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GATINEAU – A monthly per subscriber compensation regime proposed by CBC/Radio-Canada is being panned by its private sector opponents while the corporation’s foray into the digital arena is also being questioned by interveners to its licence renewal.
In its application, CBC said that it needs to be compensated for its signals because the broadcast distribution undertakings (cable, satellite and telco TV companies) are free riding and making money off the back of the corporation’s content. In essence, the public broadcaster is seeking a value for signal, or fee-for-carriage, regime. (The CRTC’s authority to implement such a model was Continue Reading
OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Spam, spam, spam, and deceptive toggling strategies used to be a wonderfully effective combination for businesses to flood unsuspecting consumers with their ads, but not anymore warns the CRTC. It issued two bulletins today (Guidelines on the interpretation of the Electronic Commerce Protection Regulations) and (Guidelines on the use of toggling to obtaining consent) that detail how the use of deceptive “toggling strategies” will be banned. Toggling strategies describe the deceptive practice of sending consumers a consent form that has a check-mark already ticked that confirms the recipient agrees to receive communications unless…
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GATINEAU – CBC/Radio-Canada is hearing static over plans for additional revenue generation on two of its radio properties. Interveners to the corporation’s licence renewal are telling the CRTC that it must deny a proposal from the public broadcaster to have national advertising on Radio 2 and Espace Musique.
In its licence renewal application, CBC says that because it received fewer federal dollars under its Parliamentary appropriation it needs to bolster revenue on the radio side so it can maintain existing levels of service. Several interveners argue that’s simply not true with Corus Entertainment saying it’s “a self-made problem.” Corus and…
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TORONTO – Returning to Toronto next month is the 2nd Annual Canadian ISP Summit presented by the Canadian Network Operator’s Consortium (CNOC).
Designed for ISPs large and small across the country and open to participants in the industry, the conference from November 4-6 at the Toronto Hilton will tackle both challenges and opportunities in the sector.
The summit attracts the best and brightest from…
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CANNES – Pierre Karl Péladeau went off script on Monday at MIPCOM to urge Ottawa and the CRTC to curb online regulations for broadcasters up against competition from Netflix and others like it.
As Canadian media leaders grabbed the spotlight in Cannes to forge stronger links with foreign partners and markets, the Quebecor president and CEO delivered a keynote address in which he bemoaned the failure of Canada to export its TV product to the world. “We can sell singing talents like Celine Dionne and Arcade Fire and Justin Bieber to the world,” Péladeau said during his media mastermind keynote…
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OTTAWA – Facing a slashed federal budget and an NHL lockout that could freeze out Hockey Night in Canada, Hubert Lacroix learned today he will continue on as head of CBC/Radio-Canada for another five years as the government reappointed him president and CEO for a second term. But it doesn’t get any easier for Lacroix as the CBC faces its first CRTC license renewal hearing in 13 years on November 19.
Cartt.ca had heard the rumours of his reappointment last month but the executives we had talked with were sure M Lacroix would be…
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PETER AND TONY VINER are a rare pair in the world of business, let alone broadcasting. The two brothers, separated by two years, each and on their own rose to the top of major, multi-billion dollar broadcasting businesses headed by two of Canada’s most celebrated entrepreneurs.
Peter, 67, helped the late Izzy Asper build Canwest Global into a multi-billion-dollar international media powerhouse before the company fell on hard, debt-burdened, times. Tony, 65, built Rogers Media from two Toronto radio stations (Ted Rogers’ famous first media asset, CHFI-FM, and CFTR-AM, now 680News) when he came on board in 1982 to a…
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WHILE CONCEDING THAT THE various accusations and complaints levelled against it over the past weeks and months show a high level of “competitive and financial tension” evident in the Canadian TV business nowadays, Bell Canada told the CRTC Friday that this tension should not impact the approval of its purchase of Astral Media.
In its final written reply to the CRTC hearing into the purchase, Bell Canada insisted its decision to buy Astral Media and all of its radio stations, TV properties and other assets is in the public interest and that only by owning the…
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