PKP still hopeful over Freedom acquisition despite unfruitful mediation with Competition Bureau

Media | 11/03/2022 4:29 pm EDT

Quebecor Inc. released its third quarter figures...

Comp. Bureau’s silence on anti-competitive complaint allowing abuse of dominance to persist: TekSavvy

telecom | 08/17/2022 6:13 pm EDT

TekSavvy Solutions Inc. has told the Competition...

VMedia purchase will sweeten Freedom deal for regulators: Quebecor’s PKP

Media | 08/04/2022 5:37 pm EDT

Quebecor Inc.’s president and CEO has said the company’s recent...

Quebecor’s acquisition of VMedia exciting for competition says co-founder, CNOC

Media | 07/28/2022 5:38 pm EDT

VMedia Inc. can expand its national footprint with...

CRTC plans to monitor technical surveys for small BDUs,  dismisses CCSA ​​undue preference complaint against Bell

Media | 10/15/2021 5:42 pm EDT

The CRTC will be keeping an eye on technical surveys -- which broadcast distribution undertakings (BDUs) are sometimes required to complete to satisfy rights holders that...

Petitions to overturn recent CRTC decisions gaining steam

telecom | 09/23/2021 7:09 pm EDT

Days after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau won another minority government...

VMedia, Bell resolve IPTV carriage fight

telecom | 09/24/2020 3:52 pm EDT

VMedia Inc. co-founder George Burger says his company has been able to launch apps for its new IPTV service on several new devices after a dispute with BCE Inc. was resolved. VMedia last month lodged a Part 1 application...

Bell says it is free to withhold new services in dispute with CCSA

telecom | 09/21/2020 5:29 pm EDT

BCE Inc. is not unduly preferring its own TV service and is simply...

VMedia alleges bad faith by Bell in delaying app approval

telecom | 08/13/2020 5:39 pm EDT

VMedia Inc. has filed a complaint with the CRTC alleging that it is being unduly disadvantaged by BCE Inc.'s delay in approving the distribution of Bell programming over VMedia's streaming apps. ...

QVC approved for distribution despite CRTC finding denial was justified

Media | 06/15/2020 2:40 pm EDT

The CRTC says its 2016 decision that U.S. shopping channel QVC could not be distributed in Canada was justified, but a clause in the soon to come into force Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement...

VMedia launches River TV streaming platform

Media | 06/04/2020 1:55 pm EDT

VMedia Inc. has launched a live and on-demand streaming platform, River TV, the company announced in a Thursday media release. River TV will feature over 30 bundled live tv channels, including Global TV, Adult Swim, History and...

VMedia blasts ‘regressive’ BTLR recommendation

telecom | 02/05/2020 4:38 pm EST

VMedia Inc. says a recommendation from the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review...

‘Many’ ISPs could shut down due to wholesale regime: CNOC

telecom | 01/17/2019 4:34 pm EST

Small, wholesale-based internet service providers could be forced out of...

VMedia now serving all provinces after Atlantic push

telecom | 11/29/2018 2:37 pm EST

VMedia Inc. recently launched its full suite of services in all four Atlantic Canada provinces, meaning it now operates in all 10 provinces. CEO George Burger confirmed that the company “started rolling out services as wholesale bandwidth arrangements were being put in place, and have just lit up our last network,” he said in an email. The rollout was completed this week across the four provinces. “Part of the staggered launch was because it turns out we were the first party to ask a major incumbent for wholesale access in a major region, which highlights what a great potential...

VMedia aims to ‘fast track’ plans with public play: co-founder

telecom | 10/25/2018 5:31 pm EDT

George Burger, co-founder of Ontario-based telecom VMedia Inc., says he...

VMedia looking to go public through reverse takeover

Media | 10/24/2018 5:06 pm EDT

VMedia Inc. has come to an agreement Tuesday to buy a small company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange in a move that will allow it to become publicly traded without having to go through an initial public offering (IPO). The...

CRTC approves English Club TV for distribution

Media | 02/09/2018 4:41 pm EST

The CRTC has approved VMedia Inc.’s application to bring to Canada a channel that helps viewers improve...

VMedia obtains refund on QVC decision

Media | 09/19/2017 5:15 pm EDT

The CRTC will have to review a decision to not allow VMedia Inc. to carry a U.S. shopping channel, following a successful contest by the independent provider in the Federal Court of Appeal. In a Friday decision, a pair of...

