TORONTO – Veteran sports and Olympic host Brian Williams will head up coverage of the 2012 Summer Games in London, Canada’s Olympic broadcast media consortium said Tuesday.
In addition to Williams, RDS’ Chantal Machabée, V’s Jean Pagé, TSN’s Darren Dutchyshen, and Rogers Sportsnet’s Brad Fay will host the prime time slots on their respective channels. They’ll be complemented by former Canadian Olympic greats such as Catriona Le May Doan, Nathalie Lambert, Marnie McBean, Kyle Shewfelt, and Alexandre Bilodeau.
Williams, who will be covering his 14th Olympic Games, will anchor the prime-time coverage on CTV. Dave Randorf and Le May Doan will…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC is expected to hand down its decision on group-based licence renewals for English-language television groups this week, Cartt.ca has learned.
After a week-long public hearing in April, it will be interesting to see how the Commission navigates the big broadcasters’ various takes on Canadian programming expenditure (CPE) and programs of national interest (PNI) proposals. Cartt.ca was there every step of the way during presentations made by Bell Media, Rogers Broadcasting, Corus Entertainment, and Shaw Media, as well as the Independent Broadcast Group which called on the CRTC to establish a new, flexible framework for…
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GATINEAU – Tuning into the CRTC’s usage-based billing hearing on Monday morning, you may have thought that the Commission was dealing with urban planning issues around road congestion rather a billing model for wholesale Internet services. Several parties tried, at times convincingly, to rely on streets, side streets, on-ramps and cars on a road to parallel wholesale traffic congestion, where network investments would be required and just how those costs should be recovered.
After a somewhat technical exchange among the Commission, independent ISP group CNOC, and Bell Canada on network topology and what the independent ISPs actually pay for the use…
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GATINEAU – The MTS Allstream proposal to give wholesale ISPs access to bandwidth for a fixed price was given a thorough examination Tuesday on the last day of the usage-based billing hearing.
During its appearance, the Winnipeg-based company insisted that its approach is the most “appropriate” because it allows independent ISPs to package services and speeds with significant flexibility.
“Our tariff allows competitors to fully manage their leased capacity in the transport network, and therefore, allows efficient competitors to build scale and bring choice to Canadians,” said Teresa Griffin-Muir, VP of regulatory affairs at MTS. “It strikes an appropriate…
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SO MANY WORDS, so few facts. So much fear. Is OTT the new “Death Star”?
I simply must stop learning to be so hopeful when it comes to these CRTC proceedings. Almost eight weeks ago, the Commission launched a look into over-the-top video, asking the TV industry, and anyone else who wanted to contribute, for cold, hard, facts on how consumers getting more video content online is affecting their business.
In their submissions to the CRTC on OTT, I was hoping some of the vertically integrated distributors would have some early numbers culled from their customers’ set-top box data showing how…
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TORONTO and OTTAWA – Law professor Michael Geist is standing by a blog post he wrote late last week claiming satellite Internet provider Barrett Xplore altered its Internet management policies after a complaint made to the CRTC under the Commission’s guidelines on net neutrality.
Geist, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, also wrote in his blog that Barrett Xplore (now known as Xplornet) “was also the source of the longest running complaint as the company took months to respond to CRTC requests to improve its disclosure practices.” This prompted a tersely…
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EVEN THE VERTICALLY integrated companies know they need a code of conduct to help guide how – as the 800-pound Canadian gorillas – they do business in a country where they own most of the content and distribution channels.
CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein said repeatedly during last month’s vertical integration hearing that he wants to see some sort of code of business practices for vertically integrated media companies set out in writing in order to try and avoid new regulatory and legal battles when the new BDU regulations come into force this September. So final replies, which were due…
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GATINEAU – Independent ISPs and some of their supporters came under significant criticism on day two of the CRTC’s wholesale usage-based billing hearing for wanting to profit off the backs of the incumbent providers and not invest in their own networks because the deal is too good.
CRTC vice-chair of broadcasting Tom Pentefountas first took OpenMedia and the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) to task in the morning session wondering whether there is actually an incentive for the independent ISPs to invest in building out networks. “Isn’t part of the issue that the deal is so…
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GATINEAU – Aggregated volume pricing (AVP) shouldn’t be seen as a penalty on independent ISPs, but as an incentive for them to manage their network congestion, Bell Canada told the CRTC during the first day of the re-hearing of the wholesale usage-based billing issue.
Bell argued its AVP approach is a better economic internet traffic management practice (ITMP) than the 95th percentile method proposed by the Canadian Network Operators Consortium (CNOC) because it provides returns on network investments and incents independent ISPs to reduce congestion in their networks.
“ ensures that incumbents receive an appropriate return on their…
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TORONTO – Rogers Media Television has named Claire Freeland as director of development and production.
Freeland (pictured) was most recently director of original programming at Corus Entertainment. In her new role, she will be responsible for original Canadian independent productions across Rogers’ broadcast assets, including securing, developing and delivering projects from inception to broadcast. She will report to EVP of programming Malcolm Dunlop.
“We are very excited to have Claire lead our talented original programming team at Rogers,” said Dunlop in the announcement. “Claire’s breadth of experience…
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