GATINEAU, Que. – The very existence of small and independent broadcasters depends on the CRTC maintaining the rules and regulations that enable specialty channels to provide niche programming for underserved audiences at affordable prices. That was the concern voiced today by S-VOX President and CEO Bill Roberts at the CRTC’s public hearing on the future of the broadcasting system.
S-VOX, which operates the multi-faith and multicultural specialty television service VisionTV, was invited to make a presentation to the CRTC’s ongoing review of the regulatory frameworks for BDUs and specialty television services.
Speaking to the Commission, Roberts warned against allowing…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Catalyst Asset Management continues to raise objections over the proposed takeover of BCE Inc. by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and its investment partners. Catalyst is the investment banking and advisory firm that proposed an alternative bid last June that would have recapitalized BCE without altering its Canadian ownership.
Catalyst said in a press release on Monday it is concerned that an ongoing post-closing condition imposed by the CRTC on the proposed privatization of BCE may not be met, and Catalyst intends to pursue the matter if and when the privatization is completed.
In its decision CRTC…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – Canadian stars Robb Wells (Trailer Park Boys) and Julie Stewart (Cold Squad) have taken the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists, (ACTRA) fight for more drama on television to the CRTC’s hearings on the regulatory framework for cable and satellite
"We need more Canada on TV. If the CRTC changes the rules, not only will Canadian creators be out of work, our country will lose its capacity to tell our own stories. The rules are working. Please don’t import the drama disaster from the conventional side onto the specialty side. It takes too long to…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – Cable and satellite distributors took it on the chin again Friday at the CRTC’s hearings on broadcasting, this time from Astral Media, the country’s biggest French and English specialty and pay television network.
However this time, it wasn’t over the question of carriage fees to conventional networks but over access for new entrants.
Astral pressed the Commission to consider a new model that would ensure that any new specialty service, which had already won CRTC license approval, would have guaranteed access to a distributor’s lineup of channels.
“Access is fundamental,” said…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – They compete aggressively for U.S. programs, audience share, and advertisers, but in an exceptional show of unity, executives from CTVglobemedia Inc and CanWest Global Communications sat shoulder-to-shoulder Thursday to persuade the CRTC to open up new sources of funding.
Together, the two networks argued the economic viability of conventional television is “under threat”, because of lack of fair access and fair compensation. They attacked cable and satellite distributors, saying that if their vision were adopted, they and not consumers would control television programming.
“The outcome of this review will decide who will program the remote controls of…
Continue Reading
By Glenn Wanamaker GATINEAU – After two weeks of hearing about the structural intricacies of the Canadian television system, about fees for carriage, preponderance, genre protection, VOD, NPVR, and the sins of various competitors, CRTC commissioners heard from the performers Friday, the ones who put the Canadian into can-con.
Robb Wells, star and writer of the hit TV series “Trailer Park Boys”, and Julie Stewart, star of the Canadian drama “Cold Squad”, made a passionate plea to commissioners to maintain protective regulations while urging them to go further in providing incentives for more Canadian dramatic production.
Appearing with ACTRA…
Continue Reading
CALGARY and OTTAWA – Shaw Communications CEO Jim Shaw told Prime Minister Stephen Harper in a letter yesterday that the CRTC is bent on derailing the conservative government’s goals.
The five-page letter date April 16th, which was also sent to Industry Minister Jim Prentice, Heritage Minister Josee Verner and CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein, first outlines Shaw’s broad support for the government’s deregulation thrust on the telecom front and then decries the actions, or lack of action, Mr. Shaw feels is happening on the broadcasting and cable file.
“(W)e were the only broadcast distributor to support your Government’s move…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – The Directors Guild of Canada (DGC) appeared today at the Canadian CRTC hearing to review the regulatory frameworks for BDU’s and the specialty and pay TV services urging the commission to keep the current regulations as they are.
“Clearly, the current regulatory regime is working well with BDUs and specialty services reporting profit margins of over 20 per cent,” said DGC president, Alan Goluboff. “Dismantling any of the key components of the regime would threaten the integrity and diversity of the broadcast system,” cautioned Goluboff in his last appearance before the commission as DGC president.
The DGC…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – It sure would have been weird last Friday to have seen an empty seat among the cast of five commissioners fronting the hearing into BDU and specialty service policies.
But, according to a couple of good sources, that’s almost what happened.
Commissioner Rita Cugini’s original three-year term as a CRTC commissioner came to an end on Thursday, April 10th, or day three of one of the most important hearings in the TV industry’s history.
If she wasn’t renewed that day – and she began the morning with it potentially being her final day of work at the…
Continue Reading
AS THE LONE MEDIA outlet providing daily reports from both the BDU/specialty hearings in Gatineau and the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas, we’ve noticed a crossover issue or two.
Take Tuesday, for example. In Gatineau, Quebecor Media CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau made his company’s case for dramatically decreased regulation in broadcasting and cable, presenting a great big book of some 400 regulations governing the sector.
He told the Commission what many other distributors have said – that the Internet is changing everything and it’s time to dump most of the existing rules.
“Within a few years,…
Continue Reading
