GATINEAU – CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein pronounced himself “frustrated” with the months-long public battle between broadcasters and BDUs heading into this morning’s Commission hearing into the future of over-the-air TV.
The public battle lines drawn have the broadcasters in one camp demanding a fee and cable/DTH in the other saying if the broadcasters gain the right to demand one, they’ll fight such a decision and if one does come to pass, the consumer will have to pay much more.
After watching months of back and forth in print, on TV and online, von Finckenstein said he was “frustrated…
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INDUSTRY CANADA will overturn the CRTC’s ruling against Globalive, allowing the nascent wireless entrant to begin operations later this year, according to a report by Bloomberg.
The story quotes Orascom Telecom chair Naguib Sawiris at a media conference Tuesday in Cairo as saying that he believes “the ruling will be overruled”.
As reported by Cartt.ca, Industry Minister Tony Clement has asked incumbent telcos and others involved in Globalive’s review process to submit additional information as he reviews the CRTC’s decision to prevent it from entering the Canadian marketplace on the basis that is not Canadian-owned and controlled.
Click here for the full…
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GATINEAU – Rogers Cable customers will see some additional interactivity coming to their digital set top boxes in 2010 in the form of multimedia content format Enhanced TV Binary Interchange Format (EBIF).
On Monday in front of the CRTC when talking about new technology with commissioners, Rogers Communications’ vice-president of video product management David Purdy noted the cable company will roll out EBIF applications by mid 2010.
EBIF-driven applications work on any generation of set top boxes and will let Rogers, as well as broadcasters if they choose, enable “real time interactive applications in 30-second commercials in linear broadcasting,” noted Purdy.
So,…
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GATINEAU – After listening to nearly all the words spoken by CTV and Rogers executives and the nine-member CRTC panel (taking over 6,000 words worth of notes and sending out an embarrassing number of tweets in the process), here’s what caught our ear loudest on day one of BNC 2009-411.
Besides the CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein’s wish that he could lock CTV and Rogers in a room and not let them out until you have a deal, that is…
• We now have three terms and their subsequent acronyms to describe what this fight is about: Fee-for-carriage (FFC),…
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GATINEAU – CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein pronounced himself “frustrated” with the months-long public battle between broadcasters and BDUs heading into this morning’s Commission hearing into the future of over-the-air TV.
The public battle lines drawn have the broadcasters in one camp demanding a fee and cable/DTH in the other saying if one is imposed, the consumer will have to pay more.
After seeing months of back and forth in print, on TV and online, von Finckenstein said he was “frustrated with this confrontational relationship.”
Could you not throw all into the mix – sit down and work out the relationship, what…
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IF YOU JUDGED BY the various ad campaigns, Facebook pages and Twitter streams, you’d be thinking that the hearing beginning today in Gatineau is only about whether or not conventional broadcasters should get a fee for their signal.
Well, granting the broadcasters the right to negotiate a fee for carriage of their local TV signals is a foregone conclusion. I’m convinced this will happen. The term “negotiation for value” – which has begun to replace “fee-for-carriage” in the industry lexicon – was coined by CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein himself earlier this year and while I’m not necessarily opposed to…
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OTTAWA – We choked a little on our coffee when we read the co-signers, but a letter to Industry Minister Tony Clement – to be printed Monday in an ad in the Hill Times newspaper – urges him to respect the Telecom Act as he reviews the CRTC’s decision on Globalive’s lack of Canadian ownership.
Signed by western competitors Telus and Shaw Communications, along with the Canadian Film and Television Producers Association (which often doesn’t see eye-to-eye with carriers) and wireless newbie Public Mobile, the letter reinforces to the Minister that the CRTC was and is right to tell Globalive…
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TORONTO – While much of the industry’s attention will be focused on a plain, grey building in Gatineau on Monday (btw, anyone else see the irony that the Cable Public Affairs Channel is the only place providing full video coverage of the hearing this week on cpac.ca?), a couple of other interesting items are on the industry docket this week.
Rogers Communications is apparently still set to launch its new broadband video customer portal in a soft launch to certain customers this week.
More irony here… While the closed shop, regulated, OTA, MPEG2 and RF driven system is being debated in…
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TORONTO – As his wireless company nears its launch in the new year, Public Mobile CEO Alek Kristajic was talking tough this week, addressing how the company plans to attack the Canadian marketplace while applauding the CRTC for standing firm on Globalive’s ownership shortcomings.
Speaking at the Scotia Capital 2010 Telecom and Tech Conference on Tuesday, Kristajic (a former Rogers Cable and Bell Canada executive) emphasized how he believes his company is going after a market that no one else has tended to yet: “the low end of the market that doesn’t have a cell phone,” he said.
When western markets…
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GATINEAU – All right, we don’t recall CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein ever brandishing a gavel, the headline is just our way of saying Cartt.ca will provide daily (or even more frequent, as required) coverage of the CRTC hearing into the latest “fee for carriage” or “value for signal” hearing.
Officially, of course, BNC 2009-411 is the “policy proceeding on a group-based approach to the licensing of television services and on certain issues relating to conventional television.”
So while there will actually be some substantial, other, issues debated (like, can priority Cancon obligations be spread across all the channels of an…
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