OTTAWA – The CRTC has denied a request from Telus to amend that company's regional broadcasting licences for various terrestrial broadcasting distribution undertakings in British Columbia and Alberta by deleting six licensed areas.
In its application, Telus asked to drop the areas of Prince George, Terrace, Vernon and Penticton in BC, and Grande Prairie and Fort McMurray in Alberta, citing the carve-out criteria required to remove a service area as a separate, exempt undertaking from a regional licence.
But the Commission said that Telus did not meet the exemption criteria and that the community programming that Telus distributes in these six licensed areas did…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has waded in to an ongoing dispute between the city of Calgary and a group of big telco carriers over a municipal rights-of-way bylaw and a proposed municipal consent and access agreement (MCAA).
The Commission said Friday that it was turning down an application by the city seeking a declaration and determination that certain telecommunications carriers may rely upon Calgary’s rights-of-way bylaw for the performance of their obligations under section 43 of the Telecommunications Act, which deals with access to infrastructure.
The decision also approved certain terms and conditions of an MCAA between Calgary and…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC is seeking input on a proposed plan to update the English-language closed captioning quality standards relating to the accuracy rate for live programming.
The Commission said Wednesday that it is also wants feedback on the 2016 Working Group’s proposal to amend and update the English-language closed captioning quality standards relating to the accuracy rate for live programming, set out in Broadcasting Regulatory Policy 2016-435, and to finalize the accuracy standard for live English-language closed captioning in Canada.
Interventions are due by March 18, and only parties that file interventions may file a reply to matters…
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OTTAWA and MONTREAL – The CRTC has given the go-ahead to Quebecor Media’s TVA Group to buy French-language specialty channels Évasion and Zeste as part of its acquisition of parent company Serdy Media.
The proposed $24 million deal, announced in May, also includes the Serdy Video group of companies. CRTC approval was required for the change in the ownership and effective control of the two discretionary television services.
The Commission said Monday that it has determined that the deal is in the public interest, noting that Zeste and Évasion stand to benefit from Quebecor and TVA’s multiplatform exposure and reach, and that…
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OTTAWA – While it is still unclear how the interventions to the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review (BTLR) Panel will be made public and when, the CRTC published its comments one day before the deadline!
Not much news in the CRTC proposal to the BTLRP for those who have been following the publication of its Harnessing Change: The Future of Programming Distribution in Canada, the Chairman’s speeches in front of the Senate Committee on Transport and Communications and at the IIC. Then again, the Chairman is not known for his showmanship.
So, it is no surprise that the Regulator’s suggestions are…
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WYOMING, ON – The SouthWestern Integrated Fibre Technology Inc. (SWIFT) is calling on all rural broadband stakeholders to submit comments in support of a review of the CRTC Broadband Fund’s eligibility criteria that it calls “restrictive”.
As Cartt.ca reported, SWIFT has asked the Commission to take another look at the way how it qualifies rural regions to receive millions of dollars in funding to deliver broadband to its residents under the Regulator’s $750 million Broadband Fund.
Specifically, SWIFT is proposing that modifications be made to the exclusive use of the 25 km hexagonal system used by Innovation, Science and Economic…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has dismissed, in part, a complaint against the Bell Fund by a group of broadcasters and the Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA) over the composition of its Board of Directors and the guidelines of its new TV Program.
In its first decision of the calendar year on Tuesday, the Commission determined that the manner in which the Bell Fund has structured its TV Program is consistent with the CRTC’s policies and requirements of Certified Independent Production Funds (CIPFs), and therefore do not need to be revised at this time.
However, it did direct the Fund…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC is seeking feedback on a new production report to be completed annually by the large English- and French-language ownership groups in place of the current programs of national interest (PNI) report.
The new report, which would only apply to licensed services, would include all Canadian programming expenditure categories, except news and sports programming.
The Commission said that it is considering expanding the key creative roles in the report to include ‘showrunner’, for example, and is also asking for input on draft templates that include Canadian programming expenditures by region and language, as well as programming produced by Indigenous and official…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Canadians’ increasing use of Internet and mobile services helped to drive up telecommunications revenues 3.2% to $50.3 billion in 2017, slightly faster than the five-year average annual growth rate of 2.9%, the CRTC said Thursday.
In the telecom portion of its 2018 Communications Monitoring Report (CMR), the Commission said that over half (58.2%) of the total revenue share was earned by the country’s large incumbent TSPs, while 34.0% was generated by cable-based carriers, which it defines as the former cable monopolies that currently also provide telecommunications services. Resellers earned 3.6%, other service providers generated 3.2%, and small…
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Asks for Review & Vary
GATINEAU – A large consortium of Ontario communities and other groups, together known as SouthWestern Integrated Fibre Technology Inc. (SWIFT) has filed an application with the CRTC in the hopes the Regulator will reconsider how it qualifies rural regions to receive millions of dollars in funding to deliver broadband to its residents.
In an application filed Wednesday with the Commission, SWIFT’s leadership believes the Commission’s recently outlined $750 million rural broadband fund, with its decision to rely “exclusively on error prone indicators of maximum theoretical link speeds captured in the ISED’s…
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