GATINEAU – The most immediate impact of the CRTC’s Monday announcements? It looks like A Channel Windsor will get a reprieve.
The Commission today finalized the new $102-million fund that is meant to tide broadcasters over until it figures out how to completely reset the scales of power of the industry it regulates with yet another hearing on the TV business come September.
"Canadians have made it abundantly clear that they value local programming," said CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein, in the press release. "We have taken steps to ensure that broadcasters, and particularly those in smaller markets, continue…
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WINNIPEG – MTS Allstream called Monday’s CRTC decision “harmful to consumers”, and accused the federal broadcasting regulator of “catering to a specific interest instead of addressing the real issues facing the industry”.
"These decisions represent a serious set back for consumers – reducing the possibility for innovation and increasing costs without providing any real benefits”, said Chief Corporate Officer Chris Peirce, in a statement issued Tuesday.
The company predicted that the new fees could cost their customers at least $50 to $100 per year, as well as reduce investment in infrastructure, hinder innovation and reduce choice.
“Indeed the obligations…
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GATINEAU – The increase wasn’t as big as the broadcasters hoped, but the new Local Programming Improvement Fund will now top $100 million, the CRTC announced today.
The money is still geared towards stations serving markets of less than a million and the Commission has dropped its demand that the content be “incremental” to the year before.
The Regulator also made a few other key announcements today, including that broadcasters in markets of over 300,000 people – and all provincial and territorial capitals – must build digital OTA transmission facilities, meaning small ’burgs like Charlottetown, Yellowknife, Whitehorse and Iqaluit…
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OTTAWA – Word that the CRTC has – for the first time – made local programming a condition of license for most over-the-air television stations is “good news”, says the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP).
However, the media union continued, it would be “very troubling” if the CRTC allowed some stations to broadcast fewer local programming hours than they have to date, even if for only a period of one year, cautioned Peter Murdoch, CEP’s vice president of media.
"We believe that the terms set out by the CRTC should mean that stations currently on the…
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TORONTO, MONTREAL and OTTAWA – Three of Canada’s largest BDUs were quick to express their mutual disappointment with Monday’s CRTC decision, and hinted that it will be the consumer who will be hit the hardest.
Rogers said that the introduction of the “major new consumer TV taxes” should have Canadian consumers “very worried”, and vice-chair Phil Lind predicted that the new fees could cost its customers an additional $50 – $100 per year depending on their cable package.
“Today’s CRTC announcement says that, not withstanding earlier rulings by the CRTC and notwithstanding the lack of support by the Canadian…
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EVEN WITH CHANNEL Zero’s encouraging purchase of two over-the-air TV stations from Canwest Global this week, we are now left with six small market TV stations whose owners have set August 31st as the final day they intend to have the transmitters turned on.
In case you missed it – and you might have, given the timing of the news – Shaw Communications told CTV late Tuesday that, essentially, it had lost its nerve and was backing down from its confrontation with CTV over local television. The western cableco, despite its now apparently false bravado claims of how…
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GATINEAU – Earlier this week, the CBC attempted to give the CRTC a little advice before the Regulator releases its public notice announcing the September hearing into an overhaul of the regulation of the TV business in Canada this coming Monday.
As reported by Cartt.ca, this past Monday the CBC offered up a proposed new distribution order which would govern new fee-for-carriage negotiations between broadcasters and cable and satellite companies (actually, the broadcasters are trying to “re-brand” the fee-for-carriage battle to one entitled value for signal, but we digress…)
Together, Shaw Communications, Telus, Rogers Communications, Cogeco and Bell…
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GATINEAU – As Cartt.ca reported last week, the CRTC has a big day coming up on Monday. Not only is the network management hearing beginning that day, the Regulator is also launching a new proceeding seeking structural reform of the TV sector while releasing new rules (and potentially a new amount) for its yet-to-be-launched Local Programming Improvement Fund.
The CRTC’s Ontario commissioner Rita Cugini addressed the two broadcasting items in a speech to the Radio Television News Directors Association on Saturday, noting that structural reform for the TV biz seems to be a necessity.
“The Broadcasting Act specifies that…
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TORONTO – Canadian Jewish groups have indicated to the CRTC that they will not oppose making the English version of the Al Jazeera available to Canadians.
CRTC Ontario commissioner Rita Cugini noted that fact in a speech this weekend at the RTNDA ProDev day in Toronto.
The public consultation ended June 8 and sponsor Ethnic Channels Group filed its final reply to the Regulator on June 22.
“Among the submissions we received was one from B’nai Brith Canada, whose representatives had met with Tony Burman, Managing Director of Al Jazeera English (and former head of CBC News). They expressed…
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TORONTO, HAMILTON and MONTREAL – We’re about to find out if a specialty service model (all-news plus movies) will work on an over-the-air station.
As first reported by Cartt.ca, independent specialty service operator Channel Zero is about to get a whole lot bigger. The company which owns short film specialty Movieola, classic movie channel Silver Screen Classics, film distributor Ouat Media (plus a majority stake in the AOV adult channel brands) announced this afternoon they have signed an agreement to purchase E!-branded CHCH TV Hamilton and CJNT TV Montreal from Canwest Global.
Terms of the deal were not publicly…
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