CANCON’S RULES AND regulations are much like a series of bandages slapped onto the television industry – one here to cover a scrape, another there as salve on a slash. It’s almost impossible to rip any away from this complex patchwork without damaging a broadcast arm or independent production limb.
The tales of woe – accompanied by an orchestra of tiny violins – come from both the broadcast and the creative side of the industry, and the TV doctors have differing opinions on which medicine is the cure for our ailing Cancon system. So what’s the spoonful of sugar…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Shaw Media’s proposed new morning news shows and public affairs program have been shelved as the company grapples with a labour dispute that could result in a strike by its unionized workers later this summer.
After presenting a new collective agreement to the eastern bargaining unit of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers union (CEP) earlier this month, Shaw Media president Paul Robertson confirmed in a note to staff that the company is putting the new initiatives “on hold indefinitely”. “Despite our efforts to reach an agreement with the CEP, we are still in a very uncertain labour environment”,…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – Canada’s satellite relay distribution undertakings (SRDUs) should be exempt from licensing requirements, say Canada’s only two SRDU operators – Shaw and Bell – in their submissions to the CRTC’s consultation on that market.
SRDUs transport broadcasting signals to broadcasting distribution undertakings (BDUs) that do not have access to fibre interconnections to receive their television signals, and, are often located in rural and remote parts of the country.
Both Shaw and Bell stress in their submissions dated July 11th that other technologies create enough competition in the signal transportation field to negate the need for licensing requirements….
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
CALGARY – Shaw Communications’ new movie service Shaw Movie Club is off to a rather controversial start.
Last Thursday, while promoting the launch of the service, president Peter Bissonnette said that using it to view movies either “on your (set top) box or on-line, this will not have any impact on your capacity or usage”. That prompted a heated response from consumer advocacy organization OpenMedia.ca, critical of Shaw’s plan to count the likes of Netflix against users’ bit caps, but exempt their own. It called Movie Club “a blatant attempt to gain an unfair advantage over on-line services like Netflix, as well as against…
Continue Reading
IN (THURSDAY’S) ARTICLE about Shaw’s proposal to eliminate many of the VOD rules, you incorrectly give credit to their argument that the 5% contribution obligation for VOD services somehow represents an inequitable “double counting” .
Shaw, (and other BDUs affiliated with VOD services), made this same ‘double counting’ argument in their responses to BNOC 2010-702, when the CRTC proposed standard requirements for VOD. However, their argument at that point was against the CRTC’s apparent proposal that VOD services pay their 5% on 100% of the related retail revenue received by their affiliated BDU rather…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – Since video-on-demand is one of the key components in the cable company arsenal when battling the new, over-the-top video providers for viewers, the CRTC needs to scrap most of its regulations governing VOD, according to Shaw Communications.
In its final reply to the vertical integration hearing (as well as in its OTT fact-finding submission), Canada’s largest TV distributor suggest preserving Canadian content exhibition requirements for VOD, but not much else.
In its final submission on the vertical integration proceeding, the company identifies seven rules that need to go and first on its priority list is the double-dip of…
Continue Reading
CALGARY – Shaw Communications is breaking ground on a new energy efficient data centre in Calgary that it says will provide a power boost to its next-generation broadband technology.
The centre, which is scheduled to be completed in spring 2014, incorporates ‘free cooling’ which allows the data centre to keep cool without heavily relying on traditional air conditioning. The low impact technique is in keeping with the company’s commitment to reducing their environmental footprint, Shaw said. In the last year, Shaw has eliminated 5,176 tons of carbon by using renewable wind energy in three of their buildings, the equivalent of taking…
Continue Reading
