CLEARWATER, B.C. – Not all Canadian cable companies are against the broadcasters’ receiving a fee for their conventional television stations.
Tiny Raftview Communications, which serves the towns of Clearwater, B.C. (pop. 5,000, about 120 kms north of Kamloops) and Barriere (pop. 3,400, and about 60 kms farther north) with digital cable, high definition and high speed Internet has come out against its cable compatriots on the issue of fee for carriage.
“It is absolutely unreasonable that these broadcasters receive nothing for their service,” company president Paul Caissie writes in his submission to the CRTC for the December 7th hearing (2009-614)…
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TORONTO – A trio of independent broadcasters is urging the CRTC not to introduce a fee-for-carriage regime without also taking steps to offset the potential impact on their business.
The S-VOX group of companies, Stornoway Communications and Fairchild Television have banded together to ask the Commission to consider “the challenges” facing small, independent broadcasters, and to “rebalance regulatory support within the broadcasting system to ensure a more level playing field”.
In their joint submission, the independents predict that the BDUs “will inevitably take steps to recover the costs of fee-for-carriage”, perhaps by reducing the wholesale fees paid to their specialty services,…
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TORONTO – Not to be left out of the current fee-for-carriage debate, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting has asked the CRTC to consider re-regulating cable’s basic rates, and to ensure that any signal compensation costs can not be passed through to subscribers.
In a submission to the Commission earlier this week, the self described independent watchdog for Canadian programming also proposed that satellite distributors be allowed to charge FFC costs with no mark-up until such time as they achieve a 10% PBIT.
“This compensation should be allocated nationally based on population and linguistic composition”, the submission reads.
The group also proposes that the…
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TORONTO – Phil Lind delights in telling everyone that Rogers Television, the big cableco’s community TV arm, is 100% local and 100% Canadian “unlike the big broadcasters who say they’re ‘intensely local’,” he said.
The executive vice-president, regulatory and vice-chairman of Rogers Communications launched Rogers Television 40 years ago and hosted a small gathering of journalists Tuesday to talk about the milestone – and given the hub-bub over local TV – to also use the little gathering to note that the cable community channels have been intensely local for a long time.
“We cover the issues the big broadcasters don’t have…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has received nearly 15,000 submissions – and counting – on the issues of fee for carriage and the digital transition after encouraging Canadians to take part in the public consultation process that ended Monday.
According to the broadcaster backed coalition ‘Local TV Matters’, support for local TV has been “unprecedented”.
“We are overwhelmed by the outpouring of clear and unequivocal support for our position," said Paul Sparkes, EVP of corporate affairs for CTVglobemedia, in a statement on Wednesday. "Canadian consumers were not fooled, they understood the issues, and we can’t thank them enough."
The group said that more than…
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OTTAWA and TORONTO – A pared-down basic programming package, with its content and pricing determined by the CRTC, could be the solution to affordability if fee-for-carriage is implemented, the CBC said.
In a submission to the Commission on Monday, the public broadcaster recommended that BDUs adopt an all-Canadian basic package which includes only the “essentials”, such as local television stations, plus “a very limited number” of other licensed programming services.
Calling it a “win-win-win scenario”, CBC said that its proposal would benefit BDUs, consumers, and broadcasters alike.
“It’s a win for cable companies because they’ll have all the flexibility that…
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TORONTO – Seeking to protect its rights as a co-owner of Canwest Global’s stable of specialty channels, U.S. investment banking firm Goldman Sachs has filed a motion against a portion of the Canadian broadcaster’s restructuring attempts.
Filed late Monday with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, the motion asks the court to reverse the windup of a numbered holding company of Canwest’s. According to the Goldman Sachs motion, 4414616 Canada Inc., a division of Canwest Media Inc., was shuttered on October 5, 2009, the day before Canwest’s Companies, Creditors, Arrangement Act filing on October 6.
As readers may recall, Canwest…
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OTTAWA and TORONTO – The CRTC’s decision which derailed wireless challenger Globalive’s plans to launch in Canada has also served to put a “regulatory gun to our head”, says chairman Anthony Lacavera.
In an interview Wednesday with Cartt.ca, the head of Globalive Wireless Management, the Canadian parent of Wind Mobile, said that the Commission has handicapped his Toronto-based company from sourcing Canadian financing.
“The CRTC said in the decision that they wanted us to deal with the debt, but they didn’t say how, and we have an issue with how ambiguous that is. But, they’ve also put us in the…
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HALIFAX – Canada’s communications regulatory regime is in desperate need of repair, says a report by The Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS).
In the recently released ‘In The End of that ’70’s Show: Rethinking Canada’s Communications Regulatory Institutions for the 21st Century’, report author and former AIMS research director Ian Munro says technological advances have made the existing regime obsolete.
"Long gone are the days when the telecommunications and broadcasting sectors were distinct entities," Munro said in a statement. "Yet the regulatory regime still treats them as such, which creates inefficient duplication and complete disconnects across government agencies and departments with…
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CALGARY – Shaw Communications has closed its acquisition of Mountain Cablevision from the Boris Family who has owned Mountain Cablevision for the past 50 years.
The transaction was subject to approval of the CRTC which was granted on October 22, 2009.
The purchase price was approximately $300 million, $120 million of which was paid through the issuance of 6.14 million class B non-voting participating shares of Shaw, with the balance paid in cash.
www.shaw.ca
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