By Doug Barrett, adjunct professor in the Arts, Media & Entertainment MBA Program at the Schulich School of Business. From 2004 to 2008 he was the chair of the Canadian Television Fund
Phil Lind was an unlikely hero, but a genuine one. Since his passing, much has been written about his decades’ – long service to Rogers Communications, his role as consiglieri to Ted Rogers, his determined recovery from a major stroke in his mid-fifties, his art collection, and his love of the Yukon.
However, scant attention has been paid to what I think is his greatest accomplishment: he was the…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Cogeco CEO Philippe Jette said Thursday that the company is still in commercial negotiations to access the national wireless networks to launch its first wireless business, adding it is preparing to enter that business in the United States.
The Montreal-based telecom has been trying to negotiate access for months to launch its mobile virtual network operator business. The CRTC said it expected national and regional carriers to negotiate access by August 7 or else propose arbitration at the commission.
But Jette said during the company’s fiscal fourth quarter earnings call Thursday that even if the company…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Bell CEO Mirko Bibic said Thursday that the company could’ve driven more fibre through its footprint beyond its target plan for the year but slowed down because of regulatory uncertainty related to fibre and wholesale access decisions still in front of the CRTC.
“We got a head start in the first six months of this year on our fibre build and we’re well on track to hitting the targets that we had established for ourselves for 2023,” Bibic said during the company’s third-quarter earnings conference call Thursday morning.
“In fact, we had some wiggle room there given that we…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Rogers is arguing that the practice of bulk internet billing deals with residential buildings, which it says has been promoted by the CRTC, does not hamper competition, and in fact provides benefits that push forward the policies promoted by the commission.
Fibre service provider Beanfield filed a Part 1 application in late September asking the CRTC to prohibit Rogers from signing those bulk service agreements because it allegedly limits competition. Beanfield’s reasoning is that the multi-year contracts Rogers and others sign with building developers to provide default internet service disincentivizes switching service providers…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – A coalition of public interest groups has asked the CRTC on Friday to consider a financial plan for a fund that bankrolls their involvement in broadcasting hearings.
Public interest participation in those hearings is funded through a not-for-profit organization known as the Broadcasting Participation Fund (BPF), which spawned out of Bell’s purchase of CTV network assets in 2011. The problem for the fund, according to its proponents, is that it relies on money, called tangible benefits, that only comes as a condition of approving broadcasting acquisitions that are now uncommon.
Interest groups have said the fund is…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC said in a letter Monday it expects wireless internet service providers, including current holdouts Bell, Rogers, Telus and Xplore, to participate in the commission’s data project with Innovation Canada to track fixed wireless internet performance.
The CRTC has previously asked wireless ISPs to contact their subscribers about participating in the third phase of its Measuring Broadband Canada project, which seeks to better understand how Canadians subscribing to fixed wireless internet services with the federal objective speeds of 50 Mbps download and 10 Mbps (or faster) upload are experiencing internet performance in their…
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The media company has suspended its dividend
By Ahmad Hathout
TORONTO – Corus CEO Doug Murphy said Friday that the CRTC’s preliminary view that the media company should see relief from its regulatory obligations, at least temporarily, is a significant move because it understands the financial environment it is going through.
Last week, the CRTC said it is of the view that Corus should have its spending on programs of national interest reduced to 5 per cent, instead of the regular 8.5 per cent, and to extend the deadline to pay back what it already owes the regulator from…
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OTTAWA – Bell and its subsidiary Northwestel have pledged not to disconnect services to Iristel for not paying service dues.
The CRTC earlier this month asked Bell and Northwestel to hold off on disconnecting interconnection services to the far north provider until it makes a determination on a Part 1 application filed by Iristel that Bell allegedly hasn’t committed to providing an interconnection point in certain cities, including at Kuujjuaq in northern Quebec.
“Bell and Iristel have participated in a staff mediation process and they have reached an agreement…for the period during which the Commission…
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By Connie Thiessen
Rogers Sports & Media is shuttering its CityNews radio operations in Ottawa, citing low audiences, revenue declines and a restrictive regulatory environment for AM radio.
CityNews will go off the air on both the AM and FM band at 1 p.m. ET today with a Rogers Sports & Media spokesperson telling Broadcast Dialogue that resulting layoffs were in the single digits.
The company will return the licence for 1310 (CIWW-AM) to the CRTC, and restore its Country format station to 101.1 on the dial, following a series of December 2020 moves that saw Country 92.3 debut on CJET-FM in…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – The CRTC has approved Tuesday two low-cost internet packages proposed by Northwestel, formally integrating the Bell subsidiary into the Connecting Families program.
Effective Tuesday, the approved rates will provide eligible low-income Canadians in Northwestel’s footprint with access to two internet packages: a plan with 15 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload with 300 GB of data for $10, with an overage charge of $1 per gigabyte; and a plan with the federal objective of 50 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload with 400 GB of data for $20 with the same overage charge.
There was some concern…
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