OTTAWA – The CRTC has revised the framework for expanded local calling areas (LCA) in markets that contain only regulated exchanges.
The Commission issued a call for comments in June 2008 on whether and how the expanded LCA regulatory framework should be modified to take into consideration the fact that local residential and business services have been forborne from regulation in many exchanges.
Citing “significant developments” in the telecommunications industry in both competition and technology, the CRTC eliminated the expanded LCA regulatory framework in markets that include at least one forborne exchange. It did, however opt to retain the…
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OTTAWA – The tightly knit nature of the telecommunications and broadcasting sectors makes it impossible to open telecom markets to greater foreign investment without negatively affecting Canadian culture in some way, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting told the Standing Committee on Industry this week.
Ian Morrison, a spokesperson for Friends, highlighted the integrated nature of Canada’s largest communications and broadcasting companies during his opening remarks pointing Rogers Communications, Bell Canada and Quebecor. If Rogers were owned by foreigners, it would have to sell Rogers Media. Similarly, Bell couldn’t control Bell TV, he said.
“Disposing of these key broadcasting assets would…
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OTTAWA – Broadcast visionary Moses Znaimer is officially back in the television business.
The CRTC approved the purchase of VisionTV’s broadcasting assets by Znaimer’s company ZoomerMedia on Tuesday. The deal, valued at $25 million, includes the multi-faith and multicultural channel VisionTV, diginet One: the Body, Mind & Spirit channel, and the conventional TV stations Joytv 10 in Vancouver and Joytv 11 in Winnipeg, as Cartt.ca reported.
ZoomerMedia was also granted a new broadcasting licence to continue the operation of VisionTV under the same terms and conditions as those in effect under the current licence. The licence expires August 31,…
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OTTAWA – “There is a concern that these restrictions are impairing the growth and competitiveness of the industry to the detriment of consumers and the industry as a whole,” said Marta Morgan, not wasting any time getting to the point during the opening of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology hearings on foreign investment restrictions in telecommunications last week.
Morgan, the assistant deputy minister of the strategic policy sector at Industry Canada, and two other Industry officials appeared in front of the committee March 25.
She continued by giving a brief history of previous studies done on Canada’s foreign…
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OTTAWA – The avails are still not for sale and while ads will be allowed in the video on demand stream, there are to be new rules, the CRTC announced Monday in releasing its policy decisions on commercial advertising in the local availabilities of non-Canadian services and video-on-demand.
As Cartt.ca readers will recall, the Commission originally called for comments on the sale of local avails back in October, 2008. In doing so, it predicted that revenues from the sale of advertising for insertion in local availabilities could provide a net benefit to the Canadian…
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REGINA – The Saskatchewan government has pulled the plug on the province’s public educational broadcaster SCN after nearly 20 years on the air.
Some of SCN’s assets – such as satellite distance education classes, broadcast of the Legislative channel, and connectivity to the provincial public safety telecommunications network, will be transferred to SaskTel this Spring, but the SCN Corporation is scheduled to shut down by May.
"SCN provided many important services and we are ensuring those continue," said Tourism, Parks, Culture and Sport Minister Dustin Duncan, in a statement. "The broadcast industry has changed drastically since SCN was created nearly 20…
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MONTREAL – Quebecor Media said that Monday’s CRTC decision is only a “partial solution” to what ails the broadcasting industry.
The company said that it “deplores” the Commission’s decision to “tackle the current structural crisis through a scheme that is not based squarely on a rebalancing of the system”, which it called the only solution designed to protect consumers.
“The approach advocated by Quebecor Media would shield consumers from rate hikes by maintaining the total fees paid by cable and satellite service providers at current levels”, the company said in a statement on Wednesday. It proposed a model that would distribute the…
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TORONTO – Add the Writers Guild of Canada (WGC) to those backing Monday’s CRTC decision on new TV policy.
The WGC said that it is “optimistic” about the re-introduction of expenditure requirements, though said that it needs to do some modelling to determine if the spending requirements and drama minimums in the new policy are enough “to make a real difference”.
“The CRTC heard us”, said executive director Maureen Parker, in a statement. “This policy marks a philosophical shift. The re-introduction of expenditure requirements will help build the supply of Canadian programming, including high-quality dramas and documentaries. And expenditure…
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IF YOU TALK TO ANYONE under 20 they will consider it quaint to hear tales of phones that were connected to walls; notes that were sent with a stamp; and televisions that were housed in large cabinets offering four channels, if you were lucky, accessible with the turn of a dial.
Online and offline; wired and wireless, the world is a dramatically different place than it was 19 years ago. Yet the Canadian media market is still governed by broadcasting legislation from 1991 at a time when urgent action is needed to bring regulation in line with technology to meet…
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"NEVERTHELESS, THE SYSTEM is not working well in 2010 in ensuring that conventional television broadcasters have the means to continue to meet their obligations under the Act."
That quote – from paragraph 162 in yesterday’s decision on “A group-based approach to the licensing of private television services”, which set out new rules for a number of things, but all most appeared to care about was the fee-for-carriage/value-for-signal donnybrook – says it all. Private broadcasters are pleased. Carriers are not.
Whatever the outcome of the Federal Court filing that will need to happen before the broadcasters can solicit new wholesale…
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