WE HOPE READERS HAVE ENJOYED the four-month free preview of www.cartt.ca. We do our best to cover the vital issues that affect executives, managers and employees of companies of all sizes in the cable, radio, television and telecom trade.
Since our May 2nd launch, we’ve delivered original journalism – breaking news, feature stories, interviews and viewpoints – important to the domestic industry. In fact, since launch, www.cartt.ca has published almost 800 stories which have appeared in our twice-weekly newsletters that hit in-boxes promptly at 8 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That’s more than nine per business day, and includes many…
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GATINEAU – It could be up to another year before Ottawa-Gatineau gets a radio station aimed at children and youth.
The CRTC has approved an extension of the time limit to start the operations of a French-language AM station to be operated by Fondation radio enfant (du Canada), a non-profit group.
The group’s application for a station was approved in 2003, but now it has until Aug. 28, 2006 before it has to go on air, unless it asks for and receives another extension.
The group, to be run by a board of directors, plans on airing programming aimed…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC today released some local phone market data ahead of its 2005 Monitoring Report, expected to be published this October.
The commission felt some of the information could be useful now to companies and intervenors preparing for the public consultation hearing to be held in Gatineau in late September regarding a framework for forbearing existing local phone companies from regulation of residential and business local exchange services.
The data released today, covering the years 2000 to 2004, include the number of local, residential, business, and wholesale lines in Canada; and the percentage of those…
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TORONTO – Reports swirling around all weekend long after the Liberals’ cabinet retreat in Regina suggest that Heritage Minister Liza Frulla is hoping to get her fellow cabinet ministers on-side to ask the CRTC to review or rescind its June 16th decision to license a pair of satellite radio companies.
Both companies are taking the reports seriously, executives told www.cartt.ca on Monday. Cabinet has until September 14th to decide what it may do.
“From the outset Madame Frulla has been worried about the overall number of French stations. No surprise,” said SIRIUS Canada president Kevin Shea. “In fairness, she…
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WHILE WE CAN’T SAY for sure that Compton Communications will be the smallest North American video on demand provider when it launches this fall, we figure it’s pretty unlikely that many other 5,000-customer cable companies in Canada or the U.S. are planning on offering it that soon.
It’s a very expensive technology, fraught with difficult to solve issues, especially for a small operator. Think Paramount’s EVP of programming will have Compton’s VOD launch on his priority list, for example?
Compton Cable (which serves the Port Perry, Ont. region, about an hour’s drive northeast of Toronto, on Lake Scugog) has…
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TORONTO – In a rare show of solidarity, the two satellite radio services licensed recently by the CRTC will be banding together to show support for the services, amid rumours the federal government will ask the commission to review or rescind the licences.
Top execs from competitors Canadian Satellite Radio (Chairman and CEO John Bitove, and President and COO Stephen Tapp) and Sirius Canada (President and CEO Kevin Shea, and Gary Slaight, President and CEO, Standard Radio Inc.) will be joined by stars from Canada’s music and entertainment industry at a Toronto bar at noon on Wednesday to explain…
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OTTAWA – Citing unnamed sources, a report this (Friday) evening from the Canadian Press says the federal cabinet is about to ask the CRTC to rescind its June decision to license two satellite radio providers.
As reported by www.cartt.ca, many cultural groups, as well as traditional radio companies (led by CHUM Ltd. and Astral Media, which together won a competing terrestrial digital radio license), have asked that the decision be set aside.
CHUM has warned that its proposed service probably won’t launch at all if the two satellite providers remain.
On June 16, the CRTC granted…
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TORONTO – Rogers and Bell may have had the press releases out first this year, but Telus Mobility is the first to market with mobile TV – video to cell phones.
Telus Mobility today launched Telus mobile TV, offering clients across Canada real-time access to live television programming including news, weather and shopping channels on their wireless phones.
Both Rogers and Bell made announcements earlier this year that the service was coming soon (those releases anticipated the service would be in the market by now from both companies), powered by MobiTV, but both companies say technical issues has…
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WOODSTOCK and GATINEAU – One of the last available southwestern Ontario FM frequencies was awarded to Byrnes Communications today by the CRTC.
Continuing a recent trend towards speedier decisions, the Commission awarded the new FM license in Woodstock, Ont. (About 140 kms west of Toronto, close to London) less than three months after the hearing.
“We are truly humbled by the speed with which the CRTC released its decision” says Chris Byrnes, president. “We are proud to be chosen to deliver local news and information as well as the best of today’s adult music to the people of Oxford…
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TORONTO – Geoff Poulton was introduced today as vice-president and general manager of Rogers OMNI TV Manitoba effective immediately.
OMNI TV Manitoba is the newly branded, newly licensed, yet-to-be-launched television station resulting from Rogers’ purchase of NOW TV and the subsequent approval by the CRTC (Public Notion 2005-207), as reported by www.cartt.ca. OMNI TV Manitoba is scheduled to launch Monday November 14th, 2005.
"We are pleased to have Geoff Poulton (right) leading the newest addition to the OMNI Television family," said Rogers Media Television’s CEO Leslie Sole, in…
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