OTTAWA – "The CRTC got it right on VoIP,” Canadian Cable Telecommunications president Michael Hennessy said Monday. “This decision creates a framework for competitors to enter the local telephone market. VoIP and new digital phone services will only be able to offer consumers an alternative to monopoly telephone service, if there are basic safeguards to prevent anti-competitive behaviour.
“There is no need to overturn this decision when consumers are already reaping the benefits of ending a 100 year monopoly in the local telephone market."
The CCTA today replied to “the monopoly phone companies’” request that Federal Cabinet overturn…
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WINNIPEG – The media supply chain is irrevocably more complicated and potentially scary for Canadian broadcasters, according to two sessions on personal media on Monday at the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ annual convention.
The morning session was called “Personal Media Models: Who will supply the media-savvy consumer” and the afternoon session was entitled: “New Models, New Rules: Managing the personalized media revolution.”
On demand technology of all sorts, delivered from all platforms, is irrevocably altering the way media companies do business and on demand, specifically wireless on demand, content was front and centre for panelists as they discussed how…
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DARTMOUTH, N.S. – A recently settled lawsuit led to a third quarter loss of $1.2 million at Newfoundland Capital Corporation.
While revenue grew at a good clip, thanks to organic ad sales growth and acquisitions, a lawsuit settled with Halterm Income Fund for $3.5 million led to the quarterly loss. Excluding the impact of the settlement, net income would have been on par with the third quarter of 2004. Year-to-date net income of $3.3 million is lower than the prior year due to the settlement and the gain on disposal of investment in 2004. Excluding these two one-time…
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WINNIPEG – Cable and satellite companies paying fees for the Global TV signal is just one of the major structural changes that must happen if conventional broadcast television is to endure, CanWest Global Communications CEO Leonard Asper said on Wednesday.
While the company’s fourth quarter press release made a vague, innocuous reference to “structural and regulatory” issues that need to be addressed, Asper was much more specific in his comments to financial analysts in a conference call late in the afternoon.
Referring to a “rigorous regulatory plan”, Asper said the company wants: * Cable and satellite companies to pay…
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I THINK WE’VE ALL HIT the point of severe fatigue when it comes to talking about telecom policy.
A number of senior telecom executives rehashed their recent regulatory presentations this week in Toronto during the third annual Canadian Telecommunications Forum, put on by Insight Communications.
The sessions featured all the usual suspects from Telus (EVP Janet Yale), MTS (SVP Chris Peirce), the CCTA (president Michael Hennessy) and others. But in their sessions on Monday, let’s just say the spark was missing that has been there at other times this year.
Bell’s main regulatory honchos, Lawson Hunter and Mirko Bibic actually…
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OTTAWA – Research released Monday – a week before the Canadian Association of Broadcasters annual convention – by the Canadian Film and Television Production Association says that changes to the financing policy infrastructure have heavily tipped the scales in favour of Canada’s broadcasters.
"Between 2000 and 2002 Canadian film and television producers earnings before taxes dropped from 6.7% to 1.6%," said Ira Levy, CFTPA chair. "In comparison large broadcasters have maintained a consistent rate of profitability well in excess of overall Canadian industry averages."
The figures are part of an analysis the CFTPA commissioned from the Nordicity Group Ltd….
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OTTAWA – A press release yesterday touting how broadcasters are getting rich and TV producers are not, isn’t supported by the study it cites, says the Canadian Association of Broadcasters.
In releasing its Nordicity Group Ltd.’s Study on Broadcaster Profitability and Programming Expenditures, the Canadian Film and Television Produces Association (CFTPA), as reported by www.cartt.ca, claims that private broadcasters have increased their profitability and reduced their Canadian program expenditures, at the expense of the Canadian program production industry. Data taken from their own study demonstrates that this could not be further from the truth, says the CAB.
“Canada’s private…
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TORONTO – Astral Media may have been one of the CRTC’s most vociferous critics when it came to its satellite radio decision this year, but the company’s radio division has signed on to produce two French language channels for SIRIUS Canada.
Adult Contemporary format Rock Velours will play the best Canadian soft rock and include new French artists like Jorane, Pierre Lapointe and Ariane Moffatt. Rock Velours will also feature newer Canadian artists like Daniel Powter, Feist and Divine Brown.
Contemporary Hit radio (CHR) format Energie2 will have a play list that includes Pop Rock, Modern Rock and popular…
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SAINT JOHN – Aliant president and CEO Jay Forbes told financial analysts on Friday that he’s holding out hope that the CRTC will see it their way when it comes to forbearing from regulating its local telephony markets.
Aliant and all other Canadian telecom stakeholders faced the Commission during the week of September 26th to give their opinion on local telephony competition and at what stage the Regulator should de-regulate local phone markets.
The local forbearance hearing (which was attended by www.cartt.ca) was initiated by an Aliant request early in 2005 that it be relieved of regulation in 32…
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TORONTO – The Canadian Telecommunications Hall of Fame inducted its first nine laureates at a dinner last week in Toronto.
Those honoured included posthumous contributors to Canada’s telecommunications industry, namely, Alexander Graham Bell and Reginald Aubrey Fessenden in the Inventors and Innovators category, Dr. John H. Chapman in the Servants of the Public category and Charles Fleetford Sise (first Bell Canada CEO) in the Icons of Business category.
Other laureates inducted were former CRTC vice-chair (telecom) David Colville in the Servants of the Public category, Professor and telecom law specialist Hudson Janisch and consultants Lis and…
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