OTTAWA – The CRTC has given Bluepoint Investments the go ahead to proceed with its purchase of the Saskatchewan Communications Network (SCN).
The satellite-to-cable programming undertaking distributes educational programming in Saskatchewan. Bluepoint offered $350,000 for the provincial pubcaster just days before the Saskatchewan government was to pull the plug, as Cartt.ca reported.
The Commission also approved Bluepoint’s request to broadcast 14 minutes of advertising per hour during 63 hours per week, noting that “the requested flexibility in the commitments and conditions of licence will be in the public interest and will help preserve the diversity of programming choices in Saskatchewan…
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OTTAWA – Telecom consumers are still not getting the benefits promised to them by industry competition, and have received few benefits from government reforms designed to deregulate telecom services, says the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC).
The Ottawa-based consumer organization released a 218-page report Thursday stressing the need for reform of the regulation and performance of markets for telecom services. Specifically, the report calls on the government to rescind the Policy Direction of December 2006; establish a licensing regime for all carriers with codes of conduct for all licensees; and give the CRTC more powers and resources as recommended by the…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC’s new procedural rules for broadcasting and telecommunications proceedings will come in to effect on April 1, 2011.
While developing a set of rules that will apply to both sectors, the Commission said that it purged 29 sections and 13 forms to avoid duplication or because they were no longer necessary. For the next four months, broadcasting proceedings will continue to be conducted under the ‘CRTC Rules of Procedure’, and telecommunications proceedings will be carried out under the ‘CRTC Telecommunications Rules of Procedure’.
“I’m pleased that we have reached this important milestone in our efforts to adapt to…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has moved up the date of its hearing on Bell’s acquisition of CTV by a week.
The hearing will now begin on February 1st in Gatineau, rather than February 8, 2011, the Commission said Tuesday.
Click here for the revised meeting notice.
www.crtc.gc.ca
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WE JOURNALISTS JUST love our year-end lists, don’t we? They are everywhere. However, we don’t do predictions here. They only thing I have found to be certain when trying to predict the future is that nearly all the time, the predictions are wrong.
So instead, here’s our list of 10 open questions heading into 2011.
1. How much market share will the Telus and Bell Canada IPTV services take from incumbent cable companies? The user experience of the Microsoft Mediaroom-driven Optik TV and Fibe TV is just so darn good and so darn integrated (I’d switch just for the whole-home PVR…
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VANCOUVER – The city of Vancouver has waded into the usage-based Internet billing debate after issuing a motion that calls on the CRTC to disallow the practice.
Councillor Andrea Reimer introduced the motion at a City Council meeting late last week on behalf of the city’s residents. It was debated and eventually passed, though one councillor opposed the motion.
Reimer claimed that the CRTC’s usage-based billing policy, which allows telecom companies to impose a limit-based pricing system on the independent Internet service providers that purchase wholesale broadband from them, “will stifle innovation, harm job creation, and make it more difficult for individuals…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Bell Canada has paid a $1.3 million fine for violating the national do not call list rules, the CRTC announced late Monday.
Independent telemarketers hired by Bell Canada to promote and sell its television, telephone, wireless and Internet services made calls between January and October to consumers who had registered their numbers on the national Do Not Call List (DNCL), or who were, or should have been, on Bell Canada’s internal do not call list, acording to a CRTC investigation.
"All telemarketers must respect the wishes of Canadians who have registered their telephone number on the National DNCL or…
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KEITH PELLEY DOESN’T DO caffeine. He’s already wired.
“Can’t drink caffeine,” he says. “I don’t need the energy.”
Late this past summer, the unfailingly exuberant Pelley made the surprising leap from CTV to Rogers Media, jumping from the country’s biggest TV company, the highest rated national TV network and owner of TSN, the top-rated sports channel where Pelley began his TV career, to a far smaller TV business.
At the time, many considered Pelley the odds-on favourite to replace CTV CEO Ivan Fecan. Now, whether Pelley knew for sure the Bell folks were coming in and unlikely to give him the…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – A direct marketing company has agreed to pay a $500,000 penalty after being caught violating the country’s do not call list rules.
Xentel DM Inc., which has offices in Toronto, Calgary, and the U.S., paid the administrative monetary penalty to the Receiver General for Canada after receiving a notice of violation from the CRTC, the Commission said Friday.
A CRTC investigation found that Xentel made calls to consumers who had registered their numbers on the National Do Not Call List (DNCL) and promoted events on its own behalf or on the behalf of organizations that were not registered…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC has given Cogeco the green light to move forward with its acquisition of Corus Entertainment’s Quebec radio stations.
Friday’s decision included approval of Cogeco’s request for an exception to allow it to maintain a third FM station featuring a talk-radio format in the Montreal market, in addition to the two permitted by the common ownership policy. However, the CRTC refused Cogeco’s request to transform the CKOY-FM Sherbrooke station into a rebroadcasting transmitter of CKAC-AM Montréal, saying this would result “in the loss of a local voice in the Sherbrooke market”. It has asked Cogeco to divest itself…
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