A CRTC decision to allow a Southern Ontario broadcaster to “multiplex” its over-the-air channel is the first of its kind in Canada and may pave the way for other conventional broadcast stations to offer more services at a lower cost, industry insiders said. In a decision Friday, the CRTC said Ontario station CFTV Leamington can “multiplex” its digital over-the-air signal. That means the station can offer four separate digital TV channels over the spectrum that the broadcaster now uses to transmit one channel in analog. Francois Gauthier, a Montreal-based broadcasting consultant and a former director of spectrum engineering with CBC/Radio-Canada, said in a phone...
Canadian television production and distribution company DHX Media Ltd. has entered into a $111-million agreement to acquire Cookie Jar Entertainment to create Canada’s “largest children’s entertainment company,” DHX said Monday. DHX said in the release that the combined companies would create an extensive independent library of children’s entertainment with more than 8,550 half-hour TV episodes. Cookie Jar’s content library includes popular children’s programming such as Caillou, Inspector Gadget and Johnny Test, DHX said. The company said the $111 million for Cookie Jar would be paid through 36 million DHX shares, $55 million in cash, and $66 million in debt. “The acquisition of Cookie Jar is a transformational event for DHX that...
Canada's advertisers are placing more ads on mobile and “advanced TV” than their counterparts in the United States, digital video advertising company Videology Inc. said Monday. In the second quarter ended in June 2012, Videology said, more than half of video ad impressions were placed online in Canada with 22 per cent to mobile devices...
Canadians spent less time using their smartphones, tablets and e-readers this spring than they did a year earlier, according to a new poll by Ipsos Reid. In a spring 2012 report for the firm’s ongoing study on mobile use, Ipsos said research collected in March and April of this year found the average Canadian smartphone user spent 2.8 hours per...
Blue Ant Media Inc. reached an agreement to acquire CBC/Radio-Canada’s digital specialty channel Bold, the broadcasters said Friday. The broadcasters said in a release that the transaction for Bold, a channel that focuses...
The CRTC has given independent broadcaster Southshore Broadcasting Inc. permission to multicast four digital signals of its CFTV Leamington over-the-air station, the commission said Friday. In its decision, the commission said it approved Southshore’s request to add a digital transmitter to its Leamington station, as well as its request for...
CBC/Radio-Canada should model its coverage of the Sochi 2014 and Rio 2016 Olympic Games on the successful multi-platform efforts of this year’s London Summer Olympics, but may still have a hard time turning a profit, Gordon Hendren, president of Charlton Strategic Research Inc., says. In an interview with The Wire Report on Thursday, Hendren said online and mobile coverage provided by Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium, BCE Inc. and Rogers Communications Inc., during this...
The CRTC has approved a licence for a French-language, Category B specialty channel that would cater to Quebec’s diverse communities, the commission said Thursday. In its decision, the commission said it awarded a licence...
Quebecor Media Inc., Cogeco Cable Inc. and Eastlink, a Bragg Communications Inc. subsidiary, asked Heritage Minister James Moore to throw out CRTC interventions from Telefilm Canada and an RCMP...
The CRTC has ordered BCE Inc. and Rogers Communications Inc. to spend $7.5 million over the next seven years to help finance independent sports-related programming, nearly doubling the value of...
CBC/Radio-Canada and Rogers Communications Inc.-owned Sportsnet have put their assets together across all platforms to provide coverage for the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil, CBC said Tuesday. In an announcement on CBC Sports, the...
BCE Inc.’s $3.38 billion bid to acquire Astral Media Inc., will drive broadcasting investment, innovation and choice in the province of Quebec, Bell said in a press release Wednesday. In its release, Bell said the TV, radio...
The CRTC should back off its demand that broadcast distributors apply for the commission’s approval to run social media functions on top of traditional TV programming, Ann Mainville-Neeson,...
The closing ceremony of the 2012 London Olympic Games was the “most-watched” Summer Olympics broadcast in Canadian history, Canada’s Olympic Media Broadcast Consortium said Monday....
Public broadcaster CBC/Radio-Canada did not grant itself an unfair advantage by using both public funding and advertising revenues to support its new CBC Music service, the CRTC said in a decision...
A free satellite service offered by the federal government, BCE Inc. and the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) is allowing northern residents to continue receiving APTN despite the loss of 32 over-the-air signal transmitters, Jean LaRose, CEO of APTN, said in an interview. In an interview last month, Martin Marcotte, director of transmission for CBC/Radio-Canada, said APTN had co-located transmitters on 32 of the 607 CBC transmitters that were decommissioned across the country on...
