Perry Hoffman
GATINEAU – Telcos Telus and MTS Allstream are urging the CRTC to remove vertically integrated broadcasters/distributors from eligibility under the Local Programming Improvement Fund (LPIF).
While Rogers, Shaw and Quebecor all want the LPIF program eliminated, Bell Media Inc. is neither for or against continuing the program. However, each have local stations who are collectively getting millions from the LPIF fund.
Ann Mainville-Neeson, director of broadcast regulation at Telus, noted during her opening remarks, that of the large vertically integrated providers, only Bell is clinging to LPIF despite the fact that it could save more than $1 million if the…
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OTTAWA – This Sunday’s Earth Day 2012 is the perfect opportunity for Canadians to give their old cell phones the send-off they deserve, and ensure they don’t end up in landfills, via Canada’s free cell phone recycling program.
Run by the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA) in conjunction with cell phone carriers and handset manufacturers, ‘Recycle My Cell’ makes it easy for Canadians to find out how and where to safely and responsibly dispose of their used cell phones, smart phones, pagers, wireless air cards, batteries, chargers, headsets and other accessories. Additionally, a donation to participating charities is made for…
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OTTAWA – Lawyers for the broadcast distribution undertakings (BDUs) told the Supreme Court of Canada on Tuesday that the CRTC’s regulations can’t trump retransmission provisions within the Copyright Act.
Jay Kerr-Wilson, a partner at Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP who was representing Rogers Communications, said the CRTC stepped into copyright law when it established its value-for-signal (VFS) regime (also known as fee-for-carriage) and argued that the CRTC doesn’t have the authority to set new copyright, since only Parliament has that right.
“The CRTC cannot have the jurisdiction to do what it proposed since its proposed scheme creates a new copyright in television…
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GATINEAU – Bell Canada is now prepared to allow the Canadian Broadcast Corp. to receive money from the Local Programming Improvement Fund (LPIF) as long as the pubcaster is the sole provider of local TV services in a particular small market.
The media and communications giant had argued in comments that since the CBC receives approximately $1 billion from the federal government it shouldn’t qualify for funds from LPIF. But during opening remarks, Mirko Bibic, executive VP and chief legal and regulatory officer at BCE, said private local TV remains in a difficult financial situation and could see station closures,…
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LAS VEGAS – Through Dejero’s portable LIVE+ solutions broadcasters can now instantly transmit broadcast-quality live video through cellular networks without the cost or complexity of satellite/microwave trucks or the effort of implementing dedicated towers.
With this software developed by the Waterloo-based company (its CTO Bogdan Frusina was one of the first 100 original RIM employees), the company is gaining notoriety among most broadcasters on the NAB show floor, with its products featured at the Panasonic and Harris booths, thanks to partnerships with both.
Three of Canada’s large broadcasters, Bell Media, CBC and Rogers, have all deployed Dejero, which gives its newsgathering…
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TORONTO – On the eve of the 2012 NHL playoffs, Rogers has added CBC's Hockey Night in Canada broadcasts to its Rogers Live Mobile app.
Available on Rogers’ smart phones through iTunes, Google Play and BlackBerry App World, the app streams CBC's broadcasts of the playoff games from the opening round all the way to the finals. For a subscription fee of $5 per month, fans have unlimited hours of viewing until October 31st, after which they may stream five hours per month, with $1 per each additional hour.
"Canadians live and breathe hockey and at Rogers we're dedicated to delivering world-class…
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TORONTO – Canada's three new wireless-only carriers are having little impact on the country’s big telecom incumbents, according to a new report from Moody's Investors Service.
The report, ‘Canadian Telecommunications and Cable Industries: Consolidation Could Be in Store as New Wireless Companies Appear to Struggle’, says Wind Mobile, Mobilicity and Public Mobile, which are not rated by Moody’s, do not have the economies of scale, the access to funding, or the latest products to undercut or challenge the incumbents' market share. Rogers (Baa1 stable), Bell Canada (Baa1 stable) and Telus (Baa1 stable) together make up nearly 92% of Canada’s market…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC will hear why the Local Programming Improvement Fund (LPIF) needs to be kept – and why it should be killed off – when a public hearing over its existence gets under way in Gatineau Monday morning.
The fund was created almost three years ago (in the midst of the financial crisis and just prior to the destructive Stop-The-TV-Tax vs. Local-TV-Matters battle), before Shaw and Bell bought into broadcasting, to support the creation of local television programming, particularly local news, in smaller markets. At that time, it was determined broadcaster spending on local programming had stagnated or…
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OTTAWA – Rogers Broadcasting’s request for a new entertainment channel called The Entertainment Desk is among 12 new broadcasting applications that the CRTC will consider at a hearing set for June 7 in Gatineau.
The Commission made the new applications public on Tuesday. Other applications of interest include one from MOTV Média Inc. for an English-language category B service to be known as PIN – Positive Insight Network, and three from Colba.Net Telecom Inc. for regional broadcasting licences to operate terrestrial BDUs in areas of Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.
The deadline for…
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GATINEAU – Do customers want more choice or more channels? Are the two questions mutually exclusive?
If that sounds like an odd pair of questions because choice and channels can’t be unlinked like that, hear us out, because those two queries are what repeatedly sprung to mind reading the progress reports submitted to the CRTC by Bell Canada, Shaw Communications, Rogers Communications and Vidéotron on the vertically integrated companies’ moves to allow more programming choice and flexibility for their customers.
When it released its new policy on vertically integrated media and distribution companies last fall, the CRTC gave the big four…
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