High interim tariffs, logistics still mire disaggregated system

telecom | 08/31/2017 5:13 pm EDT

The CRTC's goal of fuelling wireline competition by jumpstarting the industry’s rollout of the disaggregated wholesale regime Tuesday will be constrained if interim access fees remain high and if the issue of how small providers will connect to fibre facilities is not...

STB data measurement complex task, group says

Media | 06/30/2017 2:23 pm EDT

Activity by a working group tasked with studying the implementation of an audience measurement system via...

Alt TV managed service, doesn’t violate CRTC rules: Cope

Media | 05/15/2017 5:45 pm EDT

MONTREAL — BCE Inc. has launched a new TV product hoping to appeal to a segment of the market that’s less likely to subscribe to...

CRTC approves three channels for distribution

Media | 01/19/2017 7:27 pm EST

The CRTC said Thursday in two decisions it has approved three channels — Stingray Brava, Bestseller and Mult — for distribution in Canada.   Stingray Digital Group Inc.'s Stingray Brava is an...

Judge sides with Bell in dispute over VMedia OTT service

Media | 11/22/2016 9:21 pm EST

VMedia Inc. is permanently prohibited from broadcasting BCE Inc.’s CTV channels on its over-the-top skinny basic service, an Ontario Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday. Judge Frederick...

VMedia pulls CTV from OTT service as ‘sign of good faith’

Media | 10/14/2016 9:29 pm EDT

VMedia Inc. said in a court document it has removed BCE Inc.’s CTV channels from its over-the-top (OTT) skinny basic service pending the resolution of a legal dispute between the two...

Bell asks for injunction against VMedia OTT service

Media | 10/04/2016 8:24 pm EDT

BCE Inc. is asking the Ontario Superior Court to grant an interim and permanent injunction to stop VMedia Inc. from delivering Bell's CTV channels on its over-the-top (OTT) service. VMedia began offering the...

VMedia fighting to keep CTV, CTV2 on OTT service

Media | 10/03/2016 9:25 pm EDT

VMedia Inc. is asking an Ontario court to step in and declare that its recently launched over-the-top (OTT) streaming television service is not infringing copyright, as claimed by BCE Inc., which wants the provider to...

VMedia bringing live-streaming TV to Roku devices

Media | 09/20/2016 6:19 pm EDT

VMedia Inc. has rolled out live TV to Canadian users of Roku Inc.’s devices, Roku said in a press release Friday. Canadians can “watch up to 20 live TV channels, including Canadian and US networks such as...

VMedia shopping for QVC appeal

Media | 09/01/2016 8:51 pm EDT

A CRTC decision to deny an application by VMedia Inc. to carry U.S. shopping channel QVC will be scrutinized by a judge after the independent provider was granted leave to appeal the decision in federal court. VMedia is asking the court to throw out the commission’s April decision, saying that the CRTC made mistakes in its rationale for not adding QVC to the list of non-Canadian programming services and stations authorized for distribution. In its decision, the CRTC said “if authorized, QVC would be carrying on a broadcasting undertaking in whole or in part in Canada,” which would require a licence and that broadcasting licences can’t be issued to non-Canadians. By making this decision, the CRTC “failed to consider what constitutes ‘broadcasting’ or a ‘broadcasting...

VMedia sets sights on incumbents as it expands outside Ont.

telecom | 06/01/2016 10:11 pm EDT

Ontario Internet service and television provider VMedia Inc. will expand to Quebec, British Columbia, Manitoba and Alberta in the next two weeks — a move the company says will see its services...

Telecoms’ TV customer losses up five-fold in 2015

telecom | 03/10/2016 10:22 pm EST

The number of subscribers leaving the Canadian TV system appears to be accelerating, as Canada’s publicly traded telecom companies lost five times more TV subscribers in 2015 than a year earlier. They reported having...

B.C. provider offers skinny-basic TV

Media | 11/03/2015 2:54 pm EST

Mascon, a small telecom service provider in British Columbia, announced Monday that it is now offering a skinny-basic TV package for $20 a month, getting a head-start on the CRTC requirement that packages for no more than $25 a...

‘Golden age of TV’ facing changes: panel

Media | 06/03/2015 11:43 pm EDT

TORONTO — There has never have been a better time than now to be a consumer of television, it was said during a panel discussion Wednesday at the Canadian Telecom Summit, but it was also discussed how big changes are afoot,...