The CRTC should require BCE Inc. to sell off the English-language pay and specialty channels it would receive through its proposed purchase of Astral Media Inc. in order for that deal to be approved, Rogers Communications Inc. said in regulatory documents filed with the commission Thursday. In July, the commission kicked...
The CRTC issued a call for comments Friday on proposed standards for non-disclosure agreements and provisions on the conduct of audits. In a release, the commission said it is seeking to establish standards to help in...
A new real-time, online advertising bidding service allows Canadian broadcasters to offer unsold display space, receive bids and display the ads in a process that takes about 100 milliseconds, said...
The CRTC approved an application Thursday from the Cowichan Valley Community Radio Society to operate a low-power FM community radio station in British Columbia. In the decision, the CRTC said the low-power station would operate...
Sixty-one per cent of the traffic connecting to Canada’s Olympic broadcast consortium’s digital platforms came from mobile devices during the first week of the 2012 London Olympic Games, the consortium said Wednesday. In a release, the consortium, made up of Rogers Communications Inc.and BCE Inc., said the percentage is “more than five times the average.” Bell has exclusive mobile rights to the Games. The release said the digital platforms, which include CTVOlympics.ca, RDSOlympiques.ca, as well as the CTV Olympics London 2012 and RDS olympiques pour Londres...
Quebecor Media Inc., Cogeco Cable Inc.and Eastlink launched an online campaign Tuesday to generate public opposition to BCE Inc.’s proposed $3.38-billion agreement to acquire Astral...
The CRTC approved BCE Inc.’s proposal to establish a Broadcasting Accessibility Fund. The commission said in a decision Tuesday that the new fund, resulting from BCE’s benefits package from the purchase of...
Quebecor Media Inc. subsidiary Group TVA Inc. reported profits of $23.7 million for the second quarter of 2012, the company said in a release Tuesday. TVA said in a release the number was up from $13.8 million in the same quarter...
The CRTC is expected to rethink its proposed value-for-signal regime given different marketplace conditions, a change at the top of the commission and a new regulatory environment, industry observers and an insider said. The commission’s proposed value-for-signal regime, released in March 2010, sought to help find an...
AOL Inc. launched a new service in Canada called Huffington Post Canada Music. AOL Canada and the Huffington Post Media Group said in a release Thursday that the new music service combines HuffPost’s blogging platform with music content. The site will feature original one-on-one interviews, exclusive videos and exclusive performances, the...
The online websites of radio stations owned by Rogers Communications Inc. attracted more visits and more unique visitors than a comparable fleet of Canadian radio station websites in the first two quarters of 2012, Rogers said...
Chris Williams has been named the new president of the Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada (IAB Canada). IAB Canada said in a release that Williams assumed the position after Paula Gignac announced her departure from the organization in April. Williams, who previously held the position of managing director and senior vice-president at Media...
Blue Ant Media Inc. has added four additional specialty channels to its roster after completing its acquisition of High Fidelity HDTV Inc., the company said Wednesday. In a release, Blue Ant said it has added High Fidelity HDTV’s Oasis HD, eqhd, radX and HIFI HD channels to its broadcast holdings, which include Bite, AUX, and Travel+Escape. Blue...
CBC/Radio-Canada will “either break even or be profitable” with its exclusive Canadian broadcast rights to the Sochi 2014 and the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, Jeffrey Orridge, executive director of CBC sports properties, said in an interview. In a release Wednesday, CBC and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said the public broadcaster secured the exclusive Canadian broadcasting rights to air the 2014 and 2016 Games in French and English. Orridge said in a phone interview that he could not disclose what CBC paid to obtain the rights, but said the broadcaster’s bid was “both respectful of the stature of the Games and fiscally responsible.” He added that...
Online video streaming will account for two-thirds of peak bandwidth usage in in the United States in 2015, Internet technology company Sandvine Corp. predicted. The company released an analytics...
The federal Competition Bureau is investigating whether BCE Inc. is using its stable of “high-demand television” channels to place “anti-competitive” restrictions on competing...
One hundred and five low-powered TVO analog TV transmitters scheduled for decommission this week are being offered to local communities to use at no cost, the Ontario Educational Communications...
Google Inc.’s Toronto office has added Leslie Church, Michael Ignatieff’s former communications director, as a senior manager on its communications and public affairs team. Church—who served as the former...
