GATINEAU – Bell TV and Shaw Direct used the rebuttal phase of the CRTC’s Direct-to-Home (DTH) policy hearing to make new proposals in hopes of showing good faith to the Commission and Canadian broadcasters that they are willing to do more to carry local over-the-air (OTA) signals.
On Thursday, Shaw proposed to add six virtual channels in MPEG4 by August 31, 2011. To do this, the company will upgrade a transponder to MPEG4, which requires it to drop eight full-time channels. The addition of virtual channels would require Commission approval.
Jean Brazeau, Shaw Communications’ senior VP of regulatory affairs, noted…
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GATINEAU – Canada’s DTH carriers must do a far better job of carrying French-language programming in all regions of Quebec, said the Bloc Québécois, the syndicat des communications de Radio-Canada (SCRC) and the CBC, who spoke in near unison at the CRTC’s Direct-to-Home policy hearing on Wednesday.
The three groups each took their turn on November 17, calling on the Commission to force the DTH companies to carry more French-language programming than they currently do. They noted that while the various regional TVA affiliates are carried by both DTH companies, the lack of Radio-Canada carriage is disconcerting.
Bloc MP Carole…
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OTTAWA – The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage begins its study of “the impacts of private television ownership changes and the move towards new viewing platforms,” today in Ottawa and will hear first from CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein and a group of independent Canadian broadcasters this afternoon.
Watch for the CRTC chairman (who will be joined by acting vice-chair, broadcasting, Rita Cugini and executive director, broadcasting, Scott Hutton) to speak to the recent merger announcements as well as the proceeding just called into the very same topic about which MPs will be grilling the Regulator’s representatives this afternoon.
As for…
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OTTAWA – CBC has submitted a new programming proposal to the CRTC for its category 1 specialty service known as bold.
As Cartt.ca reported, the Commission directed the CBC to come up with another programming strategy that was consistent with the channel’s original nature of service, (programming reflective of the living realities of rural Canadians), after rejecting the CBC’s first attempt last April. The CRTC also dictated that the channel’s nature of service must be sufficiently specific and representative of the programming strategy, and be non-competitive with any existing specialty services.
CBC’s application, which was made public on Wednesday,…
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TORONTO – Wind Mobile’s Toronto employees spent Wednesday preparing food hampers at the Daily Bread food bank to help bring a little holiday cheer to families in need.
The upstart wireless carrier began its ‘Random Acts of Kindness’ initiative after its launch was delayed by the CRTC last Fall. Employees were encouraged to use their time to give back to the community by doing good deeds that ranged from cleaning up local parks, to pumping gas, and handing out refreshments.
“The holiday season provides the perfect opportunity to bring back our Random Acts of Kindness program,” said chairman Anthony Lacavera, in…
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GATINEAU – Citing a significant lack of satellite capacity resulting from a few failures in the past two years, FreeHD Canada Inc. will have to delay service launch by one year. The news came to light at the CRTC’s Direct-to-Home (DTH) satellite TV policy hearings.
“After extensive discussions with the world’s leading satellite operators, insufficient satellite capacity is available for FreeHD Canada to launch in time for the August 31, 2011 digital transition,” said David Lewis, founder and CEO of FreeHD. “Accordingly, FreeHD Canada must delay its planned summer 2011 service launch to an anticipated launch date in…
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TORONTO – Wind Mobile’s complaint to the CRTC over its customers’ dropped calls due to so-called “hard handoffs” is not something the Commission needs to deal with, says Rogers Communications.
As reported by Cartt.ca, Wind wants the Commission to grant it soft handoffs so that its customers aren’t hung up on as they move beyond a Wind network zone as they talk. A hard handoff, for example, means a Wind customer call is cut off as she moves out of out of a Wind network zone into a Rogers area, which is Wind’s roaming partner. A soft, or seamless,…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC kicked off hearings into the Direct-to-Home (DTH) satellite TV policy yesterday with chair Konrad von Finckenstein questioning why Bell TV hasn’t yet started to transition to MPEG4, a move that would add more capacity to the company’s satellite distribution offering.
Under questioning from the chairman, Bell Canada acknowledged that it has yet to begin transitioning to the higher compression standard.
“We’re evaluating methods by which we may be able to stage that migration obviously because of the limited number of MPEG4 boxes that are in our installed base,” said Heather Tulk, senior VP of residential…
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OTTAWA – Fight Media has wrestled control of The Fight Network and Le Réseau des Combats from its former owners. At least for now.
After a public hearing on the matter last month, the CRTC approved an application by current owners Fight Media Inc. to acquire, as part of a corporate reorganization, the assets of the two Category 2 specialty television channels.
As Cartt.ca reported, the Commission originally decided not to review the application after learning of a lawsuit in the Ontario Superior Court which included, among others, the channel’s founder Mike Garrow.
In an e-mail to Cartt.ca, Garrow vowed…
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THE CAMPAIGN CALLING for a ban on usage-based-billing has caught the attention of Industry Minister Tony Clement, but that’s not enough for the group behind the ‘Stop the Meter’ initiative.
The SaveOurNet coalition called on Minister Clement to support an open Internet, and to request that the CRTC conduct regular audits of Internet service providers (ISPs) in order to prevent traffic shaping practices that discriminate against content or services. After the Twitter version of the petition was directed to his account, an email reply on Clement’s behalf was issued by Pamela Miller, director general of the Telecommunications Policy Branch of the federal government, to those…
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