OTTAWA and GATINEAU – The CRTC outlined details today of its previously announced formal public review of issues relating to the ownership of Canadian broadcasting companies.
At the same time, it also issued a call for comments on a code prepared by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC), to which member broadcasters will be required to adhere.
CRTC Chairman Konrad von Finckenstein said the ownership review, whose broad strokes were outlined last month, will focus on media ownership and its impact on the range of voices that the broadcasting system provides to Canadians.
“The goal of this proceeding is…
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HALIFAX and VANCOUVER – Two releases within an hour of each other early Wednesday evening, one from western telco Telus and eastern incumbent Bell Aliant, say the companies have filed for local forbearance in some major metropolitan centres.
While Telus has asked for Vancouver and Edmonton, Aliant has filed for deregulation in Halifax and its surrounding regions of Hubbards, Ketch Harbour, Musquodoboit Harbour, Prospect Road, Sackville, St. Margarets, Waverley and French Village.
Aliant has asked for deregulation in Halifax, where the local cable operator has taken in excess of 35% market share, before, only to be rebuffed by the…
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MONTREAL and TORONTO – The Slaight family sold its company, Standard Radio, to Astral Media today for $1.08 billion.
The combined company will be the largest radio broadcaster in Canada and, says Astral, "achieves No.1 radio market position by number of stations and by weekly hours tuned.
The purchase makes Astral a national radio player, adding brands such as EZ Rock, Mix, The Bear and the CFRB newstalk format to Astral’s popular Quebec brand Radio Energie.
Astral did not purchase the Slaight’s interest in satellite radio company Sirius Canada nor Standard Interactive, which runs assets such as multichannel Internet…
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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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