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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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OTTAWA – When Shaw Communications purchased Canwest Global’s TV assets last year, the Competition Bureau gave the transaction its blessing.
The Bureau’s statement on that deal said: “this transaction would not likely give rise to a substantial lessening or prevention of competition,” and rubber-stamped it.
No such simple approval was forthcoming from the Bureau today when it commented on the acquisition of CTV by BCE. Instead, it seems worried about the extent of vertical integration among big media companies and distributors in Canada. While the statement from Commissioner of Competition Melanie Aitken said “at this time”, the Bureau doesn’t have…
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GATINEAU – Tuesday afternoon, BCE president and CEO George Cope (who looked a little grey as he fought through a bad cold) was unequivocal when it came to MPEG-4 video compression technology: Without benefits money, the company won’t do that upgrade.
Ever.
Bell’s proposed benefits package proposes an MPEG-4 conversion for Bell Satellite TV that would then see it able to carry all local OTA TV stations which are eligible for the local programming improvement fund (LPIF is a fund created by the CRTC in 2009 to assist small local TV broadcasters). Those local ‘casters have long complained that the fact…
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MONTREAL and GATINEAU – On the first day of the CRTC hearing into the proposed marriage between BCE and CTV, the companies upped the tangible benefits package associated with the deal as a condition of approval of the transaction.
The new benefits package includes:
– Support for new Canadian independently produced programs of national interest, such as dramas, documentaries and new media content; – Enhanced local news content and HD news production, especially in the “underserved Western Canada market”, including 100 hours of incremental news programming a week and 80 new jobs in Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver;…
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TORONTO and MONTREAL – The sale of Corus’ Quebec radio stations to Cogeco Inc. was completed on Tuesday as planned, the companies announced.
Cogeco acquired Montreal stations CKAC-AM, CFQR-FM, CHMP-FM, CKOI-FM and regional stations CFEL-FM and CFOM-FM in Quebec City, CHLN-FM in Trois-Rivieres, CHLT-FM and CKOY-FM in Sherbrooke, CIME-FM in St-Jerome and CJRC-FM in Ottawa-Gatineau.
To comply with the CRTC’s decision and the common ownership policy limiting the number of FM radio stations that can be operated by any one owner in a given market, Cogeco confirmed that it will sell the two FM stations in Quebec City, plus 104.5 FM in the Sherbrooke market. The three…
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OTTAWA – Shaw Media wants to take a crack at sports broadcasting, while Astral hopes to add two new French-language services to its roster, according to 19 new broadcasting applications made public by the CRTC on Friday.
Shaw Media Sports will be an English-language category two channel airing competitive mainstream sports specialty programming, reads the application. Astral has asked for a channel called Investigation that will be devoted to exploring justice and forensic science, legal and police investigations, fraud and swindling, espionage, major trials and forensic pathology. It has also filed an application for a channel called Tendances which promises programming on fashion,…
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BURLINGTON, ON – Crossroads Television System (CTS) has dropped religious talk program Word TV from its schedule after claiming that the show breached the network’s code of ethics.
Word TV producer and host, Dr. Charles McVety, said last week that CTS was being pressured to censor Word TV. In a statement on Monday, CTS called those comments “inaccurate and misleading”, and said that not only did Word TV fail to keep its agreement to comply with the CTS code of ethics, it indicated a refusal to comply in the future. The broadcaster also said that “numerous attempts” to work with Dr. McVety were…
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