The CRTC is a subordinate legislative body that does not have the authority or expertise to determine the value of over-the-air broadcasts as part of its proposed value-for-signal regime, Cogeco Cable Inc. said in a factum filed with the Supreme Court. Cogeco and other broadcast distributors are asking the Supreme Court to overturn a divided Federal Court of Appeal decision last year that said the CRTC has the jurisdiction under the Broadcasting Act to implement its value-for-signal regime, in which cable and satellite broadcast distributors would compensate conventional broadcasters for the carriage of their free, over-the-air signals. A hearing (case No. 34231) has been scheduled for...
The increasing popularity of cloud media services is creating new problems for Internet users with bandwidth caps and data overage charges, a new report commissioned by the CRTC says. The report, released Monday and titled “Environmental Scan of Digital Media Convergence Trends: Disruptive Innovation, Regulatory Opportunities and Challenges,” said “cloud-based music, media consumption, purchase, management and storage is catching on with consumers and will become mainstream in the next year.” Cloud services from Amazon.com Inc., Google Inc. and Apple Inc. are growing but early users are experiencing “widespread issues” when they hit bandwidth caps...
The CRTC opened a weeklong hearing Monday to hear from groups and companies seeking licences to operate radio stations in Calgary, Alta. Twelve applicants will appear before commissioners at the hearing this week seeking radio licences for frequencies available at 95.3 FM, 100.3 FM, 106.7/9 FM and 1670 AM. Corus...
Known for breaking records in traditional TV viewing, Sunday’s Super Bowl XLVI is expected to become North America’s most-watched live program on mobile and online platforms, analysts say. For the first time in Super Bowl history, Sunday’s game will be streamed live on the websites of the NFL and NBC...
The volume of all film and television production in Canada hit an “all-time high” in 2011, says a new report commissioned by the Canadian Media Production Association (CMPA), the Association des producteurs de films et de télévision du Québec (APFTQ) and the Department of Canadian...
Three Conservative MPs tabled petitions from their constituents Monday to defund CBC/Radio-Canada. Conservative MP Colin Carrie tabled a petition in the House that called on Parliament to end public funding for public broadcaster. Carrie said petition, from “the residents of Canada,” was drawing attention to the government's annual $1.1...
BCE Inc. does not have the authority to abide by a CRTC decision ordering it to share exclusive NHL and NFL mobile content with competing wireless carriers, the company told the commission Monday. In a three-page letter signed by Mirko Bibic, Bell’s senior vice-president of regulatory and government affairs, the company said its exclusive content agreement with the NHL has now expired and that it does not have the right to share access to the NFL content in question. “[T]he NFL continues to own the copyrights to the mobile NFL content licensed under this agreement,” Bell’s letter stated. “In other words, Bell has no rights to sub-license or otherwise make such content available to a third party mobile service provider.” The correspondence is the...
Google Inc.’s YouTube attracted the highest proportion of Canadian online video watchers last year, with online television programming second, a new Media Technology Monitor (MTM) report says. According to the report, released Thursday, 58 per cent of English-speaking people in Canada watched YouTube videos in 2011. Thirty four per cent of...
Toronto communications firm PHD Canada is using new “neuromarketing” tools to help advertisers explore the different marketing values of TV, radio and other media. In its technology and media predictions report for 2012, released last week, international consulting firm Deloitte said functional magnetic...
Funding incentives for “transmedia”—the deployment of media across all platforms—are pushing Canadian television producers to acquire whole new skill sets, industry experts say. Lalita Krishna, founder of Toronto-based production company In Sync Media, said in an...
Konrad von Finckenstein, 66, does not intend to retire this year, but he's not encouraging universities to come knocking. The outgoing chair of the CRTC says he's more of a manager, not the academic type. After five years at the helm of Canada’s chief regulatory agency for...
OTTAWA—Traditional television advertising and the use of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI) are new and potentially “more effective” advertising strategies, Deloitte and Touche LLP’s TMT Predictions 2012 report says. “Traditional TV advertising is...
The CRTC issued a call for comments Wednesday on a proposal to allow the legislative channels for federal, provincial and territorial legislatures to broadcast emergency messages when other emergency communications systems fail. The commission said the proposed amendments to the Parliamentary and Provincial or...
OTTAWA—Internet service providers (ISPs) that block some pages of content and prioritize others effectively control the transmission of online videos and as a result should fall under the Broadcasting Act, a lawyer representing a coalition of cultural groups argued before the Supreme Court Monday. That argument was...
