TORONTO – Quebecor has asked the CRTC to intervene in its battle with Bell over Sun News.
As first reported by Cartt.ca, the new Quebecor’s news-talk channel was removed from the Bell TV satellite line-up at 10 a.m. Tuesday, May 3, and while Quebecor claims this is clearly a matter of undue preference under sections 9(1) and 9(2) of the Broadcast Distribution Regulations, Bell says that simply isn’t so and is but one of multiple disagreements the companies have with each other.
While the Sun News channel slot itself remains, the feed has been replaced with text telling customers that…
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OTTAWA – CBC/Radio-Canada applauds the CRTC’s decision to have satellite television providers carry more local television stations, noting it could be the shot in the arm that some of them need.
Responding to Wednesday’s revised satellite distribution policy, the Corp called the new rules “a critical step” in strengthening local programming in Canada.
“Local stations provide a fundamental public service to their communities”, said Steven Guiton, VP and chief regulatory officer, in a statement. “They help citizens connect with their local government, businesses, schools and community organizations. They help define, build and sustain the local culture and local democracy. Our five-year strategy,…
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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 – 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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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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THE INCENTIVES FOR THE great, big vertically integrated Canadian cabletelbroadcellcasters to act unfairly towards everybody else has become too great to ignore and new protections against potential perils are needed, say many companies in their submissions to the CRTC ahead of June’s hearing into vertical integration.
(Editor’s note: This preview originally ran on April 29th. We’re re-running it here as a preview of the hearing, which gets under way Monday in Ottawa with Rogers first up. As usual, Cartt.ca will be there. But if you can’t be there, it will be streamed live on cpac.ca – and available for…
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