Ontario’s French and English-language public broadcasters will begin decommissioning some of their 123 analog TV transmitters across the province on Tuesday after receiving the CRTC’s permission last week. In a pair of decisions handed down on Friday, the CRTC said it will allow TVO (CICA-TV Toronto) and TFO (CHLF-TV Toronto) to shut down a series of analog transmitters that was used to rebroadcast their channels’ free, over-the-air signals into rural and remote communities across the province. The commission said it did not have the authority to deny the requests to...
The CRTC issued amendments to its rules for vertically integrated companies, small broadcast distributors and new media services, and in the process maintained a contested English-language “linkage” rule for vertically...
The Interactive Ontario (IO) board of directors appointed Peter Miller as its new chair, the organization said. Interactive Ontario said in a notice on its website that Miller will take over the role for Mark Bishop, who was a board member for 10 years and held the chair position since 2009. Interactive Ontario said Miller was elected at the...
CBC/Radio Canada will rent out its decommissioned analog transmitters for the lower-end fee of $4,800 per year, which community groups said they cannot afford. CBC plans to shut down 607 analog...
The World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) copyright committee concluded two weeks of meetings early Thursday and adopted a working document for a broadcasting treaty. WIPO said in a concluding text that the committee “reaffirmed its commitment to continue work, on a signal based approach, consistent...
Conservative MP Paul Calandra, parliamentary secretary to Heritage Minister James Moore, received $22,000 in political donations at a fundraising party attended by people connected to WorldBand Media Inc., whose radio licence bid is under consideration by the CRTC, The Globe and Mail reported Wednesday. Family, friends and...
CBC/Radio-Canada’s English services will cut three positions from its commissioned and scripted programming division, the public broadcaster said in a release Wednesday. The positions will be cut as the broadcaster merges...
Five months after the service launched in the United States, Research In Motion Ltd. has made its PlayBook Video Store application available to Canadian users of its tablet, a company spokeswoman confirmed Wednesday. Kiyomi Rutledge, a RIM spokeswoman, said in a telephone interview that the PlayBook Video Store became available to Canadian consumers...
American cable and satellite TV subscribers should receive refunds for channels they lose access to during blackouts related to retransmission negotiations, the chair of the U.S. Senate’s...
BCE Inc.’s proposal to spend $40 million in broadcasting benefits on the rollout of mobile broadband services by its subsidiary NorthwestTel Inc. in remote northern communities does not benefit the broadcasting system and is an improper use of the funding, a screenwriters group and a telecom competitor in the North said. Bell, which in March said it reached a deal to purchase Astral Media Inc. for $3.38 billion, filed documents with the CRTC this month that proposed to spend $200 million in tangible benefits relating to that sale, including $61 million in radio benefits and $139 in television benefits. Bell proposed that $40 million of the $200 million in benefits go to subsidiary...
Netflix Inc. continues to expand its Canadian subscriber base as customers watch more programs on Netflix, the U.S.-based over-the-top service provider said in a quarterly financial statement Tuesday. In a letter to shareholders, Netflix said its Canadian service added subscribers in the three-month period ending June 30 and that the “median...
BCE Inc.’s deal to purchase of Astral Media Inc. for $3.38 billion is part of an effort for a “virtual monopoly” in Canada’s French-language specialty channel market and should be stopped by the CRTC, Quebecor Media Inc. said Tuesday. In a release, Quebecor said the acquisition would give Bell eight...
The Quebec Superior Court ordered BCE Inc. to pay nearly $1 million in damages and costs to Quebecor Media Inc. as part of a civil lawsuit between the companies related to satellite piracy. Quebecor...
CBC/Radio-Canada-owned specialty channel Explora is not respecting its broadcasting licence, Serdy Media Inc. said in a complaint filed with the CRTC. In a 10-page complaint filed with the CRTC July 17, 2012, Serdy said the programming on French-language channel Explora is similar to programming from Serdy’s Category...
U.S. cablecos have successfully used “advanced services” like digital cable and Internet access to prop up their revenues amid declining TV subscriptions, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said Friday in a report on the country’s video distribution industry. In its fourteenth report on Status of Competition in the Market for the Delivery of Video Programming, the FCC said cablecos’ share of U.S. TV subscriptions fell from above 65 per cent of all subscriptions in 2006, to just under 60 per cent at the end of 2010. “Although the number of cable video subscribers has been falling, cable [broadcast distributors] have done well financially by increasing sales of advanced services (e.g., digital cable, Internet access, and telephone) to the...