Two competing broadcasters saddled up to compete for a licence to Miramichi’s newest FM country music station at a CRTC hearing in New Brunswick Monday. Radio broadcast company Newcap Inc., and incumbent local broadcaster Maritime Broadcasting System Ltd. (MBS) are competing for a licence to introduce a new country...
Montreal-area startup Seevibes is making a splash in the world of audience measurements with its new social media monitoring service dedicated to understanding how much Canadians like what they watch on TV. The brainchild of founder Laurent Maisonnave, Seevibes measures the numbers and types of comments about 750 Canadian television shows as posted on popular social media sites Facebook and Twitter. As much as Maisonnave or any of the analysts contacted by The Wire Report can tell, it is the only company that currently monitors all of Canada’s homegrown shows in both official languages. The company’s goal is to help TV broadcasters and content-producers gain a better...
The Conservative government is readying a package of technical amendments to copyright reform Bill C-11 and hopes to see the legislation head to committee quickly after the House of Commons returns to business this month, Dean Del Mastro, the parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister, said in an interview....
For the first time since 2004, the CRTC starts the new year without an industry executive working inside its walls under its executive interchange program, the commission says. The reason, analysts and industry insiders speculate, ranges from personal to political and economic to ethical. An extension of the Treasury...
A web-based community TV monitoring group is charging that Canadian cablecos are misrepresenting how much they’re spending on local community programming and failing to meet local programming requirements on channels that should be tailored for specific communities. In a study released publicly on Tuesday, the...
GlassBox Television Inc. wants to become a top source for comedy, music and travel-related content without relying on traditional TV to do so, the company’s CEO says. GlassBox's team of “digital ninjas” will roll out a parade of online and mobile tools this year to supplement its traditional broadcast...
A digital “communication right” recognized under the Copyright Act would be worth about $2.1 million in annual royalty payments from Canadian music download retailers, according to an estimate calculated by The Wire Report. That $2.1 million would be in addition to the approximate $5.4 million in royalties that online music distributors in Canada collectively pay to clear reproduction rights under the act, according to The Wire Report estimate. The Supreme Court of Canada is considering whether copyright collective the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) can collect communication rights tariffs from online music distributors such as iTunes....
Cord-cutting is expected take a $1.7-billion bite from the Canadian broadcasting industry's annual revenues by 2017, a new report by RBC Capital Markets says. “We...
Astral Media Inc.’s new online TV service is a “protective measure” aiming to stop or slow the migration of cable and satellite subscribers towards unregulated over-the-top services, analysts say. But the new service is only available to TV subscribers and it's not clear...
The future of three sports specialty channels is up in the air after rivals BCE Inc. and Rogers Communications Inc. last week joined forces to acquire the channels’ parent company Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE), analysts say. Competitors Bell and Rogers announced Friday they will spend $533...
BCE Inc. subsidiary Bell Mobility went out of bounds when it offered its subscribers exclusive access to popular NHL and NFL games over their mobile devices, the CRTC ruled on Monday. The decision stems from a complaint filed by Telus Communications Co. earlier this year, in which Telus...
A $1.32-billion joint deal to buy Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) will mean a significant boost for the broadcasting platforms of Rogers Communications Inc. and BCE Inc., analysts say. Over the longer-term, the acquisition may be just as important to prevent potential online competitors from seeking the coveted...
The Canadian Cable Systems Alliance (CCSA) says it has asked the CRTC to step in to help solve a carriage dispute with BCE Inc. subsidiary Bell Media Inc. Chris Edwards, the CCSA’s vice-president of corporate and regulatory affairs, said the organization is using the CRTC’s “staff-assisted...
Astral Media Inc.’s request for a bilingual group designation from the CRTC came under fire from various industry groups Thursday at the commission's French-language television licence renewal hearings. Throughout three days of hearings this week, Astral’s request has been the source...
OTTAWA—Lawyers for a group of broadcast distributors appeared before the Supreme Court Wednesday for a hearing that is considering whether music copyright holders are entitled to collect about an annual $45 million from television providers for the “performance” of music in movie and TV show soundtracks....
TORONTO—Broadcast distributors across the continent will rush to launch a series of Netflix-style services between now and the end of 2012 to remain competitive in a rapidly changing broadcasting market, a Rogers Communications Inc. television executive predicted at the NextMedia conference Tuesday. “You’ll see Netflix-like watching launched by every major distributor in North America over the next 12 months,” David Purdy, Rogers’ vice-president and general manager of TV productions, said during a panel discussion on business opportunities in the Canadian online video market. “It’s a foregone conclusion.” Sometime over the past five...
