By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – Bill C-10 passed second reading unanimously last Tuesday and was officially referred to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage for study, which of course, has already begun.
The prior two meetings on the bill to amend the Broadcasting Act were, for all intents and purposes, labelled a pre-study of the legislation, in order to get a heard start hearing witnesses before the bill was approved in second reading.
So, officially, the meeting last Friday was the first meeting to officially look at the legislation.
However, the committee chair informed members and witnesses at the start of the meeting…
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Third in a three-part series
By Len St-Aubin
FOR DECADES, CANADIAN broadcasting policy, grounded in the limitations of over-the-air radio and TV, has restricted consumer choice in the name of Canadian culture.
Quietly, Canadians have resisted: with set-top “rabbit ears”, roof-top antennas, pre-regulation cable-TV, and satellite dishes big and small, we asserted our freedom of choice, pulling in foreign signals. We took to online streaming like fish to water.
If passed, Bill C-10 would apply those increasingly out of touch (OOT) policies to online streaming. Virtual private networks (VPNs) are about to flourish.
It’s not that Canadians don’t like Canadian content. Our maple-leaf hearts…
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By Len St-Aubin
DEBATE ABOUT BILL C-10 thus far has focused on Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault’s goal to make big foreign online audio and video streamers, like Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime, YouTube and Spotify, contribute to the creation of Canadian content.
But Bill C-10’s scope is vast. It will impact broadcasting and the internet in Canada, and all Canadians
It’s a valid public policy goal to expect big foreign streamers which have significant market share and revenues in Canada to engage with Canadian creators in the production of Canadian stories for Canadian and global audiences. It’s a valid question whether amending the…
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By Ahmad Hathout
GATINEAU – The CRTC has announced a second round of funding commitment from its $750-million Broadband Fund and it’s going to what the industry has often identified as a serious cost barrier to rural broadband: transport facilities.
On Thursday, the regulator announced five recipients for funds worth a total of $26.7 million, focusing on British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Ontario. Those companies are Rogers, Shaw, BH Telecom Corp., Columbia Basin Broadband Corporation, and Tough Country Communications Ltd., which are expected to connect 41 communities with 550 km of fibre transport.
The first announcement pledged $72 million for satellite and fibre…
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INUVIK, NWT — Northwestel said today it has officially launched its unlimited fibre internet service in Inuvik, Northwest Territories, with residential and business customers now able to order the service which offers speeds up to 250 Mbps.
Northwestel announced its intention last year to extend its fibre-to-the-home service to Inuvik (pop. 3,300), which is the company’s second FTTH community in the Northwest Territories, following Hay River. Both projects were funded entirely by Northwestel, the company says in a press release.
The company’s new residential fibre internet plans will deliver up to 16x faster Internet than previously offered by Northwestel, at…
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SSi Micro says northern broadband won’t grow if everything is given to incumbents
By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Last week, outgoing Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai said a chunk of the United States’ historic C-band spectrum proceeds should go toward a fund intended to help bring basic telecommunications services to all Americans.
North of the border, NDP Member of Parliament Brian Masse (and many others) has long been calling for spectrum proceeds to fund rural broadband investments — even creating a proposal to connect the entirety of the country to universal objective speeds (50 Mbps download/10 Mbps upload) much sooner than…
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TORONTO — Corus Entertainment today announced the new YTV Original family mystery series, The Hardy Boys, will premiere on YTV on Friday, March 5 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
Based on the books by Franklin W. Dixon, the series (13 episodes x 60 minutes) is produced by Lambur Productions and Nelvana, Corus’ kids content producer, in association with Corus Entertainment.
Filmed in Toronto and Southern Ontario, the much-anticipated Canadian premiere of The Hardy Boys on YTV follows the series’ U.S. debut in December 2020 on Hulu. Canadians can also stream The Hardy Boys live and on demand on StackTV with Amazon Prime…
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TORONTO – The Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University announced last week the launch of a new independent, three-year, research study on Canadian sports fan, in partnership with Sportsnet and in collaboration with the Future of Sport Lab (FSL).
Said to be the first-of-its-kind academic study, the “Canadian Sport Fan Index will provide key insights on the attitudes, behaviors and trends of sport fans across Canada,” said the press release. “The research will focus on the post-Covid era examining how fans are engaging with professional sports teams and leagues as they deal with limited access to live events,…
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Advanced service joins all-in-one-video push
By Greg O’Brien
MONTREAL – This week, Cogeco Connexion became the latest company to tell consumers if they want all of their video in one place, epico is the best place to find it.
After an extended trial period with employees (1,200 of the company’s 2,000 Canadian employees have it in their homes) and a handful of customers (over 12,000 customers now have epico), the company took the wrapper off the newest, and for now the most advanced, pay-TV system in Canada. We’re calling it that because its Android TV operator tier operating system from MediaKind gives…
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POND INLET, Nunavut — Uvagut TV, Canada’s first Inuit-language TV channel (which launched on January 18), said today it will broadcast live coverage of the upcoming environmental hearing on Baffinland Iron Mine’s proposed Mary River Phase 2 Expansion, direct from Pond Inlet (located in northern Baffin Island).
Uvagut TV says the unprecedented coverage will give Inuit and concerned audiences “unfiltered access” to the proceeding being conducted by the Nunavut Impact Review Board (NIRB) in Iqaluit and Pond Inlet, starting on January 25. The hearing is expected to run until February 6.
The NIRB in-person hearings were suspended in March 2020…
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