As part of their ongoing effort to fight content piracy, two of Canada’s largest media and telecom companies have, or are considering setting up, “piracy labs” to demonstrate to visitors including regulators and government officials what infringement looks like....
Former Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly’s much-touted 2017 deal with Netflix Inc. to spend $500 million in Canada should never have been referred to as an agreement, the federal government is arguing as part of its reasoning for why it shouldn’t have to publicly disclose...
OTTAWA — Any content levy on internet giants, as the telecom and...
Conservative Party leadership hopeful Erin O’Toole has called for CBC/Radio-Canada’s funding for its digital and english-language television department to be slashed, declaring the national broadcaster is “stuck in the...
In a phone interview with Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review panel chair Janet Yale,...
In the case that sparked a year of conflict between rivals BCE Inc. and...
OTTAWA — On Monday Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault, with some help from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, walked back comments he made over the weekend to CTV News regarding licensing of online news, following the recommendations of an expert panel that news websites be...
OTTAWA — The reintroduction of an agreement governing contracts involving...
OTTAWA — Whether or not CBC/Radio-Canada can move away from advertising revenue is a “political...
OTTAWA — Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault says his government will introduce legislation to...
OTTAWA — A broadcasting and telecommunications legislative review report...
The blue-ribbon panel tasked with modernizing Canada’s communications...
The CRTC will review the policy framework surrounding commercial radio in Canada, including media consolidation rules, quotas of Canadian content and limits on the amount of top 40 songs...
Starting on Jan. 28, BCE Inc.’s Crave streaming service will launch some 6,000 hours of French-language...
Quebecor Inc. wants CBC/Radio-Canada to shut down its subscription streaming service ICI Tou.tv Extra, and has filed a Part 1 application with the CRTC. In a Friday morning press release, Quebecor...
The Liberal government's minority mandate means it will have to move fast on its promised new rules for Canadian content on foreign digital platforms, Heritage Minister Steven...
Fresh documents are shedding light on how Canada’s first piracy case...
Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron has purchased a local cable company operating...
The CRTC has ruled on two applications in which rivals BCE Inc. and Quebecor Inc. accused each other of...
The nation’s highest court has quashed a 2016 decision by the CRTC to ban...
Several independent broadcasters have written to the CRTC to say the regulator shouldn’t grant a request by TV providers to change a rule forcing cable and IPTV services to hand over viewership data. Currently, TV service providers are working on a set-top box viewership measurement system, the implementation date of which has been delayed due to factors including an attempt by Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron to withdraw from the group. There is currently both an active and a suspended condition of licence on the implementation of the system. The active COL requires the system -- which...
Following the federal parties’ shared pursuit to further regulate foreign...
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has delivered a greatly expanded set of telecom and internet-related...
As the new Parliament gets up and running following the election of Justin Trudeau’s Liberals to a minority government, there are also some changes to the ranks of parliamentary secretaries as well. The Prime Minister’s...
When asked who should be most responsible for monitoring the spread of fake...
OTTAWA — Federal privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien told reporters...
The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) is teaming up with an artificial intelligence platform that it hopes will produce insights, which would otherwise be missed, from a...
Defendants in a failed reverse class action certification motion brought by Voltage Pictures LLC are filing an appeal against part of the decision by the Federal Court to withhold legal fees they say...
Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron will argue in Federal Court later this month...
The work of the chairwoman heading the review of the broadcasting and telecom acts turned out to be more time-consuming and complicated than the government initially planned for, according to a memo obtained through Access to Information. The initial terms and conditions of Janet Yale’s appointment provided compensation for the equivalent of two days a week of work. That proved to be insufficient, according to the secret memo to then-Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez in June 2019. “The Progression of the panel’s work has required the Chair to dedicate additional time over...
BCE Inc.’s proposed acquisition of French-language Groupe V Media...
At a Vancouver press conference Tuesday, the federal and British Columbia...
Voltage Pictures LLC and Rogers Communications Inc. have both agreed to drop their appeal and cross-appeal, respectively, against a decision by the Federal Court to award the telecom costs to dig up personal information of alleged...
Facebook Inc. has registered to lobby the federal government on “proposed...
OTTAWA — New Public Safety Minister Bill Blair indicated Wednesday he is open to talking to telecoms about whether to ban Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd equipment from 5G...
A group representing independent broadcasters is telling the CRTC it should maintain the rules forcing BCE Inc. into a dispute resolution process over affiliation agreements for its FibeTV. The...
An Alberta court has sided with Corus Entertainment Inc. in banning the use...