TekSavvy’s Abramson takes on incumbents at Telecom Summit

telecom | 06/02/2015 7:36 pm EDT

TORONTO — With a key decision from the CRTC on smaller service providers’ access to wireline telecommunications networks expected soon, three incumbents’ regulatory bosses took on their counterpart at TekSavvy Solutions Inc. over the issue at the Canadian Telecom Summit on Tuesday. During the so-called “Regulatory Blockbuster” panel discussion, TekSavvy chief regulatory officer Bram Abramson found himself arguing the merits of stronger oversight over the prices companies like his have to pay for access to networks owned by the major telecoms. “You’ll...

Broadcasters, BDUs at odds over proposed wholesale code

Media | 05/08/2015 8:49 pm EDT

While many broadcasters and TV providers expressed support for the CRTC’s proposed changes to its wholesale code, which governs carriage agreements for TV channels, they took differing positions...

CRTC approves new IPTV service from VMedia

Media | 05/08/2015 8:39 pm EDT

The CRTC on Friday approved a new IPTV service from VMedia Inc., despite arguments from some interveners that the proposed service would be transmitted over the public Internet and should therefore not be licensed as a broadcast...

CRTC sides with small ISPs on Shaw Internet pricing dispute

telecom | 03/02/2015 9:24 pm EST

The CRTC ruled against Shaw Communications Inc.’s proposed new prices for third-party Internet access on Monday, approving interim wholesale broadband rates that are roughly half what the...

Shaw ‘welcomes’ third-party ISP customers: CRTC filing

telecom | 02/24/2015 4:20 pm EST

Shaw Communications Inc. has filed a response to the small ISPs that oppose its proposed new prices for wholesale Internet access that argues against the notion of its moves being anti-competitive. In a Feb. 19 filing to the CRTC, Shaw denied that the new prices —which one operator called “egregious”...

VMedia gets CRTC go-ahead for VOD service

telecom | 02/13/2015 5:53 pm EST

The CRTC has approved VMedia Inc.’s application for a national video-on-demand service, opening the way for the Ontario-based triple-play provider to add a VOD option to its over-the-top television service delivered via...

VMedia now offering triple-play bundles in Ontario

Media | 02/04/2015 8:04 pm EST

VMedia Inc. said Wednesday it has become the first independent telecommunications service provider to offer a triple-play bundle of television, Internet and home-phone service in Ontario. The company said its packages start at...

VMedia secures Blue Ant content for cloud-TV service

Media | 01/22/2015 8:14 pm EST

VMedia Inc. said it has secured its first specialty-TV channels for the cloud-based PVR service it makes available to IPTV customers. The company said in a news release Thursday that it has reached a deal to include Blue Ant...

Small ISPs raise fuss over new Shaw wholesale price proposal

telecom | 01/14/2015 9:01 pm EST

Small ISPs are speaking out against an “egregious” new pricing proposal from Shaw Communications Inc. for wholesale access to its Internet lines. The Calgary-based incumbent introduced...

ISPs aspiring to launch TV services face uncertainty

Media | 12/12/2014 6:36 pm EST

Small Internet service providers looking to provide TV service should hold off on investment because of the uncertain future of the broadcast television market, according to 3Macs analyst Troy Crandall. At the recent CRTC wireline hearing, representatives from the Canadian Network Operators’ Consortium, a trade group for small ISPs, told the commission that wholesale rates need to drop in order for their members to offer other services, including television, to customers. Some smaller companies, such as VMedia Inc. and Distributel Communications Ltd., already provide IPTV individually...

Rogers VP calls CNOC’s arguments on wholesale rates ‘absurd’

telecom | 12/02/2014 10:17 pm EST

GATINEAU, Que. — Rogers Communications Inc.'s senior vice-president of regulatory affairs, Ken Engelhart, on Tuesday attacked some of the arguments made on behalf of smaller Internet service providers during CRTC's hearing on wholesale wireline services. For example, VMedia Inc., an Ontario-based provider of...

VMedia plans could ‘undermine’ broadcast system: Ethnic Channels

Media | 05/07/2014 8:15 pm EDT

Granting VMedia Inc. licences to operate a national video-on-demand (VOD) service and expand its broadcast distribution service would mean approving a distribution structure that would...

VMedia offers cloudy version of IPTV

Media | 04/08/2014 11:01 pm EDT

George Burger wants to give Canadians a more streamlined television experience, yet analysts say the high-tech Internet-protocol TV offerings from his VMedia Inc. might have limited appeal. The IPTV service from VMedia now...

VMedia launches ‘pick a pack’ TV in Ontario

Media | 12/09/2013 6:19 pm EST

VMedia Inc., a provider of Internet-protocol television services in Ontario, announced Monday it is launching a "pick a pack" service called UChoose. VMedia is offering customers who subscribe to its basic or...