OTTAWA – CTVglobemedia Inc. says that it stands to lose up to $6.5 million in advertising revenue just by airing two public service announcements (PSAs) about the impact of the upcoming digital transition on over-the-air TV viewers.
According to the CRTC’s proposed regulations for the digital TV transition, broadcasters must begin airing the two PSAs no later than March 31, 2011. The first, which must will air six times per day to start and eight times daily beginning one month prior to the shut off, will inform viewers that analog OTA signals will cease on August 31, 2011. At least 25% of the PSAs must run…
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TORONTO – Corus Entertainment said that it will oppose Astral’s applications challenging the CRTC’s approval of the sale of Corus’ Quebec radio stations to Cogeco.
Corus said Thursday that like Cogeco, it “considers that the applications filed by Astral are without merit”. It also confirmed that it will continue with the process to effect the closing of the transaction on February 1, 2011.
As Cartt.ca reported earlier this week, Astral Radio is appealing the CRTC’s decision to allow Cogeco to maintain a third radio station in the Montreal market, an exemption to the Commission’s common ownership policy. It filed a…
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CALGARY – The acquisition of CanWest plus some one time CRTC fees battered Shaw’s first quarter profits, driving them down 82%.
Shaw said Thursday that its net income for the three month period ended November 30, 2010 plunged to $20 million, compared to $114 million for the same period last year. The current period included a $139 million charge for the discounted value of the $180 million CRTC benefit obligation related to the acquisition of CanWest (now Shaw Media), plus a one-time CRTC Part II fee recovery fee. Consolidated revenue of $1.08 billion was up 19% over the comparable period last…
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TORONTO – Canada’s largest accessibility organizations are calling on the CRTC to divert a portion of vertical integration transactions – like Bell and CTV – to a fund that would help broadcasters make their content 100% accessible.
The Access 2020 Coalition has proposed that 1% of all TV ownership transactions from 2010 until 2015 be allocated to accessibility research, including standards development and systematic, third-party monitoring of progress towards full accessibility in terms of captioning and described video.
“The tools to make TV accessible were invented more than thirty years ago,” said Beverley Milligan, on behalf of Media Access Canada which is…
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MONTREAL – Astral Radio is appealing the CRTC’s decision to allow Cogeco to maintain a third radio station in the Montreal market, claiming the move “disrupts the competitive equilibrium”.
In a motion filed with the Federal Court of Appeal on Tuesday, Astral called the decision “prejudicial”, and said that it “puts an end to nearly twelve years of consistent application” of the common ownership policy. The common ownership policy limits ownership to two FM stations of the same language in a market. The Commission let Cogeco keep a third FM station in Montreal as part of its overall approval of Cogeco’s plan to purchase of Corus’ Quebec radio assets.
"The sudden lack of predictability…
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HALIFAX – Nova Scotia has begun testing a provincial emergency alerting system that could send urgent public safety alerts directly to air on radio stations across the province.
"This new system will save time when seconds count," said Ramona Jennex, Minister of Emergency Management, in a statement. "It will enable emergency officials to send critical public safety information directly to broadcasters and, in the most urgent situations, directly to air. The sooner the public has the information they need in a crisis the faster they can take action to protect themselves and their loved ones."
Nova Scotia is the second province…
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TORONTO – The Canadian broadcast and telecom industries appear to have plenty to say about the proposed merger of Bell and CTV. With comments and interventions due on Tuesday, three weeks in advance of the CRTC hearing, most stakeholders offered their conditional support, but only with safeguards in place to preserve industry competition.
Rogers tied its support of the deal to Bell’s continued opposition to the issue of value-for-signal (a.k.a. fee-for-carriage). Bell, Rogers, Cogeco, Shaw and Telus at one point banded together to challenge the CRTC before the Federal Court of Appeal arguing that the Commission lacks the power…
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OTTAWA – The Commission has approved revisions to the monthly recurring rates and service charge rates for wholesale unbundled loops in Bell Aliant’s and Bell Canada’s incumbent operating territories in Ontario and Quebec.
Incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) are required to unbundle their local access facilities and make them available on a wholesale basis to competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs). These unbundled local access facilities are referred to as ‘unbundled loops’ and are used by CLECs to provide connections for services between individual customer premises and an ILEC’s central offices.
Telecom analyst Mark Goldberg said in a blog post that the…
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OTTAWA – It was good to be a TV distributor in 2010.
That’s the message we see in the CRTC’s aggregate financial data recently posted on the Commission’s web site. Expenses are up (in some cases, way up), but then again, so was revenue, and profits.
• According to the data submitted to the Commission by the big cable and satellite companies for the 2010 broadcast year (ended August 31, 2010), the largest six companies (Shaw, Bell, Rogers, Videotron, Cogeco and Bragg) together earned $12.15 billion in revenue from their video, high speed internet and VOIP telephone services (the data does…
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WHILE MASSIVE SPENDING cuts at one bankrupt broadcaster led it back into the black in 2010, another that was home to the Olympics saw the Games both boost – and drag down – results.
According to the aggregate financial data submitted to the CRTC by all English and French language OTA broadcasters and posted to the Commission web site recently, all lost money, save two.
• Those two are Quebecor Media’s TVA (which recorded a PBIT of $49 million in the 2010 broadcast year (ended August 31, 2010) and the former Canwest Global stations (now part of Shaw Media) which…
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