TORONTO – When Maclean’s magazine was able to buy the supposedly confidential phone records of Jennifer Stoddart, Canada’s Privacy Commissioner, and publish a cover story last week on what looks like a potentially scary security loophole, the big three wireless carriers – all of whom were mentioned in the article – sprang into action.
And, with each company counting on huge wireless growth in the Christmas season and throughout 2006 and 2007 (all companies saw record levels of subscriber growth in 2005) all moved quickly to try and repair the damage.
First out of the gate was Bell Canada….
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TORONTO – Politics came to the winners’ podium Saturday night at the Gemini Awards when outspoken Vancouver producer Chris Haddock (DaVinci’s City Hall) got on his soap box after snagging honours as co-writer of the movie The Life.
In the media room after he picked up his prize, Haddock was blunt: "The broadcasters are making buckets of money these days, big buckets, and aren’t throwing it around." He added it’s high time CRTC commissioners required broadcasters to hand out much more than they do now where Canadian content is concerned.
The comment followed a post-award back stage question about…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC Friday scuttled a bid by broadcasting veteran Wendell Wilks to launch a local TV station for the Niagara region.
The founder of Edmonton’s ITV (which is now Global Edmonton) told the CRTC at a June hearing in Niagara Falls that the area is so poorly served by the existing Canadian TV broadcasters that it needs its own station.
However, perhaps sensing that the southern Ontario market is already pretty well served by TV (not to mention pretty well fragmented), there were no other competing applications.
Besides being HD-ready at launch, TVN (as reported by…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC put out a call today for radio station licenses for Medicine Hat, Alta.
As is its practice, the Commission received an application for a broadcasting license to provide a commercial radio service for the town of about 61,000 and opened up a call for other applications. As is normal, it did not name the applicant.
The deadline is January 17th, 2006.
Medicine Hat, which is about a three-hour drive southeast of Calgary, is a Pattison Broadcasting town. Jim Pattison Group owns CFMY (MY 96 FM), Country 1270 CHAT, as well as CHAT-TV.
CJLT Alive 99.5,…
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OTTAWA – Both Rogers and Shaw Cable have applied to the CRTC again to alter the rules surrounding local ad avail time on U.S. cable channels.
Currently, American channels such as CNN, A&E, The Golf Channel and others make two minutes an hour available for cable companies to sell local availability time. In the U.S., it’s a multi-billion-dollar sales industry.
In Canada, MSOs are not allowed to sell the time by the CRTC. They must give 75% of the time to Canadian specialty channels (who have to also pay MSO costs) and to use the remaining 25% to promote…
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TORONTO – It was easy on Tuesday afternoon to get everyone to agree that targeted advertising is a better way to spend ad dollars on television.
At the Velma Rogers Graham Theatre in Toronto, CTAM Canada hosted a high-level panel session that afternoon featuring Corus Television president Paul Robertson, Zenith Optimedia CEO Sunni Boot, Association of Canadian Advertisers senior vice-president Bob Reaume, Rogers Communications chief strategy officer Mike Lee, and Invidi CEO David Downey.
The session was entitled “Delivering Hyper-Targeted TV Advertising” and the executives, very ably moderated by ROBTv’s Michael Vaughan, went back and forth on what, exactly,…
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OTTAWA – With a tariff decision it finds “egregious and flawed” facing Canadian radio broadcasters, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters filed a motion with the Federal Court of Canada on Tuesday asking for a judicial review of the Copyright Board’s October 14 decision.
In its decision on the tariffs radio stations pay to the Society of Composers, Authors, and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) and the Neighbouring Rights Collective of Canada (NRCC) for the rights to play music, the Copyright Board of Canada raised the rates on these tariffs, which will result in an overall increase in fees paid…
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OTTAWA – On Monday, the first day of the newest session of Parliament, Minister of Industry David Emerson introduced legislation which will, if passed, grant the CRTC direct fining authority when it comes to Telecommunications Act violations.
Direct fining authority would be granted through the implementation of an administrative monetary penalty (AMP) scheme. Under the scheme, the CRTC would have the ability to impose AMPs in the following ranges: for companies, maximums of $10 million for a first offence and $15 million for a subsequent offence; for individuals, maximums of $25 000 for a first offence and $50 000…
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TORONTO – After years of financial pressures, Score Media, which owns and operates analog sports channel The Score, seems to have turned things around as revenue, earnings and income have all increased.
Revenue for the year ended August 31st, increased to $25.1 million, up 25.6% compared to the end of 2004. EBITDA increased to $4.8 million, up by $4.4 million over ’04. Net income increased $3.2 million – a profit of $2.8 million compared to a loss of $427,000 in the prior year. The company also refinanced its short-term bank loans with a $15 million credit facility comprised of a…
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IMAGINE OWNING A BUSINESS and being able to access a product that was essential to your success, that makes up the bulk of the service you provide, and that you use more of in more effective ways over a period of 25 years with no annual percentage increase on the rate you pay for that product.
In a recent decision by the Copyright Board of Canada, which increased SOCAN licence fees for the use of music 2003-2007 for commercial radio stations, the board acknowledged that the current rate had not been changed for over 25 years; furthermore, they stated…
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