BCE Inc.'s exclusive mobile rights for this year's Summer Olympics in London are more of an opportunity to showcase the company’s brand and technology with consumers than to seek direct...
Stornoway Communications appointed Kate Tinnerman as its director of sales and affiliate relations. In a release Friday, Stornoway said Tinnerman’s primary focus will be to support all aspects of the company’s broadcast partners and develop new partnering opportunities. Tinnerman will also oversee the direction and management of sales...
The CRTC issued a “precedent-setting” decision that will afford Telus Corp. and other broadcast distributors more channel packaging flexibility and give consumers...
The United States and South Africa continued to push for protections against online signal piracy as part of the proposed World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)...
DirecTV has reached a “long-term agreement” with Viacom Inc. for carriage of 17 Viacom channels, ending a dispute that caused DirecTV customers to lose access to a popular specialty channels for more than a week, the U.S. satellite TV distributor said Friday. In a release, DirecTV said the deal ensures its subscribers will have access to...
The CRTC approved an application from Corus Entertainment Inc.'s Telelatino Network Inc. to operate specialty channel Eur-Asian Television Network Inc. The commission said Friday that Telelatino proposed that the new service...
The CRTC approved an application from Shaw Communications Inc. to operate a specialty channel called Global News Plus BC. In the decision Friday, the commission said the regional English-language specialty service would feature a...
Google Inc. said it is disappointed with a decision of France's Supreme Court that ordered the company to prevent automated search term suggestions that could lead to online downloading from unauthorized sources. The court said in a decision July 12 that Google must delete "Torrent," "Megaupload"...
CBC/Radio-Canada corrected the number of analog transmitters to be shut down on July 31, 2012, revising that number from 620 to 607. In details accompanying an April 4, 2012 release on CBC’s website, the broadcaster said that “continuing to operate 620 transmitters to reach 1.7 per cent of the population would not be an efficient use of our resources at the best of times; it is certainly not viable given the current circumstances.” On Thursday CBC updated that number to 607 transmitters in a fact sheet on its website. The corrected number of transmitters appears...
CBC/Radio-Canada will re-evaluate whether its small-market, local stations can continue to cover regional sports and elections following a CRTC decision to phase out a $100 million fund for conventional TV stations, Steven Guiton, vice-president and chief regulatory officer at CBC, said in an interview. The CRTC said...
The CRTC approved an Alberta numbered company's application for a new specialty channel licence called Supernatural TV. In a decision Thursday, the commission said the national, English-language channel is licensed to feature TV series, movies and documentaries focusing on the paranormal realm,...
The CRTC rejected proposed codes of conduct and guidelines from the National Campus and Community Radio Association (NCRA). In a decision Thursday, the commission said it rejected the proposed codes of conduct because they...
CBC/Radio-Canada's programming, including local news shows, will become unavailable using TV antennas in 604 communities across Canada under the broadcaster's plan to shut down its analog transmitters, according to a count...
A CRTC decision to phase out the Local Programming Improvement Fund (LPIF) could lead to “huge” financial losses at small- and medium-market local television stations, said John Pollard, president of independent broadcaster CHEK Media Group. In a divided decision Wednesday, the CRTC said it will phase out the LPIF over three years. Last year, the local TV fund distributed $106 million to 80 small- and medium-market local TV stations to support local programming. The funds are collected through a 1.5 per cent levy on broadcast distributors’ revenues. “I think it’s going to be detrimental to a lot of stations,” Pollard said in a phone interview Wednesday....
The CRTC approved CBC/Radio-Canada’s plan to shut down all of its analog transmitters that support 23 English and French-language television stations across Canada. In broadcasting decision...
BCE Inc. released details of its plan for multi-platform coverage of the Summer Olympics in London. Users of the Bell Mobile TV app will get coverage of the Olympics on their smartphones or tablets, Bell said in a release Tuesday. This includes live feeds from channels owned by Bell and Rogers Communications Inc.—the companies with the rights to...
The CRTC said Monday it has approved an application from Golden West Broadcasting Ltd. to operate an English-language commercial FM radio station in Winkler, Man., which will replace its AM station CKMW. The commission said in a...
The CRTC said Monday it has approved an application from High Fidelity HDTV Inc. to transfer control of the company and its subsidiaries to Blue Ant Media Inc. In a release, the commission said it valued the acquisition at...
BCE Inc.’s purchase of Astral Media Inc. could mean higher prices for consumers' cable and wireless services, Quebec advocacy group Option consommateurs says. In a release last Friday, Robert Cazelais, general manager...
