OTTAWA – Wind Mobile has asked the CRTC to step in to try and make sure its customers’ calls aren’t repeatedly fumbled with so-called “hard handoffs” from its roaming provider Rogers Communications.
Wind wants the Commission to toss a flag on Rogers and grant it seamless, or soft, handoffs. A hard handoff, for example, means a Wind customer call is cut off as he moves out of out of a Wind network zone into a Rogers area. A soft handoff would mean the call isn’t dropped as the subscriber moved from network to network while chatting.
In a Part VII filed…
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TORONTO – Bell Satellite TV has added three new local OTA signals to its channel lineup: CTV Ottawa, CBC Edmonton and CBC Regina.
“Bell Satellite TV subscribers in eastern Ontario and western Quebec, as well as across the country, can now access the region’s leading local news broadcasts from CTV Ottawa,” said Louis Douville, CTV Ottawa VP and GM, in a release.
“We are responding to our customers in Ottawa-Gatineau who have told us they want to see their #1 local channel on Canada’s premier satellite television service,” added Heather Tulk, Bell’s SVP, residential products. Bell Satellite TV has 1.9 million…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has announced plans to resume the hearing that it began in May about the community-based campus radio station CKLN-FM Toronto, plus has added more information to its public file.
The Commission originally adjourned the hearing in Toronto on May 12 due to on-going litigation and judicial mediation before the Ontario Superior Court concerning the governance of CKLN Radio and the legitimacy of the current board of directors. The hearing has been rescheduled for December 8, 2010 at 9 a.m. at the Doubletree by Hilton – Toronto Airport in Toronto.
The deadline for interventions on the additional…
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OTTAWA – TVA received CRTC approval for two new category two specialty television stations on Wednesday.
The first is for TVA Mode, a national, French-language general-interest channel that will offer programming intended for men and women dedicated to fashion, beauty and personal well-being. The application says that programming would include Québécois, Canadian and international fashion shows, various magazines covering the world of fashion and beauty trends in a problem/solution approach, and programs offering vignettes and features dedicated to trends, products and personal well-being. The licence will expire August 31, 2017.
The second is for Star Système, a national, French-language high definition channel…
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TORONTO – The Directors Guild of Canada (DGC) says that it lauds the CRTC’s recent decision to reject requests from Rogers and CTVglobemedia to reduce their Canadian content requirements in order to provide increased programming flexibility for their conventional television stations.
In a statement on Tuesday, the organization accused the broadcasters of “making Canadian programming the scapegoat for Canadian broadcasters’ difficulties”.
“The Commission made the right call. The group licensing policy is a single framework for the television sector, and not a collection of individual policies that can be cherry-picked to suit the broadcasters’ purposes or applied inconsistently across competitive…
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TORONTO – Retiring CTV CEO Ivan Fecan worked in TV all of his life. He was a producer, director and executive at a number of levels. As CEO, he knows all there is to know about how TV in Canada works.
The background of the new CTV CEO-to-be is far different.
Kevin Crull, president of residential services at Bell Canada (CTV’s new parent, pending regulatory approvals) was appointed COO today. He takes the job January 1st and will become CEO once Fecan retires when the Bell acquisition is closed sometime in early 2011.
While Crull knows he’s going to have…
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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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