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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OTTAWA – Five additional foreign channels have been added to the eligible satellite list, the CRTC announced Thursday.
All are third-language channels which the Canadian Cable Telecommunications Association asked for. They are:
* Polsat 2 International: A 24-hour general interest programming service originating from Poland and offered in the Polish language. The service is targeted primarily to Polish-speaking communities outside Poland and provides a wide variety of genres of programming including reality shows, soap operas, crime series, mini-series, talk shows, documentaries, news, sports, and music programs.
* ET-Global Channel: A 24-hour general interest programming service offered primarily in Mandarin Chinese…
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OTTAWA – Bragg Communications, the parent company of Halifax-based MSO EastLink, has appealed to the CRTC to expand what can be shown in the two minutes of ad time U.S. cable channels make available for local ads.
CRTC regulations currently say that cable companies may only promote their video or audio services within that avail time. Cablecos can claim 25% of the time and must give the rest up, at cost, to Canadian broadcasters to promote their channels. Channels like CNN and the Golf Channel make two minutes per hour available to its carriers to sell advertising, which is…
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TORONTO – CRTC chairman Charles Dalfen will deliver the closing keynote address at the 2006 Canadian Telecom Summit.
Canada’s leading event for the telecommunications industry, the summit attracts more than 500 from the telecom industry.
Other speakers are: Mitel chairman Terry Matthews, Telus CEO Darren Entwistle, Vonage founder Jeffrey Citron, Avaya Chair and CEO Donald Peterson; IBM Canada president Dan Fortin; Alcatel North America CEO Hubert de Pesquidoux; Allstream president John MacDonald; Mark Henderson, president of Ericsson Canada; Michael Moskowitz, president of Palm Canada; Chris Rooney from the new AT&T; Nortel North America president Dion Joannou, Siemens Group executive…
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WHY IS GLOBAL NATIONAL the only Canadian content I can get from iTunes for my Video iPod?
Why is the sports content on the Samsung a920 from Bell Mobility I’ve just started testing (downloads are surprisingly speedy, by the way) from ESPN? Where’s Sportsnet or TSN?
Why is its business news a bland CP report and not from ROBTv or Newsnet, for example? Why isn’t FashionTelevision the feed for the "fashion" channel on this nifty multimedia wireless phone?
Where’s Treehouse On Demand for these devices – my kids would flip for it (actually, there’s no kids content offered at…
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TORONTO – Responding to a story broken earlier today by www.cartt.ca, CanWest MediaWorks issued the following statement:
On December 23, 2005, CanWest MediaWorks Inc. filed an application to the Ontario Superior Court asking it to strike down the current federal statute and regulations restricting direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising of prescription medicines, on the basis they constitute a violation of section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guaranteeing the freedom of expression.
The current advertising restrictions are unfair, ineffective and discriminatory. Canadians already see significant numbers of DTC prescription drug ads broadcast on U.S. television channels carried…
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TORONTO – "There’ll be no big announcements today so you can get off the edge of your seats," CanWest Global CEO Leonard Asper told a gathering of shareholders and financial analysts today in Toronto while opening the company’s first ever investors’ day.
Some highlights from the executive presentations and from the Q&A session were:
* The company has looked at U.S. acquisitions – specifically of cable TV channels but, "we don’t have the stomach or the legs to take on a U.S. investment," said Asper. He added the company no longer sees it necessary to have a U.S. asset…
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