Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron will challenge a recent CRTC decision ordering it to turn over information collected from TV set-top boxes to a working group. The CRTC issued that decision earlier this week, after Videotron walked away from the group in April. The working group was set up in the wake of the 2014 Let’s Talk TV hearings, and will collect viewership data in order to help broadcasters better plan their programming and advertisers to better plan their spending. The deadline for the system to be implemented is Jan. 15, 2020. Videotron said in a press release Friday that it...
The independence of the panel that will determine which print news organizations will get tax credits has been “compromised” because the government had already decided to...
The CRTC has ruled that Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron must continue to participate in an industry-wide working group charged with creating a set-top box (STB) data measurement system. In April, Videotron walked away from the group, saying it didn’t want to provide any of its data to the STB working group. In an April letter to the CRTC, Shaw...
The CRTC has released digital media revenue and expense information compiled from the twenty private broadcasters. Digital media services collectively amassed more than $412 million in revenue for...
The imminent departure of BCE Inc. CEO George Cope, announced Friday...
Executives at Corus Entertainment Inc., historically proud of not being in...
Music Canada, the trade organization which represents the Canadian divisions of some of the world’s largest record labels, has declared that the gap between what artists create and what they are paid for it — what they call the value gap — has reached “staggering” proportions. In a report released Wednesday, Music Canada attributes the problem to “a broken copyright framework, ill-adapted to the challenges of the digital age,” according to a release. Citing research done...
Ending several months of uncertainty and speculations, Twitter Inc. has declared that it will join Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Microsoft Corp.’s Bing search engine in not selling any political advertisements in Canada in the...
Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez said in a social media post Wednesday that the Liberal government plans...
The blue ribbon panel in charge of reviewing Canada’s communications legislation has released its...
Two media groups have filed formal petitions to the Governor in Council, asking the government to...
Long-standing Quebecor Inc. executive Serge Sasseville has announced he will retire from his position as...
A bill aimed at improving children’s health by limiting the advertising of unhealthy foods to them,...
New data released by the CRTC Thursday shows the industry-wide trend of tumbling broadcast sector revenue...
The CRTC has begun the process of replacing its three-decade-old Indigenous broadcasting policy. “Since then, the broadcasting environment in Canada has experienced significant changes,” the...
The Federal Court of Appeal has granted Quebecor Inc.’s application to challenge the CRTC’s ruling that it must continue to provide its TVA Sports signal to BCE Inc. customers following a tiff earlier this year. Last month, Quebecor asked the court to appeal a CRTC decision in April that forced the telecom to keep providing Bell customers with the signal after it pulled it at the start of the Stanley Cup playoffs over a carriage fee dispute. In its application for appeal, Quebecor said the regulator doesn’t have jurisdiction over economic relationships or affiliation agreements...
A former Astral executive is Quebec’s new representative to the CRTC, with the federal government appointing Alicia Barin to the commission for a five-year term. Barin will join the CRTC in August. She is a former executive...
The CRTC has approved a request from Corus Entertainment Inc. to shutter 44 of its television transmitting towers that serve rural customers. The original application from November said that the...
The Federal Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal request by MediaTube Corp. to present new evidence in a six-year-old patent infringement case brought against BCE Inc. Judge David Stratus agreed with Bell’s argument that...
BCE Inc. confirmed today that several thousand of its Fibe TV and Alt TV...
The federal government isn’t interested in helping ensure BCE Inc. sees a reversal of the CRTC’s Super Bowl simultaneous substitution ban outside of the new free trade agreement with the United States and Mexico, internal documents indicate.
A briefing note for...
CRTC chairman and CEO Ian Scott told a broadcasting conference Tuesday that the commission is “prepared to be flexible with new approaches to regulation” as it prepares to review its policy for...
MISSISSAUGA, Ont. — Innovation Canada will give existing holders of 3.5...
The House industry committee is asking the Heritage committee to study...
TORONTO — The interim report due at the end of this month from the expert...
OTTAWA — The concept of privacy should factor more prominently in competition law when it comes to regulating social media and big data, a conference heard on Thursday. “Users need to be able...
OTTAWA — The spectre of past Conservative government cuts to...
Corus Entertainment Inc., the only major Canadian broadcaster refusing to...
OTTAWA - Legislators on Tuesday gave some sense of what regulatory options...
OTTAWA — For the Canadian government to be more effective at legislating on issues including social media and internet of things (IoT) technology, it needs to communicate with technology specialists to understand them, a conference on digital access issues heard. “You can’t expect every politician to understand all technology,” Suzie Dunn, a PhD student at the University of Ottawa’s faculty of law, said on Tuesday. “I think it’s important that policymakers not be expected to...
Broadcasters have lobbied the government for years to reimburse them for...
OTTAWA — Facebook Inc. and Microsoft Corp. have both signed on to a...
Cogeco Inc. is lobbying the government to help Canadian radio news...
Innovation Canada is recommending that the privacy commissioner be vested...
