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…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
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,…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
"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…
Continue Reading