The CRTC may require French-language TV network V Interactions Inc. to increase its original local programming as the broadcaster’s subscriber base continues to grow, commissioners said Tuesday at a hearing to discuss television licence renewals. “You only have one hour in seven days of Category 1...
OTTAWA—Lawyers for a copyright collective seeking to apply “communication rights” royalties to Internet downloads received a series of tough questions from a full panel of Supreme Court justices Tuesday. The Supreme Court on Tuesday opened two days of hearings on an unprecedented collection of five...
Requiring Groupe TVA Inc. to be part of the CRTC’s group-based French-language television licensing model would hold back the broadcaster as it tries to make its specialty channels profitable, officials from TVA and parent company Quebecor Media Inc. told commissioners at a licence renewal hearing in Quebec...
TORONTO—Rogers Communications Inc. is looking to track, target and engage customers across a variety of media platforms as a part of a corporate digital rebranding strategy to be launched in March, Jason Tafler, Rogers’ chief digital officer said at the NextMedia Conference Monday. “One of the biggest...
Astral Media Inc. is expected to continue its fight for a bilingual designation during the CRTC's French-language television licence renewal hearings that start Monday in Quebec. The hearings will also consider group-based licence renewals for the broadcast properties of Quebecor Media Inc., which owns Groupe TVA Inc. and Serdy Media Inc., which runs video and studio production houses in Quebec and owns French-language specialty channels Évasion and Zeste. But Astral's battle for a bilingual designation has so far become the most contentious issue of the French-language renewals for large broadcast groups. In an application to the commission, Astral argued that a bilingual designation is justified because the company is the only non-vertically integrated broadcasting group in...
Voltage Pictures LLC’s Canadian Hurt Locker lawsuits appear to be part of a strategy to ramp up the Internet piracy fight and bring attention to the government’s copyright reform bill, copyright advocates say. Anthony Hémond, an expert in telecommunications, broadcasting, and privacy issues at Quebec...
It’s too soon to tell whether broadcasters will earn profits from airing Winnipeg Jets hockey games, analysts and industry insiders say. High production and rights acquisition costs support programming that serves a relatively small broadcasting market with little opportunities for national coverage, which...
The Friends of Canadian Broadcasting launched a new campaign Tuesday that it says is a “preventative” measure to remind the Conservative government of its promise to maintain or increase funding to CBC/Radio-Canada. At a news conference Monday, Ian Morrison, a spokesman for watchdog group the Friends of...
OTTAWA—Heritage Minister James Moore is urging the opposition parties to stop delaying copyright reform Bill C-11 in the House of Commons and send it to committee. “We just need to get it back to committee, to where it was in the previous Parliament. Let’s hear from Canadians, let’s hear from witnesses,” Moore told...
OTTAWA—CBC/Radio-Canada would be devastated if it dropped advertising and eliminated entirely if moved to operate as a private company, the public broadcaster’s president and CEO, Hubert T. Lacroix, said at a communications conference Monday. “There’s a lot of debate right now about public...
Conservative MP Brent Rathgeber intends to bypass the Access to Information Act’s section 68.1 exemption for CBC/Radio-Canada by using Parliament to obtain key programming information, according to the House of Commons order paper. Four questions submitted by the MP on the Nov. 25 order paper seek information...
The CRTC held a round of closed-door meetings last week that was an opportunity for broadcasting officials to “open their kimonos” and share sensitive data about over-the-top services in Canada, insiders say. Representatives from 27 telcos, broadcasters and other stakeholder groups...
OTTAWA—CBC/Radio-Canada president and CEO Hubert T. Lacroix says he doesn’t agree that the House of Commons ethics committee has been on a “witch hunt” against the public broadcaster. “Today wasn’t a witch hunt,” Lacroix told reporters following an ethics committee meeting...
The Federal Court of Appeal has upheld a Federal Court decision from last year that gave the Office of the Information Commissioner the authority to order CBC/Radio-Canada to produce records. The CBC argued during the proceeding that section 68.1 of the Access to Information Act allows it to withhold documents from the public and the information commissioner related to its creative programming or journalistic activities. The public broadcaster refused to disclose documents to the information commissioner when they were requested last year and has since been criticized for its slow responses and high refusal rates to public requests for information. Federal Court of Appeal Justice Marc Noël wrote in a decision Wednesday that the exception does not provide the CBC with the...
