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
By Douglas Barrett
AMID THE GATHERING storm of comment on what should constitute a Canadian program once Bill C-11, the Online Streaming Act, is passed, there’s a question that needs to be addressed at the forefront: what is a Canadian producer?
Generally, when we think of a film or television producer we are speaking about the person or persons who have developed the creative property, raised the financing, engaged the key creatives including and especially the writer(s) and director, cast the performers, ensured the production stayed on time and budget, managed all aspects of post-production, and delivered the completed product to…
Continue Reading
CBC/RADIO-CANADA HAS responded to an open letter penned by Quebecor president and CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau, published here on Cartt.ca earlier today.
In his open letter, Péladeau expressed discontent with the direction of the national public broadcaster and the fact the government did not include any direction to the CRTC to consider “the advertising dollars the CBC/Radio-Canada is gobbling up” when it told the Commission to reconsider its decision on the renewal of CBC/Radio-Canada’s licences.
“Mr. Péladeau’s preoccupation with CBC/Radio-Canada is well known,” a CBC/Radio-Canada spokesperson said in an email to Cartt.ca. “He has, for years, repeated the claim…
Continue Reading
