SASKATOON – Golden West Broadcasting says that it has learned its lesson. After being denied an opportunity to launch a FM radio station in Humboldt Sask. in 2008, the company has come back with facts in hand, demonstrating that it should be awarded the licence.
But Golden isn’t the only company vying for a FM radio station licence in the small Prairie market. Fabmar Communications Ltd., the owner of a regional FM station that covers Humboldt, Melfort and other areas, also wants a licence.
The two companies squared off during a CRTC hearing on Wednesday over who’s better positioned…
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OTTAWA and TORONTO – The CRTC has turned down CTV’s request to extend “interim regulatory flexibility” to it’s financially challenged /A stations.
In a decision on Thursday, the Commission told CTV that it could not cherry pick aspects of the group-based approach to the licensing of private television services policy “on a piecemeal basis, for example by approving a reduction in Canadian programming without imposing expenditure requirements”, or similarly, “eliminate requirements for priority programming without imposing requirements for programming of national interest”.
The Commission continued that it would be “unfair” to implement certain aspects for some licensees,…
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OTTAWA – Quebecor Media Inc. surprisingly revealed yesterday that the company was no longer going to seek “must carry” status for its Category 2 English language all news specialty channel Sun TV News.
The revelation marks a stunning reversal from previous statements that the channel required must carry status to be able to compete with the other specialty news stations, CTV Newsnet and CBC Newsworld (the company’s last application to the CRTC said without must-carry, the business case couldn’t work). Now the company says it will work within current CRTC rules, which will require Quebecor to negotiate carriage…
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GATINEAU – Be careful, dig deeper and have a look around at what other information is out there, the final submissions from several interveners tell the CRTC as the Regulator writes its decision allowing Shaw Communications to buy Canwest Global.
No CCAA discount
The Directors Guild of Canada insists in its submission that Shaw should be forced to pay the full 10% tangible benefits package – and for that matter, the company should be paying based on an even higher valuation of Canwest.
While the Commission and Shaw settled on a transaction valuation of $2.047 billion, that’s actually an amazing bargain, writes…
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TORONTO – The CRTC will wade into the choppy waters of a dispute between The Fight Network and its former owners, despite its earlier reluctance to do so.
As Cartt.ca reported in May, the Commission originally decided not to undertake a review of an application made by current owners, Fight Media, to effect a corporate reorganization so that the new company could acquire the category two digital specialty channel The Fight Network from its previous owners, The Fight Network Inc.
At that time, the Commission noted the existence of an ongoing civil proceeding in the Ontario Superior Court and…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC has asked CTV, Corus, Rogers and Canwest to explain how MTV Canada, Viva, G4 and TVTropolis do not violate their nature of service conditions of license.
Letters sent to the broadcasters in July (except in the case of Viva, which has been in a regulatory back-and-forth with the Commission on this issue dating back to its 2008 rebrand from Canadian Learning Television) by the CRTC’s executive director of broadcasting, Scott Hutton, ask each of them basically the same question.
To paraphrase, the CRTC wants to know how – given the programming on the channels and the way…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has published the list of analog transmitters mandated for digital conversion operating in mandatory markets.
The Commission established a baseline group of mandatory markets for transition to digital by August 31, 2011, which includes the National Capital Region and all provincial and territorial capitals, as well as markets served by multiple originating stations or with populations greater than 300,000.
Applications for conversion for mandatory markets – excluding Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa-Gatineau, Montréal, Québec and Halifax – are to be filed by no later than December 31, 2010.
www.crtc.gc.ca
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MONTREAL – The uniqueness of the Montreal market, the fact that there is only one AM station still operating in the region, and Astral’s significant radio holdings in the province should be all the evidence the CRTC needs to grant Cogeco an exemption to its radio station ownership policy, the company told the Commission this week.
The Regulator heard arguments this week on Cogeco’s proposed $80 million purchase of Corus Entertainment’s Quebec radio assets – and one of the major issues up for discussion was Cogeco’s ownership exemption request. If granted, it would allow the company to own three…
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GATINEAU – Three previously announced radio transactions will face the Commission in a non-appearing hearing in November, but their CRTC applications for permission show that there’s still a lot of value in Canadian radio.
Together, the three purchases total $65 million. Rogers is making two of them, buying London’s BOB-FM from CTV for $16 million and Edmonton’s The Bounce FM from a CTV and Milestone Media partnership for $22 million.
Click here and here for the hearing notice and to see the proposed benefits packages.
The most expensive station being acquired is in Toronto, of course. As Continue Reading
GATINEAU – Despite the fact that when compared to the likes of Rogers, Shaw, Bell, Telus, Videotron and Cogeco, Bragg Communications (EastLink) is pretty small, the CRTC told the company in a letter this week that it won’t be exempted from the CRTC’s requirement to file a public version of its aggregated annual return.
“In Broadcasting Regulatory Policy 2009-560 the Commission determined that the disclosure of the public version of the aggregated annual return filed by the large ownership groups, including Bragg, was in the public interest, and that any harm that would result from such disclosure did…
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