OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The controversial Local Programming Improvement Fund (LPIF) will be phased out by August 31, 2014, the CRTC announced Wednesday.
Citing the advertising market’s recovery and the completion of the digital transition, both of which have helped to improve the financial situation of the country’s local television broadcasters, according to the Commission, the Fund’s contribution rate will be reduced from 1.5% to 1% for the 2012-2013 broadcast year, and to 0.5 % for the 2013-2014 broadcast year before being discontinued entirely effective September 1, 2014.
“While the implementation of the LPIF was appropriate to address the issues facing local stations at the…
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OTTAWA and TORONTO – Reaction from the broadcasting industry to the CRTC’s plan to depose of the Local Programming Improvement Fund (LPIF) was swift and virtually unanimous.
Mirko Bibic, chief legal and regulatory officer and EVP at Bell, told Cartt.ca that while his company is still “analyzing the new model and its financial impact”, the decision could serve to reignite the value-for-signal/fee-for-carriage debate.
“There’s no doubt, however, that local stations in small and medium-sized markets will receive significantly less revenue”, he said. “At a time when conventional television continues to be under tremendous financial pressure, including from a soft advertising…
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OTTAWA – More than 2,000 Canadians have contacted the CRTC to protest the CBC’s plans to shut down 620 analog over-the-air transmitters by the end of this month, according to the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS).
The organization, which has urged communities and CBC viewers to demand that the transmission equipment be made available for local public use, said Friday that over 2000 of the requests specifically requested that CBC consult with the affected communities.
CACTUS has proposed that some of the affected communities could not only use the equipment to maintain free access to CBC TV,…
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THERE HAS NEVER BEEN THIS much money available at one time for the development and production of Canadian television programming.
According to the newly available 2012 report of the Canadian Television Benefits Monitor, Canadian broadcasters must spend more than $450 million on new television programming or programming-related tangible public benefits over the next seven years (by Aug. 31, 2019). When the benefits associated with the BCE-Astral Media transaction currently before the CRTC are factored in, that number will be almost $600 million. This is over and above the hundreds of millions of dollars in baseline expenditures…
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TORONTO – Approximately 100 Bell TV technicians in Ontario could be locked out starting this Saturday, according to their union.
The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP) said Thursday that Bell Express Vu served notice that it will lock out 114 members of CEP Local 79M starting July 14 after failing to agree on a collective agreement.
The union issued a statement saying that it is been in negotiations with the company since April 2011, and that earlier this month Bell presented “a non-negotiable offer” that was rejected by 88% of its members. Some of the key issues are wages, wage grids,…
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VANCOUVER – A small, but growing, minority of Canadians have embraced mobile banking, and this number will increase in tandem with smart phone ownership, according to a new Ipsos Reid study.
A recent issue of the Ipsos Canadian Inter@ctive Reid Report, which investigated online Canadians’ use of web-based financial services, found that 12% of online Canadians have conducted banking from their mobile device in the past three months, up from 2011 data which found that just 8% of online Canadians used this service.
With 78% of respondents report conducting any type of online banking transaction in the past three months, (up from…
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OTTAWA – Bell’s proposed takeover of Astral Media will undergo regulatory scrutiny at a hearing set for September 10 at the Palais de congrès de Montréal in Montreal, the CRTC announced Tuesday.
The $3.38 billion deal, announced in March, would see Bell acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares of Montreal-based Astral in addition to its specialty and pay television channels, radio stations, digital media properties and out-of-home advertising platforms. That would mean that Bell, already the country’s largest telecommunications company, would add 22 specialty television channels (13 of which are French-language) and 84 commercial radio stations, including 29…
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TORONTO – The Canada Media Fund (CMF) said Monday that it will invest $14 million in 25 interactive digital media projects as part of the Experimental Stream’s production support.
The Experimental Stream encourages the development of innovative, interactive digital media content and software applications. For a description of the new projects, click here. The CMF will announce projects receiving funds for marketing and development support from the Experimental Stream later this month.
As the CMF enters into its third year, it has already provided more than $58 million in funding to 112 projects for production support. Production support provides funding for the…
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WHITEHORSE – Bell Canada and Northwestel said last week the companies would upgrade all 96 communities served by Northwestel in northern Canada with high-speed Internet and next-generation wireless over a five-year period. Northwestel, a direct subsidiary of Bell, maintains the plan will not result in increased service prices, and is partially contingent on the CRTC approving the Astral public benefits package that is part of Bell’s $3.38 billion takeover of Astral Media.
According to sources, the CRTC will make public the Bell application to purchase Astral Media this week, along with timelines for comment and a hearing date.
“We have a…
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OTTAWA – As could be expected, no one is completely satisfied with Industry Canada’s proposed 700 MHz auction rules, which were unveiled in April.
Some are suggesting a complete format change, while others are requesting modifications to specific aspects of the combinatorial clock auction (CCA). Still some say in comments to the department’s consultation it must consider a number of elements in the proposed auction framework under a single lens. Rogers Communications Inc. and Bell Canada are two who share this view, but for different reasons.
Rogers, while satisfied with the proposal to use a CCA format,…
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