GATINEAU – When rookie CRTC commissioner Michel Morin first unveiled his possible points plan for specialty channels during last month’s BDU and specialty policy hearing, many were left scratching their heads.
But, as he put more meat on the bones of his idea, as it were, as the hearing progressed, stakeholders began to mull it over and some were taking it pretty seriously. In fact, the Commission asked for comments from stakeholders to address it specifically.
However, upon further review, most have lauded Morin’s intentions – more Canadian content to more Canadians – but dismissed his idea.
Morin proposed…
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REGINA – The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. is asking the CRTC to force direct-to-home satellite TV distributor Star Choice to pick up the public broadcaster’s over-the-air TV signal that it dropped last week. “CBC/Radio-Canada files this complaint against Star Choice on the basis that Star Choice appears to be in breach of its condition of licence which specifies that the number of CBC English-language owned and operated television stations distributed by the licensee never falls below the number of English-language conventional stations distributed from any other individual broadcast group,” Bev Kirshenblatt, CBC senior director of regulatory affairs, writes in a…
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MONTREAL – BCE announced Monday it has filed with the CRTC all required materials related to its acquisition of BCE by an investor group led by Teachers’ Private Capital, the private investment arm of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Providence Equity Partners Inc., Madison Dearborn Partners, LLC, and Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity.
Under the $51.7 billion agreement, Teachers would own 51.6% of the equity share of BCE. But the CRTC imposed several conditions, including that Canadian investors must at all times nominate six directors on the board, to address its concerns relating to corporate governance and to ensure…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC will hold a public hearing on several radio stations proposed for the Ottawa-Gatineau region along with several TV applications on Tuesday.
Among the applicants seeking a radio licence are Corus Radio Company for an English-language news talk station on frequency 101.9 MHz and Astral Media for an English-language soft adult music format on 99.7 MHz.
Other proposed formats are tourist radio, religious radio, adult album alternative, blues music and pop alternative.
The CRTC said it would consider the radio licence proposals, for either the 99.7 MHz, 101.9 MHz or 101.7 MHz frequencies, as competitive radio…
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OTTAWA – The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) is charging that Bell Canada has contravened the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) by using deep-packet inspection technology (DPI) to control traffic over its Internet lines.
DPI reveals what subscribers are using their connections for, to find and limit peer-to-peer applications such as BitTorrent. Bell has said it needs to ensure traffic over its infrastructure doesn’t slow down, and DPI is aimed at optimizing its network.
CIPPIC, a University of Ottawa-based legal clinic specializing in Internet law, though noted in a May 9 letter to the Privacy…
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CAMPBELL RIVER, B.C. – At their regular monthly meeting held on Monday, the board of directors of cable co-operative Campbell River Television met with representatives of Shaw Cable concerning the big MSO’s continuing interest in the potential acquisition of CRTV.
Shaw Cable announced just last week that it had received the go-ahead by the CRTC to overbuild in CRTV’s cable territory, if it wishes. Such a move would certainly devalue CRTV’s sale prospects.
In a press release to its 13,000 customers/members the board wrote that in “light of the fact of increased competition in Campbell River plus the reality that…
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TORONTO – Today is the deadline for final written submissions to the CRTC’s policy review on broadcast distribution undertakings and specialty services.
(Ed Note: Cartt.ca will publish a recap of these submissions from several stakeholders tomorrow, Friday, May 9.)
Rogers’ final filing recapped the company’s position presented on the first day of the hearings. The company of course, remains opposed to fee-for-carriage “as the broadcasters have failed to justify the need for, or fairness of it,” says an RCI press release this afternoon. “The over-the-air broadcasting sector is profitable, revenues continue to grow and local programming is not in jeopardy”…
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MONTREAL – It’s hoped that today’s quarterly financial report is the final one Bell Canada Enterprises has to make public, as the giant telco has almost finished the work to become a private company.
But since that’s not done yet, the company released decent results for the first quarter of 2008, ended March 31st.
"During the quarter, we made good progress on the completion of the privatization transaction and delivered solid financial results, consistent with our plan for the year," said Michael Sabia, CEO. "With respect to the privatization transaction, the Québec Superior Court approved the plan of arrangement…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC has told Shaw Communications it may require the communications giant to file monthly reports on how its community channels are not violating the regs.
Twice in the past two years, Shaw Cablesystems community channels have been rebuked by the Commission for showing advertisements on its cable community channels.
In the Broadcast Distribution Regulations , cable companies are not allowed to air traditional ad spots and there are limitations on the types of sponsorship messages, or advertising, community channels can air. The regs also say sponsorship messages can contain only 15 seconds of…
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OTTAWA – A Federal Court of appeal decision last week that overturned an earlier Federal Court Trial Division ruling regarding broadcast licence fees will be appealed by the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, the organization announced Monday afternoon.
In December of 2006, the Federal Court Trial Division ruled the CRTC Part II Licence Fees collected by the federal government from broadcasters and broadcast distributors were an illegal tax. The Crown appealed that decision to the Federal Court of Appeal, which ruled on April 28th that the fees are valid regulatory charges. The CAB launched this challenge in 2003…
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