Under a new agreement for BCE Inc. to carry Quebecor Media Inc.'s TVA Sports, Sun News, Yoopa and Mlle specialty channels, the competing companies are exchanging kinder words. In a release Tuesday, Groupe TVA said that the four TVA specialty channels will be offered to Bell subscribers by Dec. 15, 2011. “With...
OTTAWA—A panel of copyright lawyers offered a preview Tuesday in what to expect from a “pentalogy” of five copyright cases to be heard at the Supreme Court next month. The Supreme Court announced in September that it will hear a series of five copyright cases over the course of two days on Dec. 6 and...
The CRTC's proposed new guidelines intended to ensure “seamless transitions” for customers switching TV providers are not practical in buildings with multiple dwellings like condos, townhomes and apartments, Rogers Communications Inc. has told the commission in a submission. The CRTC has proposed new...
Dufferin Communications Inc. is ready to launch a gay and lesbian AM radio station in Montreal as a result of new radio broadcasting licences awarded Monday. The CRTC announced that it has awarded the coveted 690 kHz and 940 kHz AM radio frequencies in Montreal to Dufferin Communications Inc., as well as licences for a...
A coalition of cultural groups is arguing in court documents filed with the Supreme Court that Parliament intended the Broadcasting Act to be “technology neutral”—so that the statute's regulatory framework for broadcast distribution should cover the activities of Internet service providers (ISPs). In a factum filed with the Supreme Court, the coalition cites a departmental news release from June 1998, when the federal Department of Communications announced its new broadcasting policy and attendant legislation. At that time, the Communications Department said the bill was “drafted to be 'technology neutral.' It does not confine broadcasting to any one technology...
Quebecor Media Inc. (QMI) has used its vast media empire to control its journalists, evade press standards and try to carve out its own path in the Canadian media universe, CBC/Radio-Canada investigative program Enquête reported in a special about the company this month. ...
OTTAWA—CBC/Radio-Canada has provided the House of Commons ethics committee with the information it ordered under the parliamentary rules for the production of records. But in a twist, some of the information comes in the form of sealed envelopes, and the broadcaster argues that making...
MONTREAL—Quebecor Media Inc. is citing a secret, internal “piracy report” produced at Bell Canada Enterprises Inc. to justify legal arguments that Bell deliberately ignored piracy on its satellite TV system in an effort to increase its market share and ramp up the presence of Bell...
The CRTC opened a hearing and issued a call for comments Wednesday on an application from Corus Entertainment Inc. on behalf of CKIK-FM Ltd. to add an FM rebroadcasting transmitter in Calgary, Alta. for station CHQR Calgary. The hearing will consider whether to grant an exception to the commission's common...
A bilateral working agreement regulating spectrum allocation along the Canada-U.S. border could complicate a U.S. congressional proposal to free up more frequencies from traditional TV broadcasters for wireless broadband, an American broadcast company says. The TV broadcasting service treaty requires Industry Canada...
OTTAWA—Members of the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA) were in the capital last week to lobby for long-term funding for Canadian programming and tax averaging for actors. ACTRA brought Canadian actors from across the country to Parliament Hill to meet with MPs. Heather...
OTTAWA—The CRTC's new vertical integration framework will require major Canadian broadcasters to sell their valuable sports programming rights to Canadian and foreign over-the-top online competitors, Alain Gourd, chair of an industry-led working group on over-the-top services, said at a telecom conference in...
OTTAWA—Conservative MPs on the House of Commons ethics committee have passed a motion ordering CBC/Radio-Canada to produce documents it has withheld under the Access to Information Act. The order was sent to the Crown corporation late Wednesday following a meeting of the committee and the passage of a...
OTTAWA—CBC/Radio-Canada's loss of the FIFA World Cup broadcast rights to BCE Inc.'s Bell Media is another sign that the public broadcaster cannot compete for sports rights with private companies, experts say. “It's public broadcasting versus private sector broadcasting,” Brian Schecter, a media analyst with Puddle Duck Productions in Vancouver who has about four decades' experience in sports broadcasting, said in an interview. The CBC, he said, doesn't have the specialty channel assets that other companies can use to leverage their sports programming. “The private networks have very strong cable assets, and they're able to leverage off those assets to expand...
