OTTAWA – The CRTC is calling for comments on a consolidated list of satellite services to be authorized for analog and digital distribution.
Specifically, the Commission hopes to combine the different sections, appendices and parts of the two lists, resulting in one list of non-Canadian services authorized for distribution by all Canadian distributors, regardless of the size or the technology used by the distributors. It also plans to remove references to Canadian services and harmonize the rights requirements for non-Canadian services.
Written comments are due by March 4, and replies to any of the comments must be received by March…
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GATINEAU – The Writers Guild of Canada (WGC) asked the CRTC to stick to its guns on the tangible benefits policy resulting from BCE’s proposed acquisition of CTV.
Appearing Thursday morning at the hearing into the transaction, the group said that “a strong benefits commitment to development is a commitment to both the industry and the audience”.
“This is not a fire sale – the CTV assets are strong businesses which BCE is acquiring for shareholder benefit”, said executive director Maureen Parker, in a statement. “It is building a fully integrated organization to carry it into a cross-platform future. BCE needs to live up…
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MONTREAL – Cogeco Cable urged the CRTC to keep close watch over the potential merger between Bell and CTV in order to “preserve competition and protect consumer interests”.
Appearing Wednesday morning at the hearing into the transaction in Gatineau, president and CEO Louis Audet stressed the importance of obtaining specific regulatory safeguards as soon as possible, and definitely before the upcoming vertical integration policy hearing in June, to “prevent abuse of the dominant position” that the new conglomerate would have if the transaction is approved.
"Ultimately, Canadian consumers risk footing the bill for concentration and vertical integration in the absence of greater oversight”, he…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has released its new rules for video-on-demand (VOD) services, plus exemptions for small VOD undertakings.
Highlights from the decision include:
– the definition of gross annual revenue for the purpose of calculating a VOD undertaking’s contribution to Canadian independent production funds;– the competition of subscription VOD (SVOD) packages with Canadian linear discretionary services;– the limits on advertising;– the prohibition relating to the acquisition of exclusive program rights;– the introduction of a reverse onus provision;– the obligation to remit to rights holders of Canadian feature films 100% of revenues earned from…
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OTTAWA – The Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology wants to talk to CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein about usage-based-billing.
Faced with a public furor over the issue, the committee has called a 90-minute meeting Thursday afternoon with von Finckenstein and telecom vice-chair Len Katz as the only ones scheduled to appear. They want the pair to explain the Commission’s stance on the usage based billing Internet Service Providers are allowed to charge their wholesale and retail clients.
We expect a lot of political grandstanding as politicians attempt to grapple with an issue they have demonstrated (except for one…
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GATINEAU – Seems as though Telus has a thing for former Canadian Cable Television Association presidents…
Former CBC executive vice-president Richard Stursberg made his first official industry appearance since he was let go by the Corp in the summer Wednesday in Gatineau.
He was appearing for Telus as an expert consultant during the big carrier’s appearance in front of the CRTC during day two of its hearing into the acquisition of CTV by BCE.
(Stursberg was president of the now defunct CCTA in the late 1990s and Telus’ SVP regulatory and government affairs, Michael Hennessy was the final CCTA president. The company…
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OTTAWA – A number of Wednesday evening published reports suggest that if the CRTC doesn’t alter its recent usage-based billing decision, federal cabinet will act to do it for the Regulator.
Click here, here and here to read some very similar stories on the matter.
Oh, and then there was this tweet (below) from Industry Minister Tony Clement last night to CBC Parliamentary Reporter Rosie Barton. Seems like it’s quashed.
It will be interesting to see how Thursday’s Industry Committee meeting, where CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein will face MPs, unfolds.
IT IS UNLIKELY THAT WE will see the elimination of usage sensitive pricing for the aggregated wholesale services that many internet services providers use to reach their customers (as I mentioned yesterday afternoon)
Usage is an efficient and fair cost allocation system for shared resources, as suggested in the National Post.
However, the currently mandated approach of applying charges on a per-user basis may need to give way to some form of aggregation in order to provide ISPs with sufficient flexibility to offer consumer increased choice among price plans.
A number of times, I have referred to the all-you-can-eat buffet…
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GATINEAU – While producers and others argued how and where the $220-million BCE/CTV benefits package should be spent, the two largest carriers without broadcast or specialty TV divisions warned the CRTC that something must be done to rein in the power a combined BCE/CTV will have.
While the Commission has long prohibited content exclusives on the TV side (CTV has to make Comedy Network available to all carriers and can’t sign an exclusive with any one or two), our exploding media world has all experimenting, looking for new business models and lines of revenue on new, unregulated, platforms.
Part of that…
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OTTAWA – It’s pretty safe to say that when the Prime Minister is moved enough by an issue to tweet about it, the country’s big ISPs are going to be feeling some heat.
Tuesday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, buffeted by the ever-growing digital wind which is howling about the CRTC’s usage-based billing decision of January 25th (and some UBB decisions before that), took to Twitter (well, his people who write that sort of stuff for him, anyway) to say that he has asked for a review of the decision.
This came a day after his Minister of Industry, Tony Clement,…
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