OTTAWA – Canada’s largest media union, the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers union is against the Astral Media purchase of Standard Radio, too.
"Another billion-dollar deal further concentrating ownership in Canada’s media and the response from government is catatonic," shouts its release.
CEP has issued press releases opposing any and all media mergers announced in Canada, including CanWest/Goldman Sachs-Alliance Atlantis and CTV-CHUM.
"This radio mega-merger is yet another threshold in a dangerous concentration of Canada’s media," said Peter Murdoch, CEP’s vice-president, media.
"These are public airwaves, broadcasters earn enormous profits, but average Canadians are losing out," he added. "Both government…
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TORONTO – Former Rogers Communications executive and current leader of Ontario’s Conservative Party John Tory is stepping back into the telecommunications world – at least briefly. He is giving the luncheon keynote speech on Monday, June 11 at the 2007 Canadian Telecom Summit.
The event, which runs until Wednesday, June 13 at the Toronto Congress Center, includes the participation of the telecommunications industry’s biggest names. Virgin Mobile Canada President and CEO Andrew Black, Motorola President and COO Greg Brown, Videotron President and CEO Robert Depatie, CRTC Chair Konrad von Finckenstein, Mitel Chair Terence Matthews, Nortel CTO John Roese, Competition Bureau…
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SO FAR, SO GOOD for wireless number portability, says Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association president and CEO Peter Barnes.
There have been few issues the association has had to solve since March 14, the day Canadians could take their phone number with them, no matter which telephony carrier they chose to acquire service.
A more contentious, far less decided matter, is the upcoming Industry Canada wireless spectrum auction. The association’s majority want a free, unfettered auction but certain factions want constraints on the existing players so that newcomers may bid for spectrum and win. The CWTA is even holding a…
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TORONTO – It was a an open secret in media circles, as many have reported, including Cartt.ca, but today it was made official: Rogers Communications has signed a deal to purchase the chain of A-Channel stations and other assets put on the block when CTVglobemedia acquired CHUM Ltd.
In officialspeak: "Rogers Broadcasting, a Rogers Media subsidiary, would acquire certain Canadian conventional and specialty television services from CTVglobemedia Inc. These assets are currently under the control of Mr. John D. McKellar, C.M., Q.C., Trustee under a Voting Trust Agreement in respect of CHUM Limited. CHUM Limited and Mr. McKellar…
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OTTAWA – Count the Green Party firmly on the slow and steady side of telecom regulation reform.
“A few monopolistic telecommunications firms will make out like bandits, while consumers will lose with worsening service and higher prices,” said party president Elizabeth May in a release sent Thursday – after Industry Minister Maxime Bernier’s policy directive to the CRTC overruling its local forbearance decision went into force.
Bernier "has disregarded the wishes of both the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission and a Parliamentary committee," notes the Green Party release.
“Analysts are already predicting that a market with only a few major…
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GATINEAU – Rogers Cable has asked the CRTC to consider adding College Sports Television to the list of eligible satellite services for digital distribution.
Owned by CBS, CSTV is a 24-hour network devoted exclusively to broadcasting college sports programming. It televises 35 men’s and women’s college sports, including football, basketball, baseball, hockey, lacrosse, soccer, wrestling and volleyball, from every major conference in the United States.
www.cstv.com www.crtc.gc.ca
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THAT SOUND YOU HEARD from Ottawa late Wednesday afternoon was that of Industry Minister Maxime Bernier jangling his keys to the shackles Canada’s incumbent telephone companies have said repeatedly they are burdened with.
The regulations holding back Bell Canada, Telus, Bell Aliant, MTS, SaskTel and the other smaller ILECs are on their way out far sooner than the CRTC perhaps envisioned when it made public its local forbearance decision a year ago tomorrow.
In that decision, the Commission set out a number of conditions that had to be met before any traditional incumbent telco could be granted deregulation. Until…
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TORONTO – Having cut substantial costs, overhauled formats, replaced management and now in the midst of several frequency flips, Corus Entertainment expects its Quebec radio division to lead the growth parade, soon.
Margins languish in the 5% range among the company’s stations in the province, company executives said Tuesday in a conference call with financial analysts upon the release of its second quarter results. In the rest of the country, average margins are in the 33% range and the company, with changes in store, wants to see Quebec radio’s margins approach that figure.
"In Quebec we have considerable opportunity for…
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TORONTO – Corus Television is determined to bring Cosmo TV to Canada.
Earlier this year the company was denied a license for the service named after the popular women’s magazine as the Commission decided it infringed on the genre protection of other protected Canadian specialty channels.
The channel will be a partnership between Corus and Hearst Corp., which owns the title.
"We were disappointed by the decision the Commission made but are not bowed," said Corus CEO John Cassaday in a Tuesday conference call to discuss the company’s second quarter results. "We have re-filed and refined all our programming commitments…
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OTTAWA – With less than a month before the CRTC hearing into the purchase of CHUM Ltd. by CTV and rumours swirling as to who might emerge as the winning bidder for CHUM’s A-Channels (see below), the NDP says the CRTC has to set up some tough content conditions governing the combined company.
NDP Heritage Critic Charlie Angus said Friday "that if the CRTC is going to give the green light to this unprecedented merging of television media, clear and binding conditions must be laid down."
Angus is calling for enforceable targets for new prime time drama, for example. “Where…
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