TORONTO – If it can’t buy ’em, it looks like Rogers might overbuild ’em.
Rogers Cable has applied to the CRTC to extend its cable territories in Ontario to include a chunk of Cogeco Cable’s Ontario wheelhouse: Oakville, Burlington, Milton and Halton Hills, as well as into tiny Aurora Cable’s market in Aurora, just north of Toronto.
A move like this may signal a stark departure from the historically collegial cable industry where each company kept to its own territory and expanded by purchasing other cable companies. (Aurora and Cogeco are both known not to be for sale, however.)
In…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC today denied Shaw Communications’ request to add USA Network to the list of eligible foreign satellite services for digital distribution.
Shaw asked for the new addition in January, saying the general interest cable channel available to 90 million in the States, would be attractive to customers.
Shaw also wanted Commission to alter its approach to adding non-Canadian services to the digital lists. The company wants the Commission to automatically approve the addition of all general interest non-Canadian services, and that it permit broadcasting distribution undertakings (BDUs) to distribute services on the eligible lists on…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The rising number of media outlets, many of which are controlled by the same conglomerates, isn’t evidence of a diversity of voices on radio and television, the CRTC was told Wednesday.
Several media unions on Wednesday stated the pooling of media resources from different cities across a chain of stations under the same ownership didn’t equate to more perspectives in the news. Also, requiring a reporter to produce a story for multiple platforms – TV, radio and the web – is contributing to lower quality reports as journalists aren’t left with enough time to research background documents and…
Continue Reading
By Ken Murphy, John Panikkar and David Patterson
HIGH FIDELITY HDTV IS AN independent Canadian broadcaster. In the context of the current broadcast landscape, we carry the descriptor, some might say scarlet letter, “Category 2”.
High Fidelity HDTV has a unique perspective which combines our past experience building some of Canada’s most successful specialty services with our more recent experience as independent Canadian broadcast entrepreneurs and HDTV innovators.
We think the Dunbar Leblanc report is refreshing and brave. We understand why some may find it uncomfortable, but the report surfaces many questions which should be explored honestly and…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Broadcast distributors took a bashing as Canada’s main independent broadcasters complained Tuesday that difficulties gaining access to viewers was hindering the diversity of media voices in the country.
Pelmorex (The Weather Network/Meteomedia), Evanov Communications (five radio stations), Stornoway Communications (three digi-nets), XM Canada owner John Bitove and the Independent Programming Services (made up of Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, Channel Zero, Ethnic Channels Group, Fairchild Television/Talentvision, S-Vox Trust, Stornoway and TV5 Quebec Canada) all said distributor gatekeeping powers could result in a decline in the number of broadcast voices if the CRTC didn’t adopt appropriate safeguards.
Stornoway president…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC Friday granted the request of Quebecor Media’s Sun TV for rebroadcast transmitters in London and Ottawa, Ont.
Right now, Sun TV is available only to viewers in the Toronto-Hamilton corridor and the station suffers from such limited exposure when compared to its competitors, all of whom have stations (or multiple stations) in all of the above mentioned markets.
While there were the usual protestations from cable companies objecting to yet another channel that has to be squeezed into basic cable, jostling customers yet again, and rival broadcasters worried about losing ad dollars, the Commission approved…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – Major broadcasters are opposing the budget increases being sought by the CRTC to deal with new regulatory challenges, according to the CRTC Budgetary Requirements and Fees Outcomes Report released Wednesday. More support came from the telecommunications community, although some telcos had concerns about the amount and duration of the proposed fee hikes.
This fall, the CRTC will ask the Treasury Board of Canada to up its operating budget by $8.3 million in 2007-08, $9.94 million in 2008-09 and $9.07 on an ongoing basis thereafter.
The CRTC contends its budget has been stable for over four years (with…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Time to revive all the old jokes that CRTC stands for “Can’t Release ‘Til Christmas”.
The Commission today confirmed that the complex issues facing a decision on what to do about the Canadian television fund were too much to consider prior to the previously-set September deadline.
A December decision means it will have been about a year since Shaw Communications tried to blow up the fund by withholding payments and saying it would rather give money claimed from cable and satellite bills for the CTF, back to its customers. Quebecor Media’s Videotron soon followed suit.
This is…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – An independent Canadian broadcaster trying to make a go of it with an all-high definition channel lineup says Wednesday’s report to the CRTC on broadcasting policies and regulations are “a breath of fresh air.”
High Fidelity HDTV, which owns and operates Rush HD, Equator HD, Treasure HD, and Oasis HD has bumped up against the various rules and regulations in place which have made it tough to gain carriage across Canada.
“The Canadian Association of Broadcasters issued a press release yesterday stating that it has significant concerns with the Dunbar/Leblanc Report. This broadcaster does not share…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – ACTRA says yesterday’s Dunbar-LeBlanc report validates what the actors’ union has been saying all along, that the drama incentives for Canadian broadcasters instituted by the CRTC don’t work.
The report, released yesterday by the CRTC was commissioned by the regulatory body to look into Canada’s broadcasting policy and suggest changes.
Scary for the broadcasters but potentially good for the actors, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin lawyers Laurence Dunbar and Christian Leblanc said the Commission should to re-evaluate its simultaneous substitution policy because it encourages over-the-air Canadian broadcasters to schedule American TV shows in peak viewing times to the detriment…
Continue Reading
