By Glenn Wanamaker
QUEBEC CITY – The owners of controversial Quebec City radio station CHOI-FM, rebuffed by the Federal Court of Appeal in their effort to overturn a CRTC decision to withdraw their licence, say they will try to take the case to the Supreme Court of Canada.
"We will fight this to the end," Patrice Demers, President of GENEX Communications, the station’s owner, told a press conference late Thursday.
The station, rated number one in the market last spring, is allowed to stay on the air for at least 20 days, or until a decision is made on allowing a…
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MONTREAL – Canadian Satellite Radio and Sirius Canada have announced they will each carry an equal number of English and French stations when they launch.
As part of their conditions of licence, each satellite radio service is required to launch with at least eight Canadian channels, one-quarter of them in French. Both services said today they will voluntarily increase that to half.
Also, if they add any new Canadian services in the first 24 months of operation, they pledge to add an equal number of English and French.
“It has always been our intent to ensure satellite radio further strengthens Canadian…
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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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TORONTO – Talk radio powerhouses CFRB in Toronto and CJAD in Montreal will simulcast a discussion on the future of satellite radio in Canada on Thursday (Sept. 1) from 10-11 a.m. EST.
Both stations are owned by Standard Broadcasting, a major player in the SIRIUS Canada satellite radio service recently licensed by the CRTC. Standard President and CEO Gary Slaight will be a guest on the show, along with John Bitove, chairman and CEO of Canadian Satellite Radio, the competitor also licensed by the commission.
The rivals are joining forces to promote satellite radio in the face of uncertainty…
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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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TORONTO – Supporters of satellite radio in Canada held a large news conference in Toronto today to repeat their mantra that the services licensed by the CRTC will benefit established and emerging Canadian artists, rural Canadian listeners, and francophone culture outside of Quebec.
Launching the approved Canadian services — SIRIUS Canada and Canadian Satellite Radio (CSR) — will also stem the tide of Canadians who subscribe to illegal U.S. services, the pair argued.
“Canada needs a legitimate antidote to the quickly growing grey market,” said Kevin Shea, SIRIUS Canada president and CEO, citing an estimate that 100,000 Canadians have…
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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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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 – 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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