OTTAWA – The federal government asked the CRTC on Friday to report on the accessibility and quality of broadcasting services offered to minority French- and English-language communities.
The request is part of a government-wide initiative, called the Roadmap for Canada’s Linguistic Duality 2008-2013, that is aimed at strengthening the vitality of minority official language communities.
The government said in a statement that it was time to re-look at the issue given the proliferation of new technologies that has transformed the broadcast industry in recent years.
“As the Roadmap for Canada’s Linguistic Duality attests, our government takes very seriously the…
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TORONTO – Property tax payers in Canadian cities are subsidizing the telecommunications industry by more than $107 million a year, according to a new report released today by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM).
Local governments have no way to recover road management and repair costs from telecommunications companies that tear up and occupy roadways to expand, upgrade and operate their networks, states the report Highway Robbery: How Federal Telecom Rules Cost Taxpayers and Damage Public Roads.
The FCM is calling on Ottawa to amend the Telecommunications Act to rectify the situation.
“In Canada’s larger cities the current regime…
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OTTAWA – Canada’s film and television producers say proposed Senate amendments to Bill C-10 reflect their concerns, and if passed, can help return stability to the industry.
“Canada’s independent film and television producers feel that they have been listened to and understood. The proposed amendments to Bill C-10 are fully consistent with Criminal Code compliance recommendations made by the Canadian Film and Television Production Association to the Senate committee,” said CFTPA President and CEO Guy Mayson.
The proposed amendments were released Wednesday by Senators Francis Fox and Wilfred Moore, and will be introduced when the Senate banking committee proceeds…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Canada’s TV distributors generated $8.95 billion in revenues in 2007, according to the CRTC’s statistical and financial summaries for Canadian broadcasting distribution companies released Wednesday.
The cable companies accounted for $7.1 billion of the total, while direct-to-home satellite and wireless cablecos brought in $1.85 billion.
Cable revenues were up 16.1% to $7.1 billion in 2007 from $6.1 billion a year earlier, according to the data. The number of basic cable subscribers increased 2.3% to 7.65 million from 7.48 million during that period.
This sector’s profits before interest and taxes (PBIT) rose 10% to $1.5 billion in 2007…
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TORONTO – Industries have converged. Companies have converged. It’s about time the laws and regulations covering the telecom and broadcast worlds converged, too.
That’s the message CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein brought to delegates today at the 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit. (Ed note: This story is a compendium of von Finckenstein’s written text and his verbal comments during the speech.)
After outlining a number of changes implemented and challenges overcome in the past 12 months on the telecom file, the chairman noted that with all that is changing in the industries the CRTC oversees, the Commission is bound by two…
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OTTAWA – Canada’s Telecommunications Hall of Fame on Tuesday launched a contest that asks post-secondary Canadian residents to answer the question: How can Canada become a recognized global leader in telecom in the next 10 years?
Ten winners from across Canada will receive an all-expenses paid trip to the 2008 Telecom Laureate Awards induction ceremonies and gala dinner on October 29, 2008.
Also, the top two winners will receive $1,500 scholarships. Winners will be sponsored by a company within the Canadian telecom industry, have the…
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TORONTO – We’re just at the very beginning of the mobile broadband revolution in Canada, but expect the market to explode over the next five years, said a number of speakers Monday morning at the 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit in Toronto.
Carriers around the world are already facing “the commoditization of mobile bandwidth,” said Alcatel-Lucent’s CIO Jim Cacito in his speech to delegates, adding that commoditization comes in the form of all-you-can-eat bandwidth bundles.
It’s still early days Stateside, and such packages are due in Canada soon. (Ed note: Perhaps on or about July 11th, launch day of the…
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OTTAWA – Just prior to Parliament’s summer break, the federal government tabled new amendments to the Copyright Act “that will bring it in line with advances in technology and current international standards,” it says.
The bill (C-61) is “a win-win approach because we’re ensuring that Canadians can use digital technologies at home with their families, at work, or for educational and research purposes. We are also providing new rights and protections for Canadians who create the content and who want to better secure their work online,” said Industry Minister Jim Prentice, in a press release.
"These proposed amendments represent…
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TORONTO – TwoBlueRhino has been hired by Canada’s The Fight Network to be its U.S. affiliate sales and marketing agent, the company announced this week. Nory LeBrun, TBR’s president and founder, will act as the channel’s executive vice-president of U.S. affiliate sales and marketing.
Cable veteran LeBrun has had his hand in a number of successful cable brand launches, including CNN, Headline News, The WB 100+/CW Plus, The Food Network, and most recently, the Gospel Music Channel, which now boasts nearly 40 million subscribers after just over three years of operations. LeBrun also led the rebranding and revised distribution…
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BANFF – Advertisers are more excited about the mobile sphere than the Internet, according to Paul Burns, director of IPTV mobile broadband at Sympatico MSN.
One of the most surprising findings of the ongoing Mobile Media Lab, which launched about a month ago and will wrap up this July, is the degree of interest by advertisers in this new space, he told Cartt.ca, after the “How to Build a Viable Mobile Business in 2008” panel at the nextMEDIA conference on Saturday in Banff.
“The excitement and enthusiasm is unprecedented,” Burns stated. “There’s a thirst for knowledge by advertisers in…
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