OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Canada’s largest telephone companies must rebate $310.8 million to their urban home telephone customers plus bring broadband Internet to 287 rural and remote communities across the country, the CRTC said Tuesday.
Widely referred to as the deferral accounts decision, the CRTC has ordered that the initiatives be funded using the deferral accounts of Bell Canada, Bell Aliant, Telus and MTS Allstream, which, as of May 31, 2010, held $770 million (including interest). Of this amount, $310.8 million will be rebated to customers, while $421.9 million will be spent on broadband services in communities across five provinces by 2014. The…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Most stakeholders agree that the CRTC’s new community TV policy did little to lessen cable’s firm grip on the country’s community channels. But even some of the country’s biggest cable companies appear to have some concerns.
“The closed captioning component is going to be a challenge”, said Colette Watson, VP of Rogers TV, in an interview with Cartt.ca. “As of December 31st, the funding is frozen to the levels we’re at now for four years. That’s fine, we’ll make that work. The issue then becomes, if in that same time frame we have to caption 100%…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Canadians will now have more opportunities to participate in their community television channels, while cable companies must become more accountable and transparent with their channels’ funds, under the CRTC’s new community TV policy.
The Commission said Thursday that its new policy will require that community members be involved in the creation of at least half of a community channel’s programming. This means that the original idea for a program must come from members of the community, who must also be involved in some aspect of the production, whether in front or behind the camera.
Additionally, at least half of…
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OTTAWA – Specialty television networks Mystery TV, TVtropolis, Food Network Canada, HGTV Canada, History Television, The Independent Film Channel, Discovery Health Channel and Slice received CRTC approval to amend their broadcasting licences to add to the list of program categories from which they may draw, and to remove limitations on certain program categories.
The applicants said that the intent of their respective applications was to provide “additional programming flexibility”, consistent with the Commission’s policy set out in the regulatory framework.
Click here for more on Wednesday’s decision.
www.crtc.gc.ca
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OTTAWA – The financial and insurance industries must abide by the rules of the National Do Not Call List, the CRTC has decided.
After calling for comments in March, the Commission has amended its interpretation of the Unsolicited Telecommunications Rules to apply equally to the financial industry and the insurance industry, and determined that unsolicited calls by members of these industries to existing clients to sell or promote products or services constitute telemarketing calls.
“Consequently, the Rules are to apply equally to the financial and insurance industries, and in the same way they apply to all other industries”, Thursday’s decision…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC is poised to release two key policy decisions this week.
Cartt.ca has learned that the Commission’s community TV policy will most likely be released on Thursday, just days before Commissioner Michel Arpin’s last day as vice-chair broadcasting.
A number of groups including cable providers and industry organizations appeared before the CRTC at its public proceeding in April, as Cartt.ca reported. Click here and here for a recap.
Also due out this week is the CRTC’s criteria for assessing applications for mandatory distribution on the digital basic service. This could be particularly interesting for Quebecor Media in…
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OTTAWA – CBC/Radio-Canada will challenge the legal recourse filed by Canada’s Commissioner of Official Languages earlier this month “in the interest of protecting its programming independence”.
“The Commissioner of Official Languages should not have jurisdiction over the Corporation’s programming”, said Maryse Bertrand, CBC/Radio-Canada’s VP of real estate, legal services, and general counsel, in a statement. “It would be inappropriate for him, or another third party, to be able to dictate what kind of content CBC/Radio-Canada should air. It’s in the public interest that the Corporation’s editorial independence be protected. That independence is at the very heart of the public broadcaster’s…
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OTTAWA – Should broadband be deemed an essential service for all Canadians in the same way as basic telephone service?
Count the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) firmly on the ‘yes’ side of that question. In a new report called Is Broadband Basic Service, the Ottawa-based consumer organization details how Canada could benefit from such a plan, and how countries like Japan and the European Union have been successful thanks to policy and infrastructure investments that make broadband service a basic right for their citizens. All of which stands in contrast to Canada where no such regime exists –…
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WHY WOULD KEITH PELLEY move to Rogers Communications? That’s the question the industry is asking this week. There are many speculative answers, but let’s try to look at some facts before we lob our own opinion-grenades.
Pelley is a sports guy. A TV guy. A sports TV guy. He’s a heck of a broadcast executive who is still riding a massive wave of goodwill generated by the stellar Winter Olympics broadcast, one which he constructed from the ground up and oversaw. He and his people did a terrific job and with a bit of downtime between now and…
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OTTAWA – Depending on how you look at it, the CRTC sided with both Torstar and Rogers Communications over the carriage dispute of Torstar shopping channel ShopTV. Or neither.
After a public hearing on the matter last month, the Commission offered concessions to both parties in a decision Wednesday. It supported Torstar’s claim that Rogers is offside on the Commission’s 1:1 regulation which says for each BDU-owned channel carried, there must be a similar unaffiliated channel also offered.
“…the Commission determines that where Rogers is counting the House of Commons programming service as a third-party exempt service in order to…
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