Last week's Supreme Court decision on fair dealing shows the provision should be interpreted “broadly and liberally” and is a positive outcome for users’ rights, the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA) said Friday. The decision by the court in the Province of Alberta v. Access Copyright...
More than 2,200 Canadians have written to the CRTC in opposition to CBC/Radio-Canada's plan to shut down 623 analog TV transmitters, the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and...
Postmedia Network Canada Corp. said it will take further steps to trim its operating expenses as the company reported lower revenues and more losses. Postmedia, which owns the National Post, the Ottawa Citizen, the Calgary Herald and other Canadian daily newspapers, on Tuesday reported a $12.1 million net loss in the three-month period ending May 31,...
The CRTC has given Asian Television Network International Ltd. (ATN) until Monday to confirm that one of the foreign channels it sponsors for distribution in Canada will stop inserting Canadian advertisements into its programming. In a July 10 letter to ATN president and CEO Shan Chandrasekar, the CRTC said it received a Jan. 10 complaint from FDR Media Group Inc., which alleged that foreign specialty channel Sony Entertainment Television Asia (SET Asia) was inserting Canadian advertising into its programming feed. In the complaint, FDR Media said ATN, which sponsors SET Asia’s Canadian distribution, “had been involved in the alleged insertion,” the commission said. The commission’s letter said it first brought the matter to ATN’s attention this year and...
The leaked February draft of Canada’s trade agreement with the EU is now “completely outdated” as the current version does not contain the most contested provisions of the...
BCE Inc. subsidiary Bell Express Vu served notice Thursday of its intention to lock out 114 television technicians on at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP) of Canada said in a release. In the release, the union said Bell Express Vu plans to lock out members of CEP Local 79M, which represents technicians...
Astral Media Inc. reported higher profits in its third quarter of 2012 despite declining television revenues and pay television subscribers, the company said in a quarterly earnings statement Thursday. In a release, Astral said its overall net earnings were $56.2 million in the three-month period ending May 31, up seven per cent from $52.6 million...
Corus Entertainment Inc. reported lower third-quarter revenues across its broadcasting assets and warned of challenges in the months ahead. In a financial statement for the third quarter of 2012, released Thursday, Corus said revenues fell for both its television and radio segments for the three-month period ending...
Cogeco Cable Inc. reported slightly higher operating profits in the third quarter of 2012 despite a fall in cable subscribers and slower growth in customers for its high-speed Internet and telephone segments. Cogeco on Thursday reported $53.2 million in profits for the three-month period ending May 31, up from $52.4 million during the same period a year earlier when the company recorded a loss as a result of writing off the purchase of its Portuguese subsidiary Cablevisao. The company reported $319.8 million in revenues during the third quarter of 2012, up from $298.2 million a year earlier. Cogeco said it continued to lose television subscribers during the quarter as it ended the three-month period with 4,453 fewer TV customers than when it began. This compared to a loss of 1,401...
The Supreme Court of Canada put to rest copyright collective Re:Sound's proposed tariff on the “performance” of music in movie and TV show soundtracks. In a unanimous decision Thursday penned by Justice Louis LeBel, the court dismissed the group’s appeal in Re:Sound v. Motion Picture Theatre...
The Supreme Court set aside a Copyright Board decision and said music rights holders cannot charge communications royalties from services like Apple Inc.'s iTunes for file downloads containing copyrighted music. In a copyright law decision on Entertainment Software Association v. SOCAN (case...
The CRTC issued a call for comments on a series of broadcasting applications that will be under consideration at hearing in Montreal starting Sept. 10. The consultation, opened Tuesday, said the hearing will consider four BCE...
Cindy Witten, the National Film Board’s director general of English programming, will leave the organization in September to work as a consultant for startups and small digital companies, the government agency said Wednesday. In a release, the NFB said Witten was a part of a “core senior management team that led the NFB into the digital world, and credited her with creating the agency’s “first...
SiriusXM Canada added more than 214,000 subscribers over the past year but lost $4.2 million in its most recent quarter, parent company Canadian Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. said in a quarterly financial statement Wednesday. In a release, Sirius said the loss was lower than the combined $9 million Sirius Canada and XM Canada lost during the same...
Canadian broadcasters spent $51 million in tangible benefits stemming from the purchase of English-language television stations during the 2011 broadcasting year, Boon Dog Professional Services Inc. said in a new report. In a release, consulting firm Boon Dog said it found that $43 million of that money, or approximately 84 per cent, was devoted to...
