OTTAWA – The CRTC has agreed to delete 44 of Corus’ rebroadcasting transmitters from its broadcasting licences but has tweaked the broadcaster’s proposed reallocation of tangible benefits.
As Cartt.ca reported, Corus filed an application with the Commission last fall seeking to delete 44 rebroadcasting transmitters from its broadcasting licences for some over-the-air (OTA) television stations located in smaller markets across the country. Corus also asked that $2,365,771 in tangible benefits, relating to Shaw Communications’ acquisition of Canwest Global stations that was to be spent on the digital conversion, be reallocated to a number of other initiatives.
On Thursday, the…
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OTTAWA – The Canadian Chapter of the International Institute of Communications (IIC Canada) will host its two-day annual conference on April 20 – 21, 2020 at the Shaw Centre in Ottawa.
The organization said that the date change from October comes as a result of the timing of the federal election and the expected status of the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review process at that time.
Registration and program information will be available in late 2019.
https://www.iic-canada.ca/en
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Telecom Summit only showed more of the same
IF THERE IS ONE COMMON thing about telecom meetings, it’s the inevitable talk about how big someone's first phone was. A large conference room filled with highly paid telecom executives – presidents, vice-presidents and senior vice-presidents – in one room talking about their favourite pastimes. Add the denial, the out of touch examples, feel-good music and you have a full picture.
To be frank, music wasn't that bad at the summit. Thanks, VJ/DJs!
It's true that telecommunications has come a long way, and perspective matters. There is a lot to be learned from how…
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TORONTO – There may have been over a dozen topics on the hit list for this year's regulatory blockbuster session at this year’s Canadian Telecom Summit, but the six panelists kept coming back to one: MVNOs, yea or nay.
Moderator Greg O'Brien, editor and publisher of Cartt.ca, set the tone, commenting, "This panel is often fun, always a little prickly, which is part of the fun
“The industry is being transformed from all sides," he went on. "It's being changed from within, from without, and, crucially, from Ottawa."
Key among the events include the broadcast and telecom legislative review panel, a proposed…
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MVNOs won't work in Canada
TORONTO – Shaw Communications’ Paul McAleese co-founded and ran a successful MVNO in the United States for a dozen years before coming back to Canada to head up Freedom Mobile.
While he’s still a satisfied investor in i-wireless, which runs the mobile offering of the Kroger chain of grocery stores, he said comparing that company and the U.S. wireless market in general to Canada’s is a mug’s game. First, the American market is just so much bigger, where MVNOs can carve out a living with low margins there thanks to American market scale in a way…
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TORONTO –Innovation, Science and Economic Development minister Navdeep Bains is expected to reveal the proposed structure of the 3500 MHz spectrum auction on Wednesday and, tapping into his inner Raptor, Scotiabank telecom analyst Jeff Fan said in a report this week he expects Bains to “deliver its version of ‘The Klaw’.”
Using Toronto Raptors’ star Kawhi Leonard’s nickname as a fun hook, Fan set out what he believes will happen to the 3500 MHz spectrum currently co-owned by Rogers Communications and Bell Canada. Like Leonard stripping an opponent of the basketball, ISED will be stripping a lot of that spectrum…
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TORONTO – As Canadian broadcasters pitch linear TV as a safer space for brands than toxic social media platforms during their upfront presentations, it was some surprise to see on stage Thursday at Twitter's TwitterFront event in Toronto top execs and talent from Corus Entertainment, CBC, Rogers Media and Bell Media.
"Everyone is working with us," Paul Burns, a former digital exec at Shaw Communications and now Twitter Canada’s managing director, told Cartt.ca about Canadian media players who are increasingly making the most of a social media platform often derided by critics for being a land…
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TORONTO – As streaming video grows and younger viewers move online, traditional Canadian TV networks in recent years have been keen to tell advertisers they were following audiences online as multiplatform players amid fast-changing viewer habits.
But the CBC, underpinned by new leadership, had a stark selling point at its upfront presentation in Toronto on Wednesday beyond excitement over their new and returning TV shows – brand safety and transparency.
"The last year illustrated some of the dangers the digital world represents. There are traps," Jean Mongeau, general manager and chief revenue officer at CBC Media Solutions, told Cartt.ca, as U.S….
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THERE’S NOT MUCH TIME left to save our cultural institutions and corporations in Canada, says Richard Stursberg.
If our federal government doesn’t act soon, what it means to be Canadian will be subsumed by the sheer volume of American culture washing over us online while our “feckless” Canadian government stands idly by. “We’re going to be completely dominated by American content,” he says.
The former assistant deputy minister of culture and broadcasting and former CBC, Shaw, and Telefilm executive, recently released a brand new book, called The Tangled Garden. A Canadian Cultural…
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Premium Shaw Wireless brand is coming
TORONTO – Speaking at TD Securities Media and Telecom Forum in Toronto last week, Shaw Communications’ wireless president Paul McAleese, echoing similar statements made by Bell and Telus earlier, had strong words concerning the potential government-mandated introduction of mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) into the Canadian wireless marketplace.
(Ed note: McAleese knows the MVNO space very well, having spent 12 years in the United States running i-Wireless, an MVNO owned and operated by the Kroger grocery store chain running on the Sprint network.)
“I feel it’s an area that’s badly misunderstood by most,” McAleese said. “…
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