OTTAWA – Despite pleas for lots more, the federal government has given a small boost to local journalism, providing one or more still to be determined independent non-governmental organizations with $50 million over five years to support such efforts in underserved communities.
Budget 2018 noted “As more and more people get their news online, and share their interests directly through social media, many communities have been left without local newspapers to tell their stories.”
The Liberals will also be exploring new local news business models that could see greater involvement of private and philanthropic support “for trusted, professional, non-profit and local…
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TORONTO – Shaw Communications is among the list of sponsors behind the latest season of reality game show Big Brother Canada when it returns to Corus Entertainment’s Global TV next week.
Other new sponsors include Air Transat, Wendy's, Hasbro, SkipTheDishes, and Warner Bros. Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures' Tomb Raider movie. In addition to supplying a $30,000 grand prize gift card to the winner, principal sponsor The Brick returns for a sixth year as the exclusive #BBCAN home furnishing provider.
Shaw will reward all weekly ‘Head of Household’ winners by helping to deliver a video from home to connect them with their loved ones. …
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Part VI in our series on rewriting the Broadcasting and Telecom Acts
TODAY’S COMMUNICATIONS WORLD is marked by a few large, vertically integrated companies offering Internet access, broadcasting, telecommunications and wireless services. These firms have considerable control over who has access to their networks and what content is available over their respective pipes.
This means governments and regulators must ensure smaller independent competitors have access to these networks and to make this access as competitively neutral as possible. Even more, the big owners of those networks shouldn’t be able to favour some content over others. This, in a nutshell, is net…
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6e partie dans notre série sur la révision des Lois sur la radiodiffusion et des télécommunications
LE MONDE DES communications d’aujourd’hui est dominé par quelques grandes entreprises intégrées verticalement qui offrent de l’accès à l’Internet, de la radiodiffusion, des télécommunications et des services sans-fil. Ces firmes exercent un contrôle considérable sur qui a accès à leurs réseaux et quel contenu est disponible sur leurs réseaux respectifs.
Cela veut dire que les gouvernements et les régulateurs doivent s’assurer que les petits concurrents indépendants aient accès à ces réseaux et s’assurer que cet accès soit aussi neutre que possible. De plus, les grands…
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Towards a Canadian strategy
OVER THE LAST two weeks, I’ve argued the Canadian strategy of supporting, and indeed actively pushing for, the vertical integration of our broadcasting system was a mistake, suggesting the vertically integrated companies – namely Bell, Shaw, Rogers and Quebecor – had not and will not become international distributors of content as it was presumed.
(Click here for part one and here for part two)
A reader pointed out it’s always easier to take the position of a critic – particularly in hindsight – so let’s look at the changes which…
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The big four have not become the content exporters they were supposed to
LAST WEEK, I RESPONDED to a Scotiabank report which said the success of Netflix in gaining subscribers, along with Google and Facebook’s dominance of the Canadian advertising market, meant a merger of Bell and Corus was a logical market response to ensure we remain competitive.
I question the strategy of further vertical integration in light of its obvious failure. My core argument is VI has failed because it did not properly take into account the competitive advantages of the vertically integrated companies. As their…
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OTTAWA – Conversations around 5G in Canada may still be at nascent stages, but network providers and wireless operators told a Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association event in Ottawa on Wednesday that it’s coming faster than you think.
Several speakers throughout the day at the 5G Canada Council show (organized by the CWTA) noted that network rollouts are already happening and that by the first half of 2019 smartphones and tablets will be able to access 5G networks in certain bands.
Jaco du Plooy, chief technology officer at Ericsson Canada, explained that there will be 5G devices operating in a number…
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Promises confidentiality
GATINEAU – As part of the report on current Canadian content consumption patterns which the federal government has asked the CRTC to compile, a range of companies have been asked to provide very competitively sensitive information by the Regulator.
The Commission last week sent letters to foreign competitors Netflix, Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple and Spotify – as well as Bell, Rogers, Shaw, Corus, Pelmorex, Stingray and others, for certain sets of top line revenue, viewership and subscriber data when it comes to their digital platforms. The CRTC already has the data for the traditional platforms.
Specifically,…
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OTTAWA – Digital disruption has opened up tremendous opportunity for broadcasters, distributors and producers alike, but has also created significant challenges, according to speakers in the first panel session at the Canadian Media Producers’ Association’s annual Prime Time conference Thursday morning.
For CBC/Radio-Canada, going digital and implementing its own over the top (OTT) service has allowed the national public broadcaster to reach new audiences. Heather Conway, executive VP of English services at CBC, acknowledged that the corporation skews to an older, linear TV oriented demographic but said the move into the digital realm has given CBC a wider audience.
“As we…
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FIRST DISNEY BUYS FOX’S MEDIA LIBRARY, so then maybe Corus buys Bell Media – or the other way around? If so, is this a good idea or a bad one for our system?
A Scotiabank report from December 2017 entitled “Converging Networks” and reported by Cartt.ca has suggested that Corus and Bell Media should merge in order to “make them more competitive.” It’s hard to know if this report is a trial balloon or just mere speculation, but we’ve seen support in other quarters for this point of view.
The research also says Facebook and Google now…
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