Users of a program that provides free access to conventional TV stations in areas where they’re not available over-the-air are asking the CRTC not to allow Shaw Communications Inc. to shut down the program. The CRTC received more than a hundred interventions from individuals, with many users of the local television satellite solution (LTSS) program outlining that it’s the only way they’re able to access free OTA channels, especially the public broadcaster CBC/Radio-Canada, and urging the regulator to keep the program in place. The program offers free satellite services and...
The House heritage committee says the government should do more to fight...
The Centre for Digital Rights has hired new lobbyists to help it research...
Shaw Communications Inc. is getting rid of $548 million in shares in Corus Entertainment Inc.
The...
An organization representing sound recording rights holders wants to...
Quebecor Inc. has turned to the Federal Court of Appeal to overturn the CRTC’s decision forcing it to keep providing the signal for its TVA Sports to BCE Inc.’s TV customers. It filed for leave...
A class action against BCE Inc.’s controversial 2013 relevant advertising program will be heard in an Ontario Court. The action, which alleges that the program violated the plaintiffs’ privacy...
Almost 60 per cent of Canadians have “low trust and confidence” in Netflix Inc. to “protect Canadian culture and identity on television”; half of Canadians don't trust cable companies to do...
MONTREAL — The NDP’s platform for this year’s federal election will include requiring foreign...
When the Game of Thrones series premiere aired in 2011, streaming services were still in their infancy. Now, as the HBO ratings juggernaut wraps up its final few episodes, it draws the kind of massive live audiences that are becoming increasingly rare in an over-the-top...
OTTAWA — Facebook Inc.’s head of public policy in Canada said Friday the platform’s community guidelines, “in many respects,” go above what is currently prescribed in Canadian law, as the...
OTTAWA — In an at-times tense hearing of the House of Commons ethics committee, executives from the Canada office of Alphabet Inc.’s Google made the case that the company was technologically...
The new Fizz flanker brand launched by Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron is still...
OTTAWA — Canadian companies that sell digital products which are subject...
BCE Inc. has filed a Part 1 application with the CRTC alleging Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron removed its film and TV show service Super Écran from its premium pack selection, giving its competitor Club Illico a comparative advantage. The change allegedly occurred in November 2018, when Bell says Videotron moved its Super Écran service out of its premium channel packages and into the “Other Specialties” category, which means its service could only be accessed through that one package containing third-language channels. Bell also said Videotron has maintained premium service status for...
Nicholas McHaffie, who served as counsel to TekSavvy Solutions Inc. in its long-running legal saga against movie studios looking to get the personal information of Canadians in copyright cases, has been appointed to the Federal...
The expected focus by the country’s largest wireless service providers...
The CRTC has told Sirius XM Canada Holdings Inc. that half a million...
Rogers Communications Inc. today announced that it is acquiring the Vancouver-based podcast company Pacific Content. “Podcasting is a big part of the future of audio. We quickly identified its immense potential and are being...
If the Office of the Privacy Commissioner takes Facebook Inc. to Federal...
The CRTC has approved a proposed sale of two Quebec radio stations to Leclerc Communication Inc., but not a requested exception to its ownership policy that Leclerc has said would kill the deal if not...
BCE Inc. has hit Quebecor Inc. with a $150-million lawsuit over Quebecor’s decision to cut the signal for its TVA Sports channel from Bell customers earlier this month. Quebecor pulled the TVA Sports signal at the start of the Stanley Cup playoffs in a dispute with Bell over carriage fees. The CRTC has since issued a mandatory order to keep the...
OTTAWA — The Office of the Privacy Commissioner said Thursday it is...
The number of Canadians who opt for over-the-top services is set to surpass the number of Canadians who subscribe to traditional television providers next year, according to a report released yesterday by Convergence Research Group. The Victoria, B.C.-based research group also estimates that OTT subscription revenue grew by 33 per cent in 2018 to $1.12 billion, and forecasts that it will grow to $1.51 billion in 2019. The 2018 OTT access revenue superseded Convergence’s growth expectations from two years ago, when the 2017 version of the report predicted access revenues of $972...
Rogers Communications Inc. CEO Joe Natale emphasized the $1.7 billion the...
The CRTC will register a mandatory order with the Federal Court forbidding Quebecor Inc. from withholding the signal for TVA Sports from BCE Inc. subscribers — meaning that if Quebecor chooses to...
A chief Federal Court clerk has rejected Alphabet Inc.’s request to expand to constitutional questions the scope of a legal reference that seeks to determine whether Canada’s private sector...
Gatineau, Que. — Quebecor Inc. CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau was unrepentant...
Twitter Inc. has added a timely subject matter to its lobby files: educating federal officials on social media use during elections. The social media company updated its files last week to include “working with government agencies to help them understand how to use social media during elections.” The update is dated one day after the government released a new look on the status of cyber threats to the October election, finding that it is now “very likely” there would be interference when Canadians vote. But Monday’s announcement uncovered a substory, when Democratic...
The Quebec Superior Court on Friday forced Quebecor Inc. to restore a TV...