GATINEAU—Incumbent telcos, new entrants and even a consumer advocacy group all joined forces during the closing moments of the CRTC’s interconnection hearing Tuesday to offer praise and congratulations to outgoing commission chair Konrad von Finckenstein. “There is one other matter that we wanted to...
BCE Inc. says it has consistently warned its customers about the consequences of satellite piracy since 1997. The company is battling a lawsuit that says it failed to properly prevent piracy on its ExpressVu system (now Bell Satellite TV), and one former ExpressVu executive says distribution agreements for the...
The House of Commons ethics committee's singular focus on CBC/Radio Canada shows that it has been drawn into a “dirty war” against the country's public broadcaster, the Canadian Media Guild says. Karen Wirsig, communications coordinator for the guild, made the remarks with Marc-Phillippe Laurin,...
OTTAWA—CBC/Radio-Canada is looking at repurposing approximately 500 positions from its radio and television sector to its digital platforms as part of its five-year strategic plan, Hubert Lacroix, president and CEO of the broadcaster, said to the House of Commons heritage committee Tuesday. Lacroix said five per...
On Oct. 14, 2011, I had the pleasure of being a commentator along with Grace Westcott on a panel about competition and intellectual property implications of “the cloud.” The panelists were Prof. Salil Mehra, Prof. Pamela Samuelson, Dr. Craig McTaggart, and Prof. Oliver Goodenough. This was the wrap-up panel to a day-long conference organized by Prof. Ariel Katz who is the director of the Centre for Innovation Law and Policy at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. (A webcast is archived here). My remarks here are an elaboration of points I raised in my own brief comments that followed excellent presentations. The cloud generally refers to some or all of remote storage,...
The CRTC's new vertical integration policy is slowing down BCE Inc.'s carriage renewal negotiations with some broadcast distributors, including Telus Communications Co. and Cogeco Cable Inc., as carriers eye the commission’s new dispute resolution process for better carriage deals, industry...
Intellectual property issues remain one of the key areas of differences in the Conservative government's negotiations with Europe on a new trade deal, Canadian and European officials told reporters in a background briefing in Ottawa last week. Canada opened a ninth round of negotiations with European Union officials on...
European copyright prohibitions on compromising digital locks have not caused the “big uproar” from users that many critics initially expected, an intellectual property rights experts said at a copyright conference in Ottawa on Friday. “There was a lot of academic excitement...
Astral Media Inc. says receiving a bilingual designation from the CRTC is justified because it is the only non-vertically integrated broadcasting group in the country. “We are the only non-integrated large group,” Hugues Mousseau, Astral’s manager of corporate communications, said in an interview....
OTTAWA—CBC/Radio-Canada’s suggestion that Quebecor Media Inc. has received more than half a billion dollars in direct and indirect federal subsidies over three years is false and even “defamatory and dangerous,” Quebecor CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau told a parliamentary...
A Supreme Court of Canada decision Wednesday that struck down an appeal to define hyperlinks as publications for the purposes of defamation has “removed an element of uncertainty” for online news producers, legal experts say. “I think it’s fair to say there was some concern about the liability...
MONTREAL and OTTAWA—The words "exception" and "exclusion" are creating problems under the Access to Information Act and must be clarified, Christian Leblanc, a Fasken Martineau lawyer representing CBC/Radio-Canada, told the Federal Court of Appeal at a hearing in Montreal Tuesday....
With the exception of CBC/Radio-Canada and six other over-the-air television stations that could not meet the Aug. 31 deadline, Canada's transition to digital television broadcasting went smoothly, Valerie Plaskacz, head of broadcast distribution and access policy at the Heritage Department,...
The CRTC has issued a correction to its vertical integration code of conduct that changes uses of the word “shall” to “should.” The commission's new policy introduced a set of rules to prevent anti-competitive behaviour in a vertically integrated broadcasting sector in which major broadcast distributors own broadcasting assets. In an appendix to the policy, a new code of conduct was attached as a guide to govern carriage deals and other commercial arrangements. In a correction to the code issued Friday, the CRTC changed uses of the word “shall” to “should,” which in legal terms changes the code from obligations to recommendations and...
MONTREAL—Revenues, local programming and diversity for Montreal radio listeners are among the top factors the CRTC should consider as it decides how to award two coveted AM radio frequencies, competing companies vying for the spectrum told CRTC commissioners at a hearing Monday....
Lawyers for CBC/Radio-Canada will appear at a hearing in Montreal on Tuesday to argue before the Federal Court of Appeal that increased transparency under the Access to Information