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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GATINEAU – The CRTC has turned down a request from a non-profit group in British Columbia to get relief from TELUS Communications Inc. with its phone rates.
The Royal Canadian Air Cadets 828 Hurricane Squadron wanted the telco to allow qualifying non-profit organizations to have two individual phone lines at residential rates instead of business rates. TELUS does so in Alberta, but its General Tariff for B.C. does not.
The cadets wanted TELUS to define customers given rate relief to include churches, youth groups, veterans’ associations, associations for the elderly or infirm, and community centres. It argued that residential…
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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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GATINEAU – The CRTC has renewed the licences for several specialty networks for seven years, including APTN (Aboriginal Peoples Television Network), which was granted an increase in the subscriber fee to $0.25 a month, up from $0.15.
The extra revenue will help APTN acquire more Aboriginal programs in underrepresented categories such as dramas, live musical concerts, and children’s programs and will allow the network to make the move to high definition television during the licence term.
“This decision makes it possible for the network to continue to grow and expand our programming in ways we couldn’t in the past,”…
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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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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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