By Steve Faguy
IT WAS SUPPOSED to be to FM radio what FM was to AM: Better audio quality, a way to expand to more channels, and a future replacement with some cool bells and whistles.
In the 1990s, Canada’s radio broadcasters spent millions of dollars on new transmitters and devoted a lot of airtime to marketing the new technology: DAB, or digital audio broadcasting.
“The radio industry is primed to reinvent itself for the digital age and 1997 will be the first year of the revolution,” read a 1996 article from the Vancouver Sun. “Within a generation, AM and FM radio…
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COMING ON BOARD during the year of Covid would have been challenging enough, but new Canadian Association of Broadcasters president Kevin Desjardins is also tasked with rebuilding the organization and its profile in Ottawa amid media and political environments where it seems the winds howl in every direction all the time.
Hired in November 2020 as the organization’s first president since Glenn O’Farrell stepped down in 2008, Desjardins knows much works lies ahead in order to ensure the association’s large and small members come together on certain big issues and ideas – even if they disagree on how to execute…
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TORONTO — In its third report, released today, the C.D. Howe Institute’s new telecommunications policy working group — which includes executives from Bell, Rogers, Telus, Cogeco, Eastlink and Shaw, among others — says cellular phone services have seen a 25% price drop over the past five years, which they say meets Ottawa’s mandated wireless rate cut.
That means, the group says, it’s time to shift the focus of telecom policy debates to other issues, such as the modernization of the CRTC and rate-setting challenges for mandated access.
Citing data from Statistics Canada’s consumer price index, the telecom group says cellular services…
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LONDON, U.K. — While the 4G networks of Canada’s Big Three national operators are among the fastest in the world, their 5G network performance trails operators in other countries, primarily due to spectrum delays faced in Canada, according to a new report from U.K.-based mobile analytics company Opensignal, released Wednesday.
To conduct its research, Opensignal analyzed the current real-world 5G experience of its app users on Canada’s three largest mobile operators — Bell, Rogers and Telus — in terms of average download and upload speeds and their experience when streaming mobile video and compared it to the average 5G experience…
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By Ken Kelley
MONTREAL – Not that we expected otherwise, but there was no dodging the Rogers-Shaw elephant in the room when Cogeco president and CEO Philippe Jetté spoke during the Desjardins’ Group annual Industrials, TMT & Consumer virtual conference Tuesday.
In fact the session’s moderator, analyst Jerome Debreuil, ripped off the band-aid straight away, asking Jetté if he expected Cogeco would be interested in bidding on any wireless assets Rogers may be forced to divest as part of the tie-up.
“There’s a great deal of uncertainty as far as we’re concerned, as to whether the deal will be approved and…
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By Ahmad Hathout
GATINEAU – Canada’s big telecoms are divided on a CRTC proposal to create a framework that would establish an independent body tasked with creating and maintaining a block list of known malicious software networks, known as botnets.
A botnet is a network of malware-infected devices that are controlled from a central location and used to do things like steal data and/or send an overwhelming number of communications to a server, which causes it to fail (denial-of-service attack). The increasing number of internet-connected devices coming to market, a lot largely with flimsy security measures, are multiplying the risk of…
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By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage met for the eighth time to hear witnesses’ testimonies on Bill C-10, the Act to amend the Broadcasting Act, on Monday. We’ve pretty much got a bead on who’s thinking what, now.
We heard again from Friends of Canadian Broadcasting (Friends) whose question time had been taken up by committee business and the Fedération National des Communications which could not appear in a previous meeting due to technical problems.
They were joined by BCE, Unifor, and the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA). Shaw had been slotted to…
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By Jay Thomson
THE CCSA WAS FORMED in the early 1990s, around the same time as the current Broadcasting Act came into force. Like the Act back then, our members at the time did not contemplate the growth in size and influence of the “foreign digital giants”.
But also like the Act back then, our members did not contemplate the massive consolidation that would take place in the Canadian broadcasting industry.
Neither the Act nor our members contemplated that just three domestic companies – Bell, Rogers and Quebecor – would come to dominate Canada’s communications marketplace; that, through ownership of most of…
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By Steve Faguy
IS TERRESTRIAL RADIO dead?
Well, no. The Canadian commercial radio industry brought in $1.45 billion in total revenues in 2018-19, according to CRTC data. But that’s a steady decline from $1.6 billion in 2014-15, and even without the effects of Covid-19, it looks like the only way forward is down as both advertisers and audience increasingly migrate toward digital services.
Faced with this decline, broadcasters are taking various strategic approaches to the future. Some are embracing new platforms, launching podcasts and streaming services of their own.
“I think there’s still a place for…
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Telus asks for more subsidies
By Ahmad Hathout
GATINEAU – If the CRTC wants to encourage more investment in rural broadband and not have to shell out more subsidies, it should not impose additional regulatory obligations, such as open access to their networks, the big telecoms are arguing.
In final submissions to the CRTC’s consultation on barriers to deploying broadband in rural Canada, launched in late 2019, the big telecoms took the opportunity to reemphasize fewer regulations will mean more private investment in their networks – and then the government can save money on programs, too.
Should “the investment climate worsen due to…
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