OTTAWA – The CRTC has turned down CBC’s request to amend the broadcast licence of its specialty channel bold, instead giving it a month to come up with another programming strategy.
As Cartt.ca has reported, CBC re-launched its Country Canada category 1 specialty channel as bold on March 27 2008, after telling the CRTC that the change could be done without amending its original nature of service. But the Commission disagreed, and scheduled a hearing to determine whether the way that CBC re-branded the channel had negatively impacted “the integrity of the licensing process”. The CRTC eventually suspended the…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Ontario’s rapidly growing 905 region will become the first territory in Canada to have a third area code.
The CRTC has announced that new telephone numbers assigned in the regions around Toronto may be given the area code 365 starting March 25, 2013, in order to manage the telephone number shortage that will affect the areas currently covered by area codes 289 and 905.
These measures are being implemented in response to the Canadian Numbering Administrator’s warning that the region is expected to run out of telephone numbers by March 2014. Existing customers will keep their current area code and…
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OTTAWA – It’s time to open up Canada’s telecom borders to foreign investment, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development told the federal government this morning.
Dimitri Ypsilanti, head of the information, communications and consumer policy division directorate on science, technology and industry with the OECD in Paris discounted the both cultural and network sensitivity reasons for maintaining foreign investment restrictions in telecom during his chat this morning with the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology which is examining the rules on foreign investment in Canadian telecom companies.
“There’s no reason in my mind to believe that foreign telecom network…
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PLESSISVILLE, QC – Community channels should have the right to sell local advertising to help fund new programming, says The Federation of Autonomous Community Television of Quebec.
The group, who plans to appear at this month’s CRTC community channel policy review hearing, says community channels are “in urgent need” of additional sources of funding to upgrade facilities to in order to ensure that they can produce digital and high definition programming.
"The permission to present traditional advertising would bring an increase in local revenues certainly higher than those of the sponsorship as it is currently practiced”, said Federation…
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IN CANADIAN TELEVISIONVILLE, the big stories of past couple weeks have been a new TV policy release from the CRTC and the release of the new CMF (Canada Media Fund) guidelines. But in my opinion, there is an even bigger story out there that hasn’t been getting near the press it deserves… though it was recently touched on by Karen Mazurkewich in the Financial Post.
Canuck content providers are getting killed, as Mazurkewich’s story reads:
Arnie Gelbart has survived the cyclical waves of the Canadian broadcast industry before. But there is no way to sugarcoat this recession. "It’s…
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OTTAWA – CRTC audits of the community channels operated by some of Canada’s biggest cable companies show “numerous abuses”, according to the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS).
From 2002 through 2005 (the last year in which the CRTC monitored them), CACTUS said that the audits prove that cable companies “routinely” exceeded the maximum of two minutes per hour of promotional ads, and the 15-second limit for sponsorship messages.
Calling out Rogers in particular, CACTUS said that one of its OHL hockey programs contained 24 ads in one episode, plus another 41 ads two nights later, yet none of…
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KINCARDINE, ON – Bryan Walden just wants a chance to compete.
The president of Kincardine Cable has asked the CRTC to level the playing field and allow small cable companies like his the chance to offer local telephone service to their customers, in the same way that the independent telcos in his rural region can offer television services – or that big cable companies can offer in their urban territories.
But a leftover protection in our telecommunications regulations is standing in his way and he’d like to know why.
“(The CRTC) opened local exchange competition years ago, saying the small (telcos should) have…
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AS OF YESTERDAY, there were 17 months left for Canada to make the transition from analog over-the-air TV broadcasting to digital. Given the lack of action so far, hitting the August 31, 2011 deadline for the shut off of analog TV is now nearly impossible.
Everyone in and around the industry knows it. Everyone. It was openly talked about during the two CRTC hearings in the fall. It was as if the deadline meant nothing. But few want to acknowledge the industry’s and the federal government’s failure to act. In fact, as you’ll read, the federal government still hasn’t even…
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TORONTO – Bell Canada had some strong words for the CRTC on the way it reported the financial results of Canadian broadcasting distributors and conventional television stations last month.
In a letter addressed to CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein dated March 29, Bell accused the Commission of not reporting the industry’s financial data “in a factual and complete manner”, and offered its recommendations on how to do so.
According to Bell, the primary profitability measure reported by the Commission, profit before interest and taxes (PBIT), does not take into account the yearly capital investments that BDUs make.
“Nowhere is it reported…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has changed its mind about accepting applications for new Category A services.
In a broadcasting public notice issued in October 2008, the Commission said that it would consider applications for new Category A services filed on or before April 1 2010, with a view to issuing decisions before August 31, 2011.
However, in a bulletin on Wednesday, the CRTC said that in light of the “significant changes” experienced by the broadcasting industry of late, “(i)t is the Commission’s view that the broadcasting industry needs sufficient time to adapt to these changes and, therefore, that the introduction…
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