By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – The Competition Bureau said in a submission to the CRTC studying the wholesale internet framework Thursday that mandating last mile fibre could have short-term price benefits but may also negatively impact investments in fibre builds.
The CRTC is seeking comments on a preliminary view it holds that third parties should have mandated access to the incumbent’s last mile fibre under the current aggregated regime, which packages the leasing of the traffic transport (middle) mile and the last mile. Under the current aggregated regime, third parties don’t have commission backing for access to the fibre going straight…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Rogers and Quebecor’s Groupe TVA have jointly filed a request asking the Federal Court to order people behind IP addresses allegedly illegally streaming live Major League Baseball games to stop and pay damages, according to court documents filed last week.
The companies, which own the exclusive Canadian broadcasting rights to the Toronto Blue Jays games, say they don’t know the people behind the operation of the addresses.
A “significant number of Canadian consumers” are turning to “unauthorized, user-friendly” websites to get access to infringing live television content, according to the complaint, including highly popular live sports. Consumers…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Quebecor announced Tuesday it will abandon its plan to cancel two weekend newscasts but will “carry out further staff reductions” in the alternative to weather deteriorating financial conditions to produce local news.
“We acknowledge the Commission’s request and suspend our decision to withdraw the weekend newscasts from TVA Quebec,” Quebecor said in a French-language letter addressed to the CRTC. “Thus, we will put in place the necessary efforts to continue to meet these requirements” until the CRTC rules on its Part 1 filed June 1.
The letter came in response to a CRTC letter last week expressing…
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TVA union asking CRTC to stop Quebecor from closing newscasts
By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Bell said if Quebecor follows through on an announcement to end two newscasts without commission approval, the CRTC has no choice but to fine the company due to repeated violations of its conditions of licence, according to an intervention in the case.
On June 2, Quebecor’s TVA made the decision to this week end the two CFCM-DT weekend newscasts in Quebec, one day after it filed a Part 1 application asking the CRTC to remove that obligation due to financial constraints. The CRTC followed up with a…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Quebecor’s TVA told Cartt that it wishes to work in collaboration with the CRTC to find a way to sustain its local programming, after the commission expressed concern that the Montreal-based company is planning to scale back two of its news programs on weekends in Quebec.
The CRTC set a deadline of July 4 for comments on Quebecor’s Part 1 application requesting the commission remove a requirement that it run two newscast on weekends in Quebec. But a day after filing its application, Quebecor announced it intended to eliminate the programs this week…
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By Jonathan Daniels, pictured above, vice president of regulatory law at Bell
The CRTC recently announced the first round of consultations on the implementation of the recently adopted Online Streaming Act. Of the three sectors affected by this legislation – foreign streamers, Canadian producers and Canadian broadcasters – it is clear that broadcasters are the group in crisis mode.
It goes without saying that foreign streamers like Netflix are flourishing in Canada. Their success has benefited Canadian producers. The Canadian Media Producers Association recently noted that “in almost every way, was a record year.” Meanwhile, broadcasters are struggling.
The challenge…
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Six AM radio stations getting axed, three being sold
By Ahmad Hathout
MONTREAL – Bell CEO Mirko Bibic announced in an open letter Wednesday that the company is embarking on “organizational changes” that will impact 1,300 positions, the result of consistent revenue losses in several sectors.
The cuts are “largely” in management, which will see a reduction of six per cent and executive roles reduced by 20 per cent compared to 2020, Bibic said in the letter.
“The job reductions are consistent with but smaller than similar reductions announced by other leading technology and media companies across North America in recent months,” Bibic…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Unions representing workers in media production and screenwriting are asking the CRTC to reject an application by Corus to reduce its Canadian content obligations.
The media company filed a Part 1 application in November asking the CRTC to reduce its Canadian programming expenditure (CPE) amount from 30 per cent to 25 per cent of previous year’s revenues and to reduce from 8.5 to 5 per cent its obligation to programs of national interest (PNI) in large part because it has had to compete against unregulated online streamers. In July 2022, the regulator renewed Corus’s licence for…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – The large telecommunications companies are telling the CRTC that it’s a bad idea to temporarily mandate access to last mile fibre under the current regime because there isn’t evidence of a need for it, it doesn’t take into consideration areas that still don’t have completed fibre infrastructure, and the process will preempt the review of the wholesale internet framework.
The CRTC said in March it is of the preliminary view that fibre-to-the-premises access under the aggregated regime should be mandated, and launched an expedited proceeding for interim access until it completes its review of the…
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By Ahmad Hathout
MONTREAL – Quebecor is asking the CRTC to provide immediate relaxation of regulatory rules that require it to provide a specific amount of local programming or else it must make “difficult choices” related to TVA’s programming.
A CRTC licence renewal decision from 2017 and extended last year until August 2024 requires the TVA station CFCM-DT Quebec broadcast 18 hours of local programming per week, while requiring fewer hours in the region for other stations including CBC/Radio-Canada. Quebecor said these comparatively “unfair” requirements are strangling it, despite saying it is producing more hours than is mandated of it.
“Faced with…
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