TORONTO and MONTREAL – The Ontario Superior Court of Justice has approved the sale of Look Communications’ spectrum and broadcast licence to Bell Canada and Rogers Communications, through their joint venture Inukshuk Wireless Partnership.
Under the agreement, Inukshuk will pay Look $80 million in cash for its 92 MHz of spectrum, which is equivalent to coverage of approximately 1.8 billion MHz/Pops, and its mobile broadcast license which has been renewed by the CRTC through August 2011.
As part of the agreement, Look and Bell Canada have also resolved all outstanding litigation, and Look’s parent company Unique Broadband Systems settled its…
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OTTAWA – CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein is pushing CTVglobemedia and the CBC to reach an agreement allowing the CBC to broadcast the 2010 Olympics on its French-language television service.
During an address to the Standing Committee on Official Languages in Ottawa on Tuesday, von Finckenstein said that while the CTV/Rogers Olympic broadcast media consortium intends to make French broadcasters TQS, RDS and RIS available free of charge to cable companies offering digital TV in markets with an English-speaking majority, this will still leave some francophones who rely on over-the-air television signals, or who subscribe to analog cable, without…
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OTTAWA – After Canada’s major English-language performers’ union and a community TV association testified before the Heritage Standing Committee about Canadian TV content rules, a specialty broadcaster raised concerns about getting carriage for the content once it’s made.
Wednesday’s testimony will help form part of the committee’s study on the evolution of the television industry in Canada and its impact on local communities, which launched March 25 and will conclude next week with a return visit by CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein.
Actors union ACTRA led off by reiterating many of the points it raised during its appearance on…
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TORONTO – When we talked to David Purdy about two weeks ago, Rogers still hadn’t quite settled on a brand name for the broadband video portal it will launch this year.
It probably won’t be called the “Purdy Portal” as CRTC commissioners dubbed it back in March during the Regulator’s New Media Hearing. We’re betting the name of the company founder will be in there somewhere, but the impromptu working title is an apt one for now since Purdy, RCI’s vice-president of video product management (yes, he’s in charge of video distribution across all platforms), has been the…
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OTTAWA – Canadian television programming can be, and is, profitable for Canadian broadcast groups, says a study by consulting firm Nordicity Group.
The report, which was widely referenced at the CRTC’s licence renewal hearings for conventional broadcasters, found that large corporate broadcast groups that own conventional and specialty TV channels are “well-positioned” to generate positive financial returns from Canadian programming, primarily through repeating the programming multiple times across their various platforms.
The study was commissioned jointly by ACTRA, the Canadian Film and Television Production Association (CFTPA), the Directors Guild of Canada (DGC), and the Writers Guild of Canada (WGC)….
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OTTAWA and GATINEAU – The greater Montreal region will get a new area code next year.
The CRTC said that starting in October 2010, new telephone numbers assigned in the 450 region may be given area code 438. In 2003, area code 438 was introduced to deal with the shortage of telephone numbers in the region served by area code 514.
The Canadian Numbering Administrator told the CRTC last year that area code 450, which is adjacent to the 514 region, is expected to run out of telephone numbers by February 2011.
www.crtc.gc.ca
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has asked for comments regarding the addition of Middle East-based news and current affairs channel Al Jazeera English (AJE) to the lists of eligible satellite services for distribution in Canada.
The Commission received a request on February 27 from Ethnic Channels Group Limited (ECGL) to add AJE to the lists of eligible satellite services for distribution on a digital basis.
In Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2009-254, the Commission asked that parties wishing that AJE not be authorized for distribution in Canada should provide detailed support for their position before June 8, 2009.
www.crtc.gc.ca…
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OTTAWA – Parliament should ensure Canada’s broadcasting legislation “keeps step with the times”, including proper accountability and transparency, even if it means restructuring the CRTC, said Canada’s largest media union.
The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP) told the Heritage Committee on Monday that Canada’s big broadcasting corporations were “supposed to strengthen local stations not close them down”, and the CRTC must share the blame for allowing that to happen.
"Parliament needs to reshape the CRTC, review the Broadcasting Act, and consider whether Canada needs converged communications legislation geared to the 21st century to address consolidated media ownership, telecommunications and…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – May 7, 2009 – Is Cancon a cost centre or a break-even proposition for Canada’s over-the-air broadcasters? Among all the issues raised Thursday by independent producers, writers and directors at the CRTC’s licence renewal hearings for conventional ‘casters, this subject accounted for the most words per intervention.
The groups representing much of the Anglophone creative contingent brought forward a study concluding Canadian programming need no longer be seen, automatically, as a loss leader, a necessary evil, a perennial balance sheet pariah. The success of this hypothesis depends in large measure, however, on whether broadcasting ownership groups would…
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GATINEAU – ACTRA underscored its earlier plea that the CRTC “stand firm and resist calls for rolling back Canadian content obligations” during its appearance at the Commission’s hearings on private TV broadcaster licence renewals on Friday.
ACTRA’s national president Richard Hardacre, who was joined by performers Julie Stewart and R.H. Thomson, accused the private broadcasters of “using the economic downturn to hold Canadians hostage” on the issue of fee-for-carriage, and insisted that Canadian programming “should not suffer in the rush to respond to current challenges facing the broadcasting industry”.
“Rather than cave into private broadcasters’ demands for far fewer Canadian content rules,…
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