The Quebecor Fund’s board of directors last week announced the list of Canadian production companies receiving financial support in the 48th round of the fund’s Television Production Assistance Program.
In total, the fund will disburse more than $2.1 million in this round, according to a press release.
Under the program’s Support for the Creation of Intellectual Property component, launched in March 2017, the fund is granting a total of $775,000 in this round to four projects from Untamed Productions 4 Inc., PVP Media Inc., Terre Innue Inc. and Happy Camper Média Inc. The broadcasters investing in the development…
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By Howard Law, author of Canada vs. California, and MediaPolicy.ca
Last week the CRTC released its anticipated “Phase One” ruling on the implementation of the Online Streaming Act, Bill C-11. The headline was the $200 million price tag put on Canadian content contributions assessed by the commission on large foreign online audio and audio-visual streamers operating in Canada.
Following the commission’s decision, many industry players and public policy commentators were quick to declare victory or disaster, something we can expect in a regulatory drama that never quits.
This drama is chronicled in my book, Canada vs California: How…
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Quebecor announced Wednesday it has filed a complaint with the Competition Bureau against a partnership agreement between Loblaw Companies Limited and wireless carriers Bell and Rogers, through their joint venture Glentel, that would give them exclusive selling rights at the grocery retailer’s The Mobile Shop locations.
The agreement would shut Quebecor’s Freedom Mobile out of 180 Loblaw-owned grocery stores, the Montreal-based telecom says in a press release.
“The agreement between Loblaw and Glentel cloaks yet another attempt by the dominant players in the telecommunications market to thwart competition,” Pierre Karl Péladeau, president and CEO of Quebecor, said in…
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Quebecor’s Videotron and Ericsson Canada announced Monday an extended collaboration through a new five-year agreement aimed at enhancing Videotron’s Evolved Packet Core (EPC) and IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) deployments.
Covering software, services and support, the agreement is aligned with “both companies’ commitment to innovation and enhanced experiences for mobile subscribers across Canada,” an Ericsson press release said.
“Ericsson’s contribution to Videotron’s core network will enhance its capacity nationwide, enabling the telecom provider to effectively serve a growing number of Canadian subscribers,” the release added.
The scope of the agreement encompasses the advancement of Packet Core, IMS, Network Functions Virtualization…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Bell is telling the CRTC it has not received approval on a proposed tariff that would address the issue of the cost of prep work for its poles to which a Montreal municipality wants to attach.
The Municipalité régionale de comté (MRC) de D’Autray, located in the Lanaudière region northeast of Montreal, filed a Part 1 application in April asking the CRTC to force Bell to make adjustments to its existing attachment applications so that the telco, not MRC, is absorbing the costs of corrective work incumbent upon it.
The demand stems from a Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
If the CRTC raises the revenue threshold for contributions to the regulator’s administration of telecom matters, it will effectively concentrate the burden on fewer providers, which is the opposite of what it has been trying to do with changes to broadcasting fees that an application to raise the threshold is partially relying upon, Bell argues.
The Independent Telecommunications Providers Association filed a Part 1 application in late April calling for the increase in the revenue threshold from $10 million to $25 million to contribute to the CRTC’s administration of the telecom regime, with an annual…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Quebecor is asking the CRTC to investigate whether Bell is giving itself an unfair advantage by allegedly adding more hurdles for internet service providers looking to access the telco’s last-mile fibre facilities.
The issue is related to what additional equipment Bell requires of third-party competitors to connect their customers to certain speeds on its fibre network, as according to its tariff pages for the interim access regime that went into effect May 7.
Quebecor, on behalf of Videotron, is alleging in its intervention to amended tariff pages filed by Bell that the latter is unnecessarily requiring optical network terminal…
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Quebecor’s Freedom Mobile announced Thursday it is expanding into Manitoba with the opening of several retail locations in Winnipeg.
“Expansion into Manitoba marks a pivotal milestone for Freedom and very good news for Manitoban customers as we will be able to provide them with innovative and affordable telecommunications solutions,” Pierre Karl Péladeau, president and CEO of parent company Quebecor, said in a press release. “As a strong and competitive telecom player in Canada, we’re proud to reaffirm our commitment to providing more Canadians with the freedom of choice and benefits that come with…
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By Christopher Guly
OTTAWA — The federal NDP has asked Matthew Boswell, the commissioner of competition, to review an agreement between The Mobile Shop, a division of Loblaws Inc. and Glentel, which is jointly owned by Rogers and Bell, following a letter the head of Quebecor sent to the federal industry minister calling the deal “anti-competitive.”
“If this agreement is not opposed, it will result in reduced competition and choice for consumers,” wrote federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh and Brian Masse, the party’s critic for innovation, science and industry in their May 22 letter to Boswell.
“Canadians need more competition, not less,”…
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The CRTC will decide how much it will cost Bell and Quebecor to broadcast each other’s sports channels, it said this month.
The two companies agreed that they could not hash out commercial terms to distribute Bell’s RDS and Videotron’s TVA Sports and filed in November a request for the regulator to make that decision.
The commission agreed in a letter dated May 15, saying the request met all the required criteria for a final offer arbitration hearing: the dispute is shared between the two; it concerns only monetary issues; the parties exhausted all methods to come to an agreement; the…
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