TORONTO – Putting six fierce competitors – armed with their own facts and relative truths about the current state of the wireless industry in Canada and abroad for a discussion on next year’s advanced wireless spectrum auction – onto a stage together is likely to result in something akin to a wireless “cage match”.
And that’s exactly what happened Wednesday on the last day of the Canadian Telecom Summit.
To kick off a special panel discussion about competition in the mobile wireless services space, moderator Terence Corcoran, Financial Post editor, introduced himself to the audience as Terry Springer, setting…
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TORONTO – Taking a one-size-fits-all approach to tackling illegal content on the Internet won’t work, says Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa.
Geist made his comments at the conclusion of a panel discussion on illegal content and lawful access, during the Canadian Telecom Summit in Toronto on Monday.
Among the illegal online content discussed were child pornography, hate messages, defamation, copyright infringement, and broader issues of legality ranging from terrorism to spam e-mail. Each of these criminal activities raises different legal issues, Geist said. For example, while it’s illegal to…
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BANFF – The issue of media concentration made another appearance at the 2007 Banff TV festival when Jean Prewitt, CEO of the Independent Film & Television Alliance, spoke at the Canadian Film and Television Production Association lunch Wednesday.
Her remarks come on the heels of the CRTC’s decision to require CTVglobemedia to divest five Citytv stations acquired as part of its takeover of Chum Ltd. With Rogers Communications as the new owner, program distributors merely substitute Rogers for Chum in seeking content buyers.
Prewitt, whose organization represents independent producers – 40% located outside America – says a key IFTA…
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TORONTO – Consumers’ evolving media consumption habits are driving changes in the business models adopted by traditional media players, resulting in once-unlikely partnerships and new branded content opportunities for advertisers.
Today’s media consumers increasingly seek free content, dislike interrupted viewing, want relevant and engaging content, and don’t mind giving up personal information such as their hobbies if it means they can connect to others with similar interests – that’s according to Michael Kelley, partner for advisory services in the entertainment, media, communications and technology sector of PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Kelley was moderating an all-U.S. panel of media players on Monday at…
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THE SLINGBOX IS A cool little device – a neat-o box that lets users place shift their home TV – making their laptop into a second TV in the home, or delivering their cable TV to a conference in Berlin.
Of late, however, the company has gone beyond being a box maker and towards becoming a media company. They’re not making content, however. Instead, the company has created a platform where Sling users can create their own clips of shows and upload them to a secure portal where ads are sold around the clips – letting the content owners…
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BANFF – The Canadian Television Fund, saying it was responding to “a concern” but declining to name whose concern, said it would put off any changes to its bylaws until the CRTC is finished its review of the fund.
Two weeks ago, Shaw Communications CEO Jim Shaw sent a blistering letter to the CTF saying the fact the organization was planning to alter its bylaws at the same time the CRTC is examining the fund and its operations “flies in the face of common sense.”
Today, buried in a press release of the CTF’s report to stakeholders, the…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – It was an application that asked for the insertion of a new middleman in the Canadian television scheme and the CRTC said a definitive “no” to the concept on Friday.
Former Craig Media CEO Drew Craig created Only Imagine Inc as a company which would sell the two minutes per hour of so-called local avail ad time American cable channels provide to cable companies to sell.
Of the millions OI said could be brought in, most of it would go to fund Canadian content. Cable companies, broadasters and commissioners were opposed to the idea, as…
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OTTAWA – CTVglobemedia may have declined all comment today on the CRTC’s decision to approve its takeover of Chum Limited – without CHUM’s key TV assets, the Citytv stations in Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver – but some observers and commissioners have said much of what CTV CEO Ivan Fecan and colleagues must be thinking.
As first reported on cartt.ca yesterday, the regulator approved the transfer of effective control of CHUM Ltd. to CTVglobemedia Inc., but the collection of new assets CTV would obtain is significantly different than what it proposed in its application. (With the public hearings…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC will issue its decision on the purchase of CHUM Ltd. by CTVglobemedia tomorrow morning, Cartt.ca has learned.
It’s a stunningly quick decision, given the size of the deal and the fact the hearing concluded just five weeks ago, but according to sources, none of whom wish to be identified, it was an easy decision because the Commission will deny the biggest part of the acquisition: CTV’s request to purchase CHUM’s Citytv stations.
The CRTC has had a long-standing policy against Canadian broadcasters owning a twin-stick operation – or two commercial over-the-air stations of the same…
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BANFF and TORONTO – While Canada’s telecommunications leaders debate the future of telecom in Toronto at the Canadian Telecom Summit next week, the world’s leaders in digital media and television will be making headlines at NextMedia and the Banff World Television Festival.
Cartt.ca will be on the ground at all three, of course, providing regular reports.
First out of the gate is NextMedia, beginning tomorrow in Banff. Organized by Achilles Media, the same company that puts on the BWTF (not to mention NATPE Mobile++ and the World Congress of History Producers), NextMedia features cutting-edge speakers and session topics.
For example,…
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