Twitter Inc. has registered to lobby the federal government on its internet advertising policy, following the social media company’s ban on political ads on its platform globally. The registration, effective November 1, seeks...
In a precedent-setting decision, a Federal Court judge has ordered internet...
In a letter to U.S. President Donald Trump’s economic and foreign affairs teams, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and 14 other organizations have told the American government that they are concerned...
The movie studio that has for years sought to sue...
The country’s largest TV service providers are appealing an increase in the over-the-air distant signal...
Rogers Communications Inc., BCE Inc., and Quebecor Inc. have all told the CRTC that if the regulator allows Corus Entertainment Inc. to shift some of its CanCon requirements from one broadcast year...
GATINEAU — Either Allarco Entertainment 2008 Inc. is an essential part of the independent Canadian broadcasting landscape, critical to Canadian content producers, or it...
Starting in February 2020, Donald Lizotte will take over as CBC/Radio-Canada’s general manager and...
Ahead of the CRTC’s wireless review early next year, and on the heels of...
The CRTC has granted a new broadcasting licence for an FM radio station in Saint-Raymond-de-Portneuf, Quebec. It said in the Friday decision an individual named Michael Lambert was the only party to express an interest in...
High demand among advertisers for premium content to be siloed in ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD)...
Despite Conservative leader Andrew Scheer indicating throughout this fall’s election campaign that he would make sure Netflix Inc. pays its “fair share,” his party is...
As the Canada Revenue Agency considers how to administer $595-million worth...
The Conservative Party has now specified its plan to make web giants “pay...
Federal party leaders agreed Thursday evening in the last debate of the...
Organizations that represent important stakeholders in the field of Canadian content are staying...
The CRTC is within its jurisdiction to order companies to keep carrying each other’s TV signals even in the middle of a dispute, Telus Corp. told Federal Court, but the company also argued BCE Inc....
In 2012, the CRTC released a broadcasting decision that required Sirius XM Holdings Inc. to allocate, as a condition of licence, 20 per cent of some of its revenues to an English-language music fund...
Corus Entertainment Inc. is asking the CRTC if the broadcaster can spend...
During the first French-language debate of the federal election campaign,...
Ontario public broadcaster TVO is losing its longtime leader, after Lisa de Wilde announced yesterday that she would be stepping down as the broadcaster’s CEO after 14 years in the job. In a statement she posted on Twitter, she thanked former Ontario Premier William Davis “for his unwavering vision and support” in the founding and funding of the network. “I am proud to say that we have transformed TVO from an analog Ontario-based public broadcaster to a borderless, multi-platform digital publisher focused on learning and current affairs,” de Wilde wrote. De Wilde’s term will end on October 20...
The CRTC Tuesday released the results of its summit on gender parity in the Canadian broadcasting world, featuring “action plans” documents from some of Canada’s largest broadcasters. BCE...
The Liberal Party platform, released Sunday, includes promises of new regulations for Canadian content on...
According to a report out this week from Media Technology Monitor (MTM), one out of every seven Canadians has gotten rid of their paid traditional TV subscriptions. According to an MTM spokesperson, the one in seven figure --...
BCE Inc., Quebecor Inc. and Rogers Communications Inc. are arguing in...
BCE Inc. and Stingray Group Inc. have launched a targeted advertising platform that allows ads to be placed on their radio stations, audio streaming apps and podcasts. The companies said in a press release Thursday that the platform, called Audio360, “enables advertisers to target customized audio messages by grouping consumers according to "Passion Segments" based on shared personas and purchase intention data.” Those segments include categories such as “millennial moms,” “tech...
In asking the Federal Court to deny certifying a class of defendants in a copyright infringement case, an advocacy group is arguing that an IP address is insufficient in proving an individual has...
Three weeks after announcing a new CEO with a background in developing family-based entertainment products, DHX Media Ltd. announced Monday -- alongside its 2019 fourth quarter results -- that it would rebrand as WildBrain and reorganize itself around family-entertainment. On August 30, the...
In the event Federal Court allows a site-blocking application brought by...
The CRTC is objecting to a document-collection request Quebecor Inc. is...
Allarco Entertainment 2008 Inc.’s Super Channel...
OTTAWA — On the second and final day of a potentially precedent-setting court hearing on site-blocking, a Federal Court judge gave the parties until Wednesday to negotiate a revised draft site...
Two local Quebec radio groups representing around 60 stations in the province are asking the provincial...
