TORONTO –Corus Entertainment Inc. announced Monday it has inked a $1.1 million agreement to buy Sherbrooke radio station CIGR-FM (Génération Rock) from Groupe Génération Rock Inc.
The sale is subject to the approval of the CRTC.
“Corus Entertainment is committed to strengthening our radio presence in Québec,” said Corus Entertainment president and CEO John Cassaday. “The addition of Génération Rock is consistent with our growth strategy and will now offer a companion to our heritage news-talk station.”
Corus also owns the Sherbrooke-based CHLT-AM, which switches to FM at the end of June.
Groupe Génération Rock Inc. is majority owned…
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TORONTO – New CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein joined attendees on the last day of the Canadian Telecom Summit on Wednesday to recap a year of “considerable drama” in the telecom industry and to offer some perspective on what needs to happen next in terms of regulatory review and change.
Highlights for the past year included the Ministry of Industry’s policy direction regarding greater reliance on market forces in the telecom industry, the government’s variances of the CRTC’s previous decisions on regulation of local services using Voice over IP and on local service forbearance, and the mandating of an…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Ten-digit telephone dialing will hit Alberta starting in June 2008.
The CRTC has added Alberta’s two area codes, 403 and 780, to the growing list of regions requiring people to dial the area codes even when calling local numbers. The commission says the Canadian Numbering Administrator predicts that area code 403, serving Calgary and southern Alberta, will run out of telephone numbers by March 2009, while Edmonton and northern Alberta’s 780 code will exhaust its supply by October 2009.
The booming province has exceeded previous forecasts for telephone demand—as recently as 2004, the numbers were expected to…
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QUEBEC CITY – The Supreme Court of Canada has rejected efforts by Genex Communications, owners of this city’s troublesome CHOI-FM, to appeal the non-renewal of its licence ordered by the CRTC in July 2004.
However, while some believed that would mean the silencing of CHOI once and for all, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
CHOI remains on the air, despite the Supreme Court’s ruling Thursday, because of a behind-the-scenes deal between Genex, the would-be new station owner and licence-holder, Radio Nord Communications Inc., and MBL Communication Média.
MBL, which had expressed interest in competing for CHOI’s frequency…
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TORONTO – Citytv Toronto will leave its long-time home inside the CHUMCity building within three years as part of Rogers Media’s deal to buy the Toronto station and four others across the country.
Announced yesterday, Rogers has signed a deal to acquire Citytvs in Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver for $375 million from CTVglobemedia. The new deal nullifies the Rogers purchase of the A Channels from CTV, which will now hold on to those assets.
The agreement came together rather quickly, since the CRTC only announced its decision on Friday. The two companies were able to move…
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TORONTO – Recommendations by the Telecommunications Policy Review (TPR) panel, published in its March 2006 report, may have taken a step closer to implementation today with the release of a “Model Telecommunications Act”, co-authored by a former TPR panel member, Hank Intven, partner of the law firm McCarthy Tétrault LLP.
Attendees of the Canadian Telecom Summit received copies of the 456-page “Model Act” this afternoon during a special presentation by Intven and his co-author, Mary Dawson, a former associate deputy minister of justice and independent advisor to McCarthy Tétrault.
The TPR report released last year called for a more…
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BANFF – The issue of media concentration made another appearance at the 2007 Banff TV festival when Jean Prewitt, CEO of the Independent Film & Television Alliance, spoke at the Canadian Film and Television Production Association lunch Wednesday.
Her remarks come on the heels of the CRTC’s decision to require CTVglobemedia to divest five Citytv stations acquired as part of its takeover of Chum Ltd. With Rogers Communications as the new owner, program distributors merely substitute Rogers for Chum in seeking content buyers.
Prewitt, whose organization represents independent producers – 40% located outside America – says a key IFTA…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Seven months after XM Radio Canada owner John Bitove applied for a license for a new national over-the-air digital/high definition television license, the CRTC today called for other applicants.
Bitove’s HDTV Networks has asked for a broadcasting licence for an over-the-air digital/HD television programming undertaking to serve Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and Halifax.
But, the CRTC doesn’t hand out licenses normally without calling for competitive bids and Monday made that call.
When Bitove went public with his application back in December, he said: “Canadians are drastically falling behind in HDTV technology and it is…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Rogers Cable has asked the CRTC to change the rules for airing commercials and affiliated programming on its VOD service to grab back revenues from advertisers moving online.
Since October 2005, Rogers has been allowed to show commercials on Rogers on Demand (ROD) where an ad was already included in a program previously shown by a Canadian broadcaster, there is a written agreement with the original broadcaster to air the spot, and the program is offered to subscribers on demand but for free.
Rogers wants its condition of licence amended so that it doesn’t have to offer…
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OTTAWA – Rogers should spend as much money proportionately on Canadian programming on Citytv as it does on baseball players, says the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada.
CEP says Rogers’ deal to buy the City stations from CTV, as required by the CRTC, “could work out” if it gives them as much attention as it does its interests in the Toronto Blue Jays.
When examining the deal, the CRTC should hold Rogers to high commitments of spending on Canadian programming, the union says. “Rogers has the money to excite competition but the question is: will…
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