OTTAWA – The CRTC estimates its total broadcasting regulatory costs for the 2009-2010 fiscal year are $28.469 million.
The broadcasting licence fee regulation provides for the payment of Part I licence fees by specific distributors, as set out in section 9(1) of the Broadcasting License Fee Regulations.
The Commission also calculated the annual adjustment for the 2007-2008 fiscal year at $5.018 million, with $4.453 million of this total earmarked for “the recovery of a temporary increase in the Commission’s budget approved by (the) Treasury Board.” The balance of this adjustment, ($0.565 million) recovers increases in salary (e.g. ratified collective agreements)…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – On the heels of the CRTC new media hearings, a new survey from Angus Reid Strategies says a proposed levy on Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to support the development of Canadian TV programming would be a tough sell to consumers.
The online survey of a representative national sample found 79% of respondents said that this type of levy would be “an unnecessary and/or inappropriate fee that would end up being passed along to consumers.” Only 21% said that a levy would be “a worthwhile initiative to help ensure that there will continue to be high quality Canadian TV…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – BCE has asked the federal cabinet to overturn a CRTC decision, saying investment in next-generation communications networks should be encouraged “as a matter of policy”.
At issue is the Commission’s Telecom Decision 2008-117 from December 11, 2008, and its companion order, Telecom Order 2009-111 from March 3, 2009, requiring incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) “to provide speeds for wholesale asymmetric digital subscriber line services that match the speeds made available to their retail Internet service customers”, if a competitor requests it.
The CRTC application was filed by Cybersurf Corporation in June 2008, and was…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage passed a motion at an in-camera (i.e.: not public) meeting late Wednesday afternoon to study the impact of the economic crisis on Canadian television, with a focus on local programming.
The first witnesses the committee plans to call before it – on March 25 – are CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein, CRTC vice-chair of broadcasting Michel Arpin, and CRTC director general of television policy and applications Peter Foster.
A committee clerk told Cartt.ca they have not yet been told if the briefing will be open to the public, but that further…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – With the CRTC panel sounding increasingly like an ISP levy-for-broadband-Cancon is under serious consideration, leave it to Telus’ Michael Hennessy to bring peals of laughter into the hearing room as the final presenter at the CRTC’s hearing into new media and broadcasting.
The past three weeks have seen interveners and the commissioners themselves asking repeatedly, among many other things, whether or not ISPs are in some way, akin to BDUs. Because if they are, maybe they can be taxed like BDUs and contribute some kind of percentage of revenue towards the production of Canadian-made online content (ACTRA…
Continue Reading
THE ORIGINAL PURPOSE of wireless walled garden (as referenced in Tuesday morning’s story “Closed wireless networks face broadcasters’ wrath”) was to control the experience because a lack of common interfaces made the internet experience a mess.
While carriers looked at content as an opportunity, it generally is more of a headache to try to manage. We are moving rapidly to the same Internet experience on mobile as wireline. That means an open platform.
However we reserve the right to have our own portal, and like the wireline world you can choose your home pages.
Pelmorex suggested that its content could…
Continue Reading
MONTREAL – A tax promoting the production of Canadian content for the Internet “is not needed”, and taxing Internet service providers for this purpose “amounts to taxing Canadian consumers under a false pretext”, said Quebecor Media.
“Canadians are paying enough taxes and it would be unconscionable to further increase the tax burden in the midst of an economic crisis,” said Pierre Karl Peladeau, Quebecor’s president and CEO, in a company statement. “This would be unproductive and, in any event, illegal. If we truly wish to promote the production of original Canadian content, the industry must be freed of the…
Continue Reading
TORONTO and OTTAWA – CTV has laid off at least 24 employees at its ‘Canada AM’ morning show, and cut its last early morning local newscast in the country.
Sources say that the broadcaster was laying off Canada AM staff members who produce local news segments exclusively for single-markets, rather than on the show’s national broadcast. The job cuts will impact operations across the country, with the exception of the Toronto and Halifax studios.
Responding to the move, Canada’s largest media union, the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP), called on Heritage Minister James Moore to step in and “demand that…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – CNN International has been added to the list of eligible satellite services for distribution in Canada.
The CRTC received a request from Shaw Communications in May 2008 to make the U.S.-based news service available on a digital basis, and the Commission agreed on Tuesday.
Shaw describes the service as a 24 hour-per-day, professionally produced, satellite-delivered, advertiser-supported video programming service in the English language predominantly consisting of news, information and special features. Also, according to Shaw, CNNI focuses on international news, current affairs and business programming reported by staff of various international backgrounds.
www.crtc.gc.ca www.shaw.ca…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The CRTC will hold a public hearing to determine whether the way that CBC re-branded specialty channel ‘Country Canada’ to ‘bold’ has 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 Canada.
That channel’s description at launch was as follows:
The licensee shall provide a national English-language Category 1 specialty television service for rural Canadian families, with a focus on adults 25-54. The service will provide information,…
Continue Reading
