SLAMMING THE CBC has become a too-easy sport for many Canadians (second only, perhaps, to slamming the CRTC). That harsh, hot criticism should be expected, however.
The CBC gets more than a billion dollars a year from Canadians (an amount that is likely to take a hit, come the March 29th federal budget), has to be made available to all of us everywhere and serve a mandate written into law – to be all things to all Canadians. Satisfying that mandate has been nearly impossible to fulfill for most of the CBC’s lifetime. So coast-to-coast-criticism, as those who work at…
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OTTAWA – Terrestrial pay-per-view service Viewer’s Choice is going national.
The service was granted permission from the CRTC Tuesday to amend its broadcasting licence from a regional service, serving Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces, to a national nature of service.
Viewers Choice is owned by Viewers Choice Canada Inc., which is majority owned by Astral Media with minority partners CTV and Rogers Media. Its programming includes movies, concerts, adult content and live sporting events such as boxing, wrestling, mixed marshal arts and special events like The World Series of Poker.
www.crtc.gc.ca
www.viewerschoice.ca
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TORONTO – Former CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein has joined the C. D. Howe Institute as an Institute Senior Fellow.
The C. D. Howe Institute is an independent not-for-profit organization that aims to raise Canadians’ living standards by fostering economically sound public policies. Wednesday’s announcement said that von Finckenstein’s areas of focus are communications law, dispute resolution, competition law, and mergers and acquisitions.
“Konrad von Finckenstein possesses extraordinary policy depth and range”, said Finn Poschmann, the Institute’s vice-president of research, in the announcement. “His record of public leadership is remarkable and his deep knowledge base will add tremendous capacity to our…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has received 22 applications for the coveted 88.1 FM slot in Toronto which vary from a $12 million CanCon promise from Newcap, to an all-business news station from Channel Zero, to a student-supported bid by Ryerson University to reclaim the frequency it lost last year when The school’s CKLN Radio was stripped of its licence.
CKLN Radio Inc had been broadcasting its community-based campus radio station at Ryerson University for 27 years until its licence was revoked in January, 2011 after it repeatedly failed to comply with federal broadcasting regulations over a number of years. But…
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TORONTO – Canadian Network Operators Consortium Inc. (CNOC) is appealing two CRTC decisions around wholesale Internet rates plus wants greater transparency in the regulatory process going forward.
Referring to the Commission’s usage-based billing decision which adopted a capacity-based rate structure alongside the traditional flat rate model for wholesale Internet services, CNOC called the capacity-based rates approved for incumbents Bell, Cogeco, Rogers and Videotron “inflated”, which therefore makes it difficult for independent Internet service providers to compete.
“The rates struck under the two decisions were made by the CRTC using a considerable amount of information filed in confidence by incumbents that interested parties, such…
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OTTAWA – Despite Rogers’ promise to drop its Internet traffic management practices (ITMP) this year, it appears as though the company still has a little explaining to do to the CRTC.
In a letter sent to Rogers this week, the Commission’s chief compliance and enforcement officer Andrea Rosen said that further testing uncovered another issue with Rogers’ technical ITMP which she described as a potential instance of non-compliance requiring immediate attention.
“It appears that Rogers applies a technical ITMP to unidentified TCP upload traffic, regardless of the port used, when traffic from certain popular P2P applications is or was recently present”,…
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OTTAWA – The biggest challenge the Canadian broadcasting industry is facing is a subset of distributors who are seeking lower rates for specialty services, Kevin Crull, president of Bell Media, told the Canadian Media Production Association’s annual Prime Time 2012 conference in Ottawa on Friday morning.
Crull spoke about this issue and other challenges Bell Media is facing in a interview style session with former CTV president, former head of CBC News and current professor, MBA program in arts and media administration, Schulich School of Business, Trina McQueen. Crull said this issue is more important than the group licensing regime…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has green-lit two new radio stations to serve the communities of Shelburne and Collingwood, ON.
After a public hearing last Fall, the Commission approved an application by Bayshore Broadcasting for a broadcasting licence to operate a new FM radio station with a contemporary country music format targeting listeners from 25 to 64 years of age to serve Shelburne.
The Commission also approved, in part, an application by MZ Media for a broadcasting licence to operate a new classical and fine arts radio station to serve Collingwood. The company, however, must provide an FM frequency other than 104.9…
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OTTAWA – The country’s national do not call list could run out of money by the end of March unless the CRTC and Industry Canada can establish long-term funding to continue investigating telemarketing complaints and enforcing compliance.
According to the Commission’s quarterly financial report for the period ended December 31, 2011, the lack of long-term funding for the DNCL continues to be “a challenge for workforce stability and staff retention”, and “failure to obtain additional funding beyond 2011?12 will put the continued operation of this activity at risk”.
To date, the CRTC’s investigation and enforcement activities have been funded by interim…
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GATINEAU – Independent distributors Cogeco Cable, Telus, EastLink, MTS and the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance still hate the terms of carriage offered to them by Bell Media for its specialty channels and so the parties will soon face mandatory mediation in front of a CRTC commissioner as the carriers continue to allege undue preference against Bell.
The carriers, together they are calling themselves the Canadian Independent Distributors Group (CIDG), all object to the carriage agreement put before them by Bell Media for all of the company’s specialty channels, as we have previously reported. Bell Media insists…
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