HALIFAX – He’s not exactly going out on a limb by saying it, but CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein told a group of teachers on Friday that the two dated Acts that govern the CRTC desperately need updating.
In a speech to the Conference of the Broadcast Educators Association of Canada, von Finckenstein noted it’s closing in on 20 years since the last time the Broadcasting Act and the Telecommunications Act – documents that “ are very much products of their times” – have been updated, he said.
“They were conceived for an environment where bandwidth and spectrum were…
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ORILLIA, ON – The radio dial in Ontraio’s cottage country is about to get a little more crowded.
The CRTC has granted broadcasting licences to Bayshore Broadcasting Corporation for a new FM station in Orillia, and Instant Information Services to operate a new low-power, tourist information FM radio station in the area.
The Commission considered eight applications for new radio programming in Orillia at a public hearing that began on January 26, 2009 in the community, located approximately 120 kilometres north of Toronto. Orillia is currently served by one local commercial station, (CICX-FM), owned by Larche Communications Inc.
The Commission…
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OTTAWA – The controversial issue of ‘net neutrality’ has made it on to the political agenda, after NDP digital affairs critic Charlie Angus tabled Bill C-398 on Friday.
Designed to prevent telecom service providers from engaging “in network management practices that favour, degrade or prioritize any content, application or service transmitted over a broadband network based on its source, ownership, destination or type”, Angus said that the bill will ensure that the future development of the Internet “is not impeded by unfair throttling or interference by telecom giants”.
“The telecom giants didn’t invent the internet,” Angus said in a statement….
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OTTAWA – The CRTC is asking for input on whether it may conduct Canadian ownership and control reviews on a public basis, as opposed to a confidential basis, in certain instances.
Telus sent a letter to the Commission on April 20, 2009 asking it to conduct “an open and transparent process” to review whether wireless newcomer Globalive Wireless Management is under Canadian ownership and control, as required by section 16 of the Telecommunications Act. Shaw sent a letter two days later in support of Telus’ request.
But Globealive opposed the move, saying the Commission has a “longstanding practice” of conducting…
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TORONTO – The past chairman of the CRTC, Charles Dalfen, died suddenly on Tuesday. He was 66.
Canadian Press reported today that he had a heart attack.
Dalfen was chair of the Commission from 2002 to 2006, and was a well respected broadcast and telecommunications lawyer before and since. We interviewed him on a number of occasions, including early in his final year as chairman. Click here for that interview and read about how little has changed from a regulator’s point of view during the past three years.
Dalfen was comfortable in the chairman’s office but was ambitious from the get-go,…
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ABOUT YOUR EDITORS’ NOTE on negotiating a fee rather than imposing a tax (in the story "Heritage Committee: Von Finckenstein wants to let broadcasters and distributors negotiate a fee"). It’s the same thing.
First, there is no retransmission right in the signal itself under copyright law, so there is no right to negotiate unless the CRTC forces the negotiation.
Second, there is no right to not to carry under the BDU regulations because (conventional stations) are mandatory services, so you can not decide to drop bad services as part of the negotiations.
Third, if you cannot agree the…
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SO I SET MY PVR to record about two and a half Saturday afternoon hours of CTV Newsnet (CTV News Channel, as of this morning) this past weekend in order to watch the charade I expected to see.
Heading into the weekend, viewers of CTVglobemedia properties were fed a steady dose of some very one-sided ads promoting the company’s cross-country open houses meant to help “save local TV”, along with a web site of which the best one can say tells a very incomplete story.
While it wasn’t the travesty I had assumed was coming (far from it, actually),…
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QUEBEC CITY – The Quebec City market has enough listeners and advertisers to support two more private radio stations, the CRTC was told on Tuesday by Evanov Communications Inc., one of three broadcasters applying for four radio licenses in the provincial capital.
The city is bucking a national trend because its economic outlook is “bright,” the company told commissioners at a hearing in Quebec City. The city’s GDP will grow by an expected 2.7% in 2010, retail sales this year will increase by a forecast 5%, and unemployment is expected to stabilize from this year onwards. The CRTC’s recently…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has suspended its public hearing into CBC’s re-branding of its specialty channel ‘Country Canada’ to ‘bold’, after the public broadcaster acknowledged that bold’s programming may, in fact, be inconsistent with its nature of service condition of licence.
The hearing, scheduled for June 2, was to determine whether the way that CBC re-branded the channel had negatively impacted “the integrity of the licensing process”. CBC re-launched its category 1 specialty Country Canada as bold on March 27 2008, after telling the Commission that the change could be done without amending the nature of service of Country…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has taken the unusual step of offering to step in to help resolve a carriage dispute between Rogers Sportsnet and the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance (CCSA).
The CCSA asked for the Commission’s assistance on February 26, 2009 to help resolve the year-old commercial dispute through either final offer arbitration or an expedited hearing.
At issue is the distribution of Rogers Sportsnet (RSI), the national, English-language specialty channel focused on regional sports programming, by the CCSA’s 98 small- and medium-sized independent cable companies. The network is packaged and distributed across Canada on four distinct regional feeds, as well as…
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