WHISTLER, B.C, – There was precious little new information doled out today by some of the participants at RBC Capital Markets annual telecom and media conference in the B.C. ski town.
However, one key parallel was drawn during the afternoon session featuring Shaw Communications president Peter Bissonnette, Rogers Cable president Edward Rogers, Bell Canada’s consumer solutions president Kevin Crull and Bell Nordiq CEO Roch Dubé.
When talking about the potential for cable telephony market penetration, Rogers said that a 15% to 20% local market share gain by cable companies was probably too conservative when saying it could be done…
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OTTAWA – While CRTC chairman Charles Dalfen said little to surprise independent producers in his annual address at the CFTPA’s national conference, he did hint at something that could delight them.
With CBC up for licence renewal this year, followed by the major private ‘casters, and with handheld digital media starting to shift industry revenue streams, Dalfen told producers “a bigger TV policy review might be timely” and he’s welcoming suggestions.
Any re-think of the TV policy, cursed by almost all stakeholders except broadcasters since it took effect in the fall of 2000, would begin after the review of…
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TORONTO – Maple Leafs Sports & Entertainment’s basketball channel, Toronto Raptors Network, has applied to the CRTC to let it show more live games.
It wants to boost the amount of time it can devote to games from 5% of its schedule to 15%.
The deadline to reply is March 23.
www.crtc.gc.ca
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OTTAWA – SaskTel has asked the CRTC to amend its VOD license so that it can create and deliver a local community channel on demand.
SaskTel offers digital subscriber line delivered MaxTV to several Saskatchewan communities and has nearly 50,000 customers.
Sounding like a real community channel, "SaskTel proposes to work with community members, local clubs, and local production companies to create and provide a range of programming that would reflect each community in its licensed areas and the province as a whole," says the application.
SaskTel proposes that the programming offered through its outlet for local expression be…
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OTTAWA – Once upon a time, the boys and girls in the content production and delivery business gathered for many huddles. They were figuring out how to pass film and video content to the receiver, the Internet, and score a business model for web content. The play action took the form of rights management issues, and the strategy was nearly intercepted by haggling over the ownership and dollar value of rights.
Today, as the Internet joins video MP3 players, cellphones, games and podcasting among the receivers of digital content, the players are huddling once again and again, the quarterbacks…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Having been authorized in November by the previous government to create a national do-not-call list, the CRTC today launched the public proceeding on the file, asking for input on the list and the rules surrounding it.
As reported by cartt.ca, Bill C-37 was passed just before the election was called and said that Canadians needed a way to avoid telemarketers by signing up for a national do-not-call list. The public proceeding will address issues such as what the specific DNCL rules should be and which, if any, of the existing telemarketing rules continue to be…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC today told the country’s specialty and pay channel owners that the financial and subscriber data historically made public must stay that way.
The CRTC had withheld releasing statistics (such as subscriber numbers, revenue earned and so forth) from the 2004 and 2005 broadcast years until it ruled on a Canadian Association of Broadcasters request that such information remain confidential.
The request was part of the Commission’s 2004 look at whether or not negotiations between broadcast distribution undertakings (cable and satellite companies) and broadcasters were fair.
Since such figures filed by Canada’s BDUs are kept confidential…
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OTTAWA – Knowing CBC-TV chief Richard Stursberg will meet some of the national media (including cartt.ca) in Ottawa today at the CFTPA’s Prime Time gathering to talk about the Ceeb’s future plans, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting and ACTRA released an hour-count it says shows CBC has "dropped the ball" on Canadian drama.
FOCB, a lobbying group, and ACTRA, the Canadian actors union, are still stinging from the announcement this week that the CBC has cancelled the critically praised, but low-rated This is Wonderland, The Tournament, and DaVinci City Hall. Both groups are still angry about the CBC lockout of…
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WHEN PEOPLE FIND OUT I AM the president of Babytel, an independent provider of high-speed Internet phone service, the first question I get is about our name, (most love it), followed closely by “how in the world can you compete against the big guys?”
How we compete is quite simple: we are finding unique opportunities, such as being the VOIP backbone for partners like independent cable companies and ISPs, and we are selling to niche markets like Asian and African communities in Canada.
(I will refer the genesis of our name to later.)
There is incredible opportunity. VOIP opens…
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GATINEAU – As part of its overall restructuring, the CRTC issued an unusual call for comments on Friday, asking the industry for input on setting service standards for Commission decisions.
"The Commission is committed to introduce new streamlining activities, to provide timely responses to industry inquiries and to establish regular reporting mechanisms," reads the public notice.
And, it wants to implement the standards in April – of this year.
For applications dealt with administratively, the Commission is promising to deal with 80% of them within two months.
For those going the Public Notice route that don’t raise policy issues…
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