BPF reviewing whether it will continue awarding funding to CMAC moving forward
OTTAWA – A month and a half after the federal government announced it was cutting funding it awarded to the Community Media Advocacy Centre (CMAC), the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage is trying to figure out why the organization received the funding – to develop an anti-racism strategy – in the first place.
Funding was cut to CMAC’s project after numerous concerns were expressed about antisemitic and other racist tweets posted by Laith Marouf, a senior consultant with the organization.
At a meeting last Friday, committee members, who argued CMAC…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) is expecting Canadian news businesses will receive around $329.2 million per year in total compensation from digital platforms if Bill C-18, the Online News Act, is implemented, according to a cost estimate report for the bill released yesterday.
For context, the heritage committee was told last month the Australian news media bargaining code is currently generating over $200 million for news businesses from digital platforms.
In Canada, the PBO estimates the revenue generated from digital platforms will equal around 30% of the costs of content creation for news organizations. “For broadcasters, the cost of content…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The CRTC put out a call for comments today on an application from Quebecor Media on behalf of its subsidiary TVA Group to remove the limit on advertising currently imposed on TVA’s discretionary services.
The Commission is also considering the possibility of removing the limit for other discretionary services as well.
Right now, TVA’s AddikTV, CASA, Évasion, MOI ET CIE, PRISE2, Yoopa and Zeste, as well as LCN (is national news service) and TVA Sports and TVA Sports 2 (its mainstream sports services) are restricted to airing no more than 12 minutes of advertising per clock hour, the CRTC…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – While telecommunications service providers continue to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Fiona, the CRTC is seeking more information on how they prepared for and responded to the storm.
The Commission sent a request for information last week to Bell, Eastlink, Rogers and Telus. By Oct. 7, the companies are expected to submit information including “a high-level estimate of the number of customers affected by service outages of 24 hours or more caused by the hurricane, for each of the phone, mobile wireless, and Internet access services,” as well as “The status to date of any…
Continue Reading
Academics explain algorithms and weigh in on whether the CRTC can handle implementing the bill
OTTAWA – If Bill C-11 becomes law the side effects “could break stuff”, Frédéric Bastien Forrest, a Canadian radio personality and content creator, told the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications yesterday.
“That’s what’s scary about the business model we have already… a lot of people assume that digital media works just like traditional media, a top-down approach, but it’s more of a grassroots thing so we need separate ways to address these two industries,” he said.
Forrest called on the committee to keep user-generated…
Continue Reading
By Konrad von Finckenstein
This is the second article in a two-part series. For part one, please click here.
BILL C-18, THE Online News Act, is being discussed in committee. The stated purpose of the act is “is to regulate digital news intermediaries with a view to enhancing fairness in the Canadian digital news marketplace and contributing to its sustainability, including the sustainability of independent local news businesses.”
The motivation for the act stems from the idea that local newspapers do not get the appropriate recompense for news that they produce but that reaches the public via digital platforms and that platforms…
Continue Reading
By Howard Law
DESPITE THE SENATE’S singular focus on Bill C-11’s regulation of user generated content, today’s witnesses shed some light on other issues both important and neglected.
The biggest issue that has been mostly avoided in both the House and the Senate is what the post C-11 broadcasting world will look like when the US streamer/studios are placed under new obligations to make and/or finance CanCon, known in CRTC lingo as “Canadian Programming Expenditures (CPE).”
Debate over that issue immediately invokes a hot button issue: what counts as a certified “Canadian” program?
And debate over what is a Canadian program immediately poses…
Continue Reading
By Leonard St-Aubin
MORE THAN A YEAR ago I wrote in Cartt.ca that it would be no easy feat, under Bill C-10 (now C-11), to integrate global streamers into Canada’s protected domestic broadcasting system, laden with complex regulation and cross-subsidies for Canadian content (Cancon).
And I predicted that high-profile Cancon would be outsourced to global streamers as Canadian broadcasters struggle to compete.
Three recent developments validate those observations.
First is a chorus of calls for flexibility in what qualifies as Cancon, from Disney, Netflix, Spotify, and North American screen workers union IATSE. The issue is that Cancon’s outdated definitions are likely…
Continue Reading
By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – There is “no silver bullet” that will put an end to fraudulent phone calls, Ian Scott, chair of the CRTC told the House of Commons Committee on Industry, Science and Technology last Thursday during a meeting at which Commission representatives updated the committee about their ongoing work on the problem.
“There is no single solution – no silver bullet – that will put an end to this scourge,” Scott said. “That is why we have put in place a robust strategy that relies on a number of technical and regulatory solutions.”
Back in March 2020, the…
Continue Reading
By Konrad von Finckenstein
THE STATED PURPOSE of Bill C-18, the Online News Act, “is to regulate digital news intermediaries with a view to enhancing fairness in the Canadian digital news marketplace and contributing to its sustainability, including the sustainability of independent local news businesses.”
The motivation for the act stems from the idea that local newspapers do not get the appropriate recompense for news that they produce but that reaches the public via digital platforms. These platforms are considered to have inordinate market power that can be misused.
Scheme of the act
To rectify the situation, the act contemplates a mandatory bargaining…
Continue Reading