The CRTC has told Quebecor Inc. executives to appear at a hearing in Gatineau Wednesday to explain why it defied the regulator and pulled the signal to its TVA Sports channel from BCE Inc. TV...
OTTAWA — A Federal Court judge has granted an application by the...
The Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA) said it has a new national executive director in Marie Kelly, effective on Monday. Kelly, a labour lawyer by trade, will replace the retiring Stephen...
OTTAWA — Quebecor Inc. president and CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau said...
OTTAWA — It is now “very likely” that Canadians will face some form...
Corus Entertainment Inc. said it will see TV ad growth in the third quarter...
The panel in charge of reviewing Canada’s communications laws has hired...
Complaints about TV service to the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services (CCTS) skyrocketed to 18 per cent of all complaints in CCTS’ latest report.
TV service became part of the CCTS mandate in September 2017, meaning the organization could accept...
While the Canadian music industry aims to address revenue shortfalls in the...
One of the defendants in a long-running lawsuit against companies selling pre-loaded set-top boxes will pay three Canadian telecoms $5 million to settle the case, according to a March 20 consent...
The CRTC wants to update both its Canadian Programming Expenditure policy and its annual broadcasting survey to reflect the growth of streaming and other digital options and is asking for input on how...
OTTAWA — If a court determines Google’s search engine falls under the country’s private sector privacy law, then that would effectively make the internet company a media regulator, counsel to...
The 2019 federal budget is boosting funding to the office of the privacy commissioner by $22 million over the next five years, following years of requests for more money to deal with new resource pressures.
But the office admits it isn’t totally clear yet on what the...
The CRTC has decided the Timmins, Ontario commercial radio market can’t sustain another station, rejecting an application by Vista Radio Ltd. for another broadcasting licence. Timmins has four...
Rogers Communications Inc.’s media division has announced it’s selling all seven of its magazine...
An illegal radio station that allegedly kept operating despite being shut down by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) has been off the air since last August, the government said in a response tabled on...
OTTAWA — The Liberal government is announcing $1.7 billion in new rural...
Facebook Inc. will solicit the advice of an advisory group as part of its effort to ensure its ad registry captures key issues leading to the 2019 federal election. The group of five will include former NDP deputy leader Megan...
As the Liberal government unveils its last budget before the upcoming...
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner and the Attorney General of Canada (AGC) have filed appeals challenging Alphabet Inc.’s application to expand the scope of a deindexing case to include questions about whether forcing it to...
A trade association for Canadian-based television and content distribution...
Quebecor Inc. has filed a complaint with the CRTC against BCE Inc., alleging undue preference against its sports channel because it’s been excluded from a popular Bell TV package in Quebec. Quebecor filed a Part 1 application complaining TVA Sports is not available by default in Bell’s popular “Bon” TV bundle package in Quebec, while Bell’s own French-language sports service RDS is. The company is complaining Quebecers have to pay an extra $14 for TVA Sports to be added to the...
The CRTC has approved the sale of Corus Entertainment Inc.’s stake in Telelatino Network Inc.,...
Canada’s broadcasting and telecommunications legislation should be...
Bart Yabsley has been appointed as the new president of Sportsnet, filling a role left vacant when Scott Moore stepped down from that position last fall. Yabsley was most recently senior vice-president of sports and...
Alphabet Inc.’s search giant Google plans to ban political advertising from its platforms during the next federal election campaign in Canada, following the introduction of tougher political advertising transparency rules by...
The Liberal government has appointed Matthew Boswell on a full five-year term as Competition Bureau commissioner, according to an administrative order by cabinet.
Boswell, a former assistant crown attorney, replaced outgoing commissioner John Pecman at the end of May last...
The Federal Court has denied the CBC/Radio-Canada’s and the Media Coalition’s application to intervene in a case that will determine whether the privacy commissioner can order search engines to delist certain content -- at...
The Shaw Rocket Fund wants CBC/Radio-Canada to expand its focus on children’s content to reflect a broader age range and is asking for new communications legislation to ensure it has the funding...
Despite heightened interest in the impact of social media on Canadian elections, Facebook Inc. said it has not heard of any Canadian institutions that have applied to view the social media giant’s...
Both over-the-top services and broadcasters should be required to show a certain amount of Canadian feature films, the Canadian Association of Film Distributors and Exporters is asking the panel...
Marco Dubé will take over the vice-president of people and culture position at CBC/Radio-Canada when...
OTTAWA -- Democratic institutions minister Karina Gould said the government...
OTTAWA — Facebook Inc.’s head of public policy in Canada said the...
Organizations representing Canadian publishers are flagging the difficulty...
Key evidence relied upon by movie studios in a substantial chunk of copyright infringement cases that have yielded vast sums of money from settlements has been ruled insufficient by a Federal Court judge who reversed a disclosure order on Thursday. TekSavvy Solutions Inc. challenged the disclosure orders brought by three movie studios against 13 internet service providers in November 2017. The Chatham-based ISP said the studios provided evidence to the court that was made up of unsworn...
