OTTAWA – The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) said that it “deplored the lack of vision” after the CRTC declined to create a fund for rural broadband access in Tuesday’s obligation to serve decision.
"If there is no rural broadband now, there will not be any more thanks to this decision," said PIAC counsel John Lawford, noting that the organization argued for a contribution fund for rural broadband access at the CRTC hearing last November. "You’re on your own Canada – see you at the bottom of the OECD broadband lists."
PIAC also described the CRTC decision to…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Bell TV and Shaw Direct must carry more local television stations, the CRTC said Wednesday while announcing its updated its satellite distribution policy.
Beginning September 1st, Canada’s two satellite distributors must offer an affiliate of each national television network; five English- and five French-language CBC stations – or as many CBC stations as are distributed from a private broadcasting group in either official language; one television station per province from each major Canadian broadcasting ownership group; and two stations from each of the other Canadian broadcasting ownership groups.
“Canadians in all markets should have access to their local…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC declined to add an American sports channel to its list of eligible services on Tuesday citing genre protection, a decision that prompted dissenting opinions from two of its commissioners who said that the policy is past its prime.
Rogers Communications asked the Commission to add Fox Cable Networks-owned Fuel TV to the digital lists last June. In its application, it described the channel as “an English-language programming service that offers a range of action sports programming portraying the lifestyle and culture of non-mainstream action sports and the underlying social relationships and communities of…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC has set a speed target for broadband Internet and has maintained the obligation for telephone companies to provide basic home telephone service in what’s widely known as its ‘obligation to serve’ decision released late Tuesday.
In what will surely be a surprise to the country’s telephone companies, the Commission mandated that all Canadians have access to broadband speeds of at least 5 Mbps for downloads and 1 Mbps for uploads by the end of 2015.
“A well-developed broadband infrastructure will serve as a gateway for Canadians to participate in the digital economy,” said CRTC chairman Konrad von…
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TORONTO – Quebecor’s Sun News was removed from the Bell TV satellite lineup at 10 a.m. this morning (Tuesday, May 3).
While the channel slot itself remains, the feed has been replaced with text telling customers that the channel “has been taken down at the request of the owners of Sun News."
According to Sun News head of development Luc Lavoie, Bell forced Quebecor’s hand and it had to demand signal removal. “They have carried the signal on their satellite without trying to even have an agreement with us,” he told Cartt.ca this morning.
When Sun News launched last month, it…
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TORONTO – According to a source with direct knowledge of the matter, Quebecor’s Sun News was removed from the Bell TV satellite lineup as of 10 a.m. this morning (Tuesday, May 3).
According to the source, and confirmed by another, the channel slot itself will remain but the feed has been replaced with text telling customers that the channel “has been taken down at the request of the owners of Sun News."
When Sun TV undertook its rebrand last month, Bell approached the CRTC to clarify under which license the newly branded channel fell under (either the old over-the-air license or…
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TORONTO – Quebecor’s Sun News was removed from the Bell TV satellite line-up at 10 a.m. this morning (Tuesday, May 3) but it turns out that this is but one of multiple disagreements that the companies have with each other.
While the Sun News channel slot itself remains, the feed has been replaced with text telling customers that the channel “has been taken down at the request of the owners of Sun News."
According to Sun News head of development Luc Lavoie, Bell forced Quebecor’s hand and it had to demand signal removal. “They have carried the signal on their satellite…
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TORONTO – The speaker list at the Canadian Telecom Summit gets better and better.
Bell Canada CEO George Cope will give the lunchtime keynote address on Thursday, June 2nd, the organizers, Mark Goldberg and Michael Sone, announced today.
Cope joins the likes of CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein, Videotron president and CEO Robert Dépatie, Rogers Communications’ Rob Bruce, Telus’ CFO Robert McFarlane, Nokia Siemens’ CTO Hossein Moiin, Microsoft Canada president Eric Gales and a host of others (including Cartt.ca editor and publisher Greg O’Brien, who will moderate the Regulatory Blockbuster Panel on Wednesday, June 1).
To learn more or to register, click…
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OTTAWA – Children’s channel BBC Kids has been officially sold to Knowledge-West Communications Corporation (KWCC) after the CRTC approved the transaction Friday.
KWCC is a subsidiary of Knowledge Network Corporation, British Columbia’s educational broadcaster. While KWCC paid $500,000 to Jasper Junior Broadcasting Inc., a division of Shaw Media, for the channel, the Commission agreed to waive any tangible benefits associated with the transaction, noting that the channel “has never achieved profitability” and that its distribution agreements with Canadian BDUs “had either expired or were on the verge of expiration”. The CRTC also acknowledged that KWCC “needs significant cash resources…
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TORONTO – The Writers Guild of Canada (WGC) is urging the CRTC to require Canadian broadcasters to stick to last year’s TV Policy, thereby living up to their obligations to Canadian audiences.
In a submission filed Friday as part of the Commission’s reply phase in the group-based licence renewal hearing, the WGC said that the 2010 TV Policy created a balanced framework in which broadcasters received programming flexibility and a reduced exhibition requirement in return for guaranteed commitments to making quality Canadian programming, particularly Programs of National Interest (PNI) like dramas, documentaries and awards shows.
"The WGC came into the licence renewal hearing respecting the…
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