OTTAWA – Broadcast distribution undertakings (BDUs) say they need greater regulatory flexibility to offer on-demand services to compete with over the top service such as Netflix, particularly if they continue to take eyeballs away from conventional distributors.
This was the one primary messages to come out of a session on over the top (OTT) services at the Canadian Media Production Association’s annual Prime Time event in Ottawa last week.
David Purdy, vice-president of video product management at Rogers Cable, insisted that OTT services will have an impact on the Canadian broadcasting system and as a result, it’s only fair…
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TORONTO – The Television Bureau of Canada Thursday announced its 2011 board of directors.
Rita Fabian, executive vice president of sales and marketing for CTV conventional and specialty, will continue as chair, while Errol Da-Ré, senior vice president of sales at Shaw Media, will remain vice chairman. Mitch Dent, executive vice president of TV sales at Rogers Media, will continue as secretary, and Lori Legault, vice president of national sales at Shaw Media, will fulfil the role of treasurer. Along with TVB President, Theresa Treutler, the above form the board’s executive committee.
Completing the board of directors are: Sally Basmajian (vice…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC Tuesday said no to adding the U.S. cable channel National Geographic Wild to the eligible satellite list for distribution in Canada.
Shaw Communications had made the application and High Fidelity HDTV, which runs a similar, Canadian service here (Oasis HD) opposed the application, as did CTV.
Fox Cable Networks-owned NatGeo Wild airs wildlife and nature programming, including a variety of documentaries, series, events and specials.
CTV and HiFi said the U.S. channel would be at least partially competitive with their respective Category B specialty services Animal Planet and Oasis HD. “Specifically, CTV and High Fidelity highlighted several documentary…
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OTTAWA – Saying he’s defending consumer choice and competition, Industry Minister Tony Clement announced Tuesday that the Conservative government will appeal a Federal Court of Canada ruling that quashed a cabinet order allowing Egyptian-backed Globalive Wireless (whose retail brand is Wind) to operate in Canada.
The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP), ACTRA, and Friends of Canadian Broadcasting were intervenors in the case.
"Overturning the Cabinet decision is a victory for Canadian ownership rules and a victory for Canadian culture," said Stephen Waddell, ACTRA’s national executive director. "Globalive was potentially the beginning of the end of our…
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NOT LONG AGO I ASKED A CRTC senior policy advisor I know how work was going. It was one of those just-making-conversation questions we all ask, but I was a little surprised at his response:
“Livin’ the dream,” he excitedly told me. Now, I’m not sure my facial expression betrayed my wonder at that statement and I don’t remember what I said next, but he continued to add that he found it exciting, interesting and fun to debate and then help craft what would become the “law of the land.”
Upon reflection, it shouldn’t have come as such a shock –…
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GATINEAU – The winds of criticism were blowing Pelmorex Communications’ way during the first day of its licence renewal hearing in Gatineau on Tuesday as CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein and Pelmorex senior VP of regulatory and strategic affairs Paul Temple sparred over aspects of the company’s licence renewal application.
In addition to asking for a seven-year licence renewal, Pelmorex is requesting an extension to the 2009 mandatory order on 9(1)(h) that would keep the Weather Network and MétéoMédia on basic carriage until 2018. The company says that it needs the extension to help offset the costs of operating…
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GATINEAU – After a week of vitriol, legitimate consumer anger and utter political silliness, the CRTC today officially opened up a new review into wholesale broadband usage based billing
“The great concern expressed by Canadians over this issue is telling of how much the Internet has become an integral part of their lives,” said Konrad von Finckenstein, chairman of the CRTC, in a press release.
“Our approach is based on two fundamental principles: as a general rule, ordinary consumers served by Small ISPs should not have to fund the bandwidth used by the heaviest residential Internet consumers; and it is in…
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HOW DID A CRTC DECISION on usage-based billing that affects so few total Canadians become a national story and potentially an election issue?
It’s your fault, big ISPs.
According to recent research, most customers of the large Canadian ISPs were not even aware their Internet packages were subject to bandwidth caps and extra billing if they went over those limits. They didn’t know they were capped and sure didn’t know how much extra it could cost.
In short, the big ISPs were and are doing a poor job letting their customers know their limits and what they mean. People aren’t…
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GATINEAU – While producers and others argued how and where the $220-million BCE/CTV benefits package should be spent, the two largest carriers without broadcast or specialty TV divisions warned the CRTC that something must be done to rein in the power a combined BCE/CTV will have.
While the Commission has long prohibited content exclusives on the TV side (CTV has to make Comedy Network available to all carriers and can’t sign an exclusive with any one or two), our exploding media world has all experimenting, looking for new business models and lines of revenue on new, unregulated, platforms.
Part of that…
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OTTAWA – When Shaw Communications purchased Canwest Global’s TV assets last year, the Competition Bureau gave the transaction its blessing.
The Bureau’s statement on that deal said: “this transaction would not likely give rise to a substantial lessening or prevention of competition,” and rubber-stamped it.
No such simple approval was forthcoming from the Bureau today when it commented on the acquisition of CTV by BCE. Instead, it seems worried about the extent of vertical integration among big media companies and distributors in Canada. While the statement from Commissioner of Competition Melanie Aitken said “at this time”, the Bureau doesn’t have…
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