OTTAWA — Lawyers representing BCE Inc., Quebecor Inc.’s Groupe TVA, and Rogers Communications Inc. asked a Federal Court judge this morning for a court order that would force a number of internet...
Whatever the outcome of next month’s federal election, there will be no mandated access by mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) to incumbent wireless networks, BCE Inc.’s outgoing CEO George Cope predicted while speaking to investors Tuesday at the BMO Media and...
Even before the federal election campaign officially kicked off, telecom...
The CRTC has served a web hosting provider with an order to produce a...
BCE Inc. has formally filed its appeal arguments challenging a CRTC decision that said a quarter of its Canadian content contributions toward two concerts were not eligible. In July, Bell filed...
Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal is lobbying both the Alberta and Ontario...
Quebecor Inc. announced in a release Tuesday that Patrick Jutras would take over as senior vice-president and chief advertising officer of Quebecor and its TVA Group subsidiary. Jutras was previously vice-president of digital business development at Quebecor’s Videotron. Before that he did a long stint in sales and marketing at BCE Inc. and its RDS French-language sports network, according to his LinkedIn account....
DHX Media Ltd. announced Thursday night that Michael Donovan would step down as CEO of the Halifax-based...
Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron is in talks with other telecom companies about...
Corus Entertainment Inc. registered to lobby the government to promote the eligibility of broadcasters for a new journalism tax initiative announced by the federal government late last year. The...
MONTREAL — Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron unveiled its new Helix platform...
Counsel to Voltage Pictures LLC and a number of movie studios is asking the Federal Court of Appeal to review a case that found Rogers Communications Inc. is owed $67.23 to disclose the personal...
Canadian Heritage will leave in place a CRTC decision that gave Rogers Communications Inc. the sole license to have its ethnic channel OMNI required on basic TV packages. An order-in-council, dated August 17, said Heritage is...
Shueisha Inc., a Japanese publisher of comic books, has filed an...
Walt Disney Co. announced Monday that it would be launching its Disney+ streaming service in Canada on...
The Federal Court of Appeal has decided not to hear an appeal from Montreal-based Independent Community Television (ICTV) of a May CRTC decision which renewed a mandatory-carriage license for ethnic broadcasting for Rogers Communications Inc.’s OMNI channel. ICTV had asked the court to hear its appeal on grounds that CRTC chairman Ian Scott and vice-chair of broadcasting Caroline Simard -- in meeting with representatives from Rogers and BCE Inc. -- had given rise to a “reasonable apprehension of bias.” Rogers told the court in July the meetings were unrelated to OMNI. In a...
Quebecor Inc. filed its appeal Wednesday in the Federal Court of Appeal in Montreal asking to overturn an...
The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) has endorsed a number of petitions to the Governor in Council, joining the call for the government to send the CRTC’s June decision granting a mandatory...
The federal government last week announced that it would pour $14.6 million...
The CRTC wants to know more about the potential for the Canadian...
The Federal Court is setting at $35 the hourly rate that Rogers Communications Inc. can charge rightsholders for the work it takes to identify and disclose the personal...
Alyson Walker, vice-president of brand partnerships and client strategy at BCE Inc.’s media division,...
The Canadian Media Fund has announced it is hiring former Heritage Canada strategist Kelly Wilhelm to a newly created role of chief strategy officer. According to a release, Wilhelm will be “tasked with contributing to setting the future trajectory of the CMF, with a specific focus on...
Just as it allowed Corus Entertainment Inc. to do last month, the CRTC has given approval to BCE Inc. to...
Heritage Canada has commissioned seven working groups that are looking at...
Rogers Communications Inc.’s media division has appointed Jordan Banks as president, effective September 9, according to a Monday press release. Banks will replace Rick Brace, who was president since 2015 and will retire from Rogers at the end of this year. “Banks’s mandate will include overseeing the current $2 billion Rogers Media...
Ahead of its renewal of CBC/Radio-Canada’s broadcasting licences, the...
Rogers Communications Inc. has filed a response in a court case challenging...
Quebecor Inc. CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau is vowing to oppose BCE Inc.’s acquisition of a French-language...
BCE Inc. will purchase Groupe V Media Inc.’s conventional TV network V, Bell said in a press release Wednesday. The deal, which must still be approved by the CRTC, also includes “related digital assets including the ad-supported [video-on-demand] service Noovo.ca,” Bell said. The companies are not disclosing the purchase price. “As it is increasingly difficult to ensure the sustainability of a conventional channel within a non-integrated group, I have made the best decision for the future of V. Bell Media will certainly allow V to continue to evolve and reach out to the...
