OTTAWA – The CRTC should immediately regulate monthly contributions to the Canadian Television Fund (CTF) and establish an arms length dispute resolution mechanism to deal with any concerns raised about the fund, recommended the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications in its report released Thursday.
The second recommendation of the report, The Challenges Ahead for the Canadian Television Fund, is that the government re-examine the CTF’s spending envelopes, especially with respect to the CBC/Radio-Canada.
One of the complaints of Shaw and Quebecor when they withdrew their monthly contributions earlier this year was that 37% of the CTF went…
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LONDON – Ed Jarmain, the man widely considered to be the first to bring cable television to Canada died yesterday. He was 99.
Born and raised in London, Ont., Jarmain originally ran his father’s dry cleaning business in the city in the 1930s through the ’60s. In the 1950s, however, as one of the first families in London with a TV set, he suffered through spotty reception from U.S. signals (there were no local broadcasters at the time). As an engineer, he thought there must be a better way to get these signals.
After reading about cable and then…
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OTTAWA – While Shaw Cable might say that American cable channel USA Network doesn’t compete with existing Canadian services, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters begs to differ.
In February, Shaw submitted an application asking that the popular general interest channel – which is seen in 90 million American homes and is anchored by shows like Monk, The 4400, pro wrestling, a couple of Law & Orders, reruns like Walker Texas Ranger, Coach and JAG and feature films – be added to the eligible satellite list for digital distribution.
The rights to all those shows – and several others, not…
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TORONTO – Canadian animation fans will soon have two additional outlets from which to get their favourite Teletoon content.
The channel is taking some of its most popular Canadian cartoons to viewers "where and when they want them," says the press release, with the launch of two new digital services, video on demand on April 27 and mobile TV on May 15.
Building upon the recent re-branding of the network, the expansion positions Teletoon as a driver in the move towards fully integrated digital content. "Teletoon now offers a more flexible and far reaching suite of services from traditional…
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OTTAWA – If 2006 was the year of local forbearance and the fight over deregulating the wireline phone market, 2007 will be the year newcomers and incumbents wrestle over wireless.
In fact, the lobbying has already begun. Last week, as reported by Cartt.ca, Quebecor Media CEO Pierre Karl Peladeau told Ottawa’s Canadian Club that the cozy oligopoly of existing players keeps prices high, stifles innovation and ensures new wireless applications already available in other countries are slow to market in Canada.
On Monday at the Chateau Laurier Hotel in Ottawa, a large roomful of wireless regulatory lawyers, financial analysts,…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has added NASA Television to the list of foreign TV channels eligible for carriage in digital in Canada, despite objections from CTV’s Discovery Channel.
The CRTC noted in Broadcasting Decision 2007-43 that it found “the overlap between NASA TV and The Discovery Channel or Discovery HD is minimal and that NASA TV is sufficiently different in terms of target audience, service orientation, programming genres and programming to be considered neither partially or totally competitive with The Discovery Channel or Discovery HD.”
The request to bring the U.S. channel featuring documentaries, archival programming and coverage of…
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WHILE SITTING IN TUESDAY morning’s IPTV session at NAB 2007 in Las Vegas I was reminded of the Sesame Street song: “One of these things is not like the other.”
You know how the rest of it goes, asking kids to pick out the thing in a group of objects that doesn’t belong. Unlike Sesame Street, during this morning’s session kids wouldn’t have been able to tell by looking, but once everyone started talking, it would have been easy.
The panel this morning, led by Carmel Group’s Jimmy Schaeffler, consisted of executives from Verizon, SES Americom, OpenTV, and Qualcomm….
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LAS VEGAS – Spending a little time listening to some of the people working on IPTV – and among those making IPTV work, you can kind of see why Bell Canada hasn’t yet launched.
Because it already has a “me too” service in Bell ExpressVu, it is in no hurry to rush a terrestrial service to market before it is completely different than what is already out there.
Today during IPTV World at NAB, Microsoft TV’s CTO and general manager of engineering, Peter Barrett provided an overall glimpse at what might be to come from Bell (assuming they’re able…
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HALIFAX and VANCOUVER – Two releases within an hour of each other early Wednesday evening, one from western telco Telus and eastern incumbent Bell Aliant, say the companies have filed for local forbearance in some major metropolitan centres.
While Telus has asked for Vancouver and Edmonton, Aliant has filed for deregulation in Halifax and its surrounding regions of Hubbards, Ketch Harbour, Musquodoboit Harbour, Prospect Road, Sackville, St. Margarets, Waverley and French Village.
Aliant has asked for deregulation in Halifax, where the local cable operator has taken in excess of 35% market share, before, only to be rebuffed by the…
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OTTAWA – With less than a month before the CRTC hearing into the purchase of CHUM Ltd. by CTV and rumours swirling as to who might emerge as the winning bidder for CHUM’s A-Channels (see below), the NDP says the CRTC has to set up some tough content conditions governing the combined company.
NDP Heritage Critic Charlie Angus said Friday "that if the CRTC is going to give the green light to this unprecedented merging of television media, clear and binding conditions must be laid down."
Angus is calling for enforceable targets for new prime time drama, for example. “Where…
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