As part of BCE Inc.’s acquisition of Astral Media Inc., the company plans to auction off 10 radio stations as early as this month to satisfy the CRTC’s radio ownership rules, Bell said in...
The Canada-EU free trade agreement's provisions on intellectual property are now the same as those contained in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), according to a leaked draft...
The Jim Pattison Broadcast Group promoted former sales manager Gary Dorosz to the head of its Lethbridge division, the company said last week. In a release, the company said Dorosz, who has been with the company since 2004, will assume the positions of division general manager and general sales manager. He served as the division’s retail sales manager for the past five years, and has held management and executive positions at other stations and companies over the course of a 20-year broadcast career, according to Dorosz's LinkedIn page. Dorosz replaces former general manager Rod Schween, who was promoted to president in May, the broadcast company said....
BCE Inc. and Rogers Communications Inc. propose to remove the CRTC's restrictions on how much Canadian content overspending can be carried over from one year to the next, the commission said...
The CRTC opened a consultation on proposed broadcasting amendments that would allow specialty services and third-language channels to operate without licences, the commission said Friday. In a notice...
A numbered company in Alberta has received a licence to operate a national, English-language, Category B specialty service focused on crime-related dramas, documentaries and movies, the CRTC said Friday. In its decision, the CRTC said The Crime Network would primarily offer programming from the...
Poynt Corp., the Canadian maker of the popular Poynt mobile app, has begun the process of filing for bankruptcy under the federal Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, the company said Friday. In a release, Poynt said its creditors must wait at least 30 days before calling in any outstanding debts with the company after it filed a “Notice of Intention...
The CRTC approved a set of closed captioning quality standards and will require broadcasters to implement them starting Sept. 1, 2012, the commission said Thursday. In its decision, the CRTC said lag time between the audio and captions on a program must not exceed six seconds. Captions must also be “verbatim representations of the audio,” the commission said, regardless of the age of the target audience. “Speech must only be edited as a last resort, when technical limitations or time and space restrictions will not accommodate all of the spoken words at an appropriate...
CBC/Radio-Canada appointed Fiona Conway to the position of executive director of programming for CBC News and regional centres, the broadcaster said in a release Wednesday. In a release, CBC News said Conway is a Gemini, Emmy and Peabody award-winning news producer who began her career at CFRA Radio and most recently held the position of executive...
Rights holders are expected to use Bill C-11's new “enabler” provision to target Canadian torrent search engine isoHunt.com, legal experts say. Section 27 of Bill C-11, which received royal assent last Friday, includes an “enabler” provision for rights holders to sue web...
The CRTC will issue a decision by June 18 on an arbitrated carriage dispute between BCE Inc. subsidiary Bell Media and a group of independent broadcast distributors, CRTC spokesman Denis Carmel said. “There has been no...
The Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) is “very pleased” the government’s copyright reform bill has been passed into law with a new exemption for radio broadcasters, the industry group said in a statement Wednesday. “After more than a decade of battling the ephemeral tax and the unfair...
Shaw Communications Inc. plans to move the dial position for its digital Ottawa channel that rebroadcasts the company's Toronto Global station, the CRTC said Wednesday. In a release, the commission said it has...
CBC/Radio-Canada will continue to seek the broadcast rights to the 2014 and 2016 Olympic Games but will not make a money-losing bid for the sports rights, said Jeffrey Orridge, executive director of...
OTTAWA—The Conservative government will put regulations in place to exempt microSD memory cards from a possible copyright levy, Industry Minister Christian Paradis said Tuesday. At a news...
Advertisements on mobile applications will generate $7.1 billion US in revenues globally by 2015, Juniper Research said in a new report Tuesday. The report, called “Mobile Advertising Messaging, In-App and Mobile Internet Strategies 2012-2017,” said growth in “in-app ads” will be driven by a rise in rich media inside ads and the...
Federal legislation to update Canada’s copyright regime received royal assent Friday after passing through the Senate unchanged. Bill C-11, the Copyright Modernization Act, passed third reading in the Senate after the committee studying the bill reported it back to the upper chamber without any amendments or recommendations. The federal cabinet must now issue a governor-in-council decision to determine when provisions and sections of the omnibus copyright bill come into force. The House committee studying the bill passed eight technical amendments to the bill in March. Bill C-11 was the Conservative government’s third legislative attempt at copyright reform since 2006 and followed an attempt by prime minister Paul Martin’s Liberal government in 2005. Some witnesses who appeared before the Senate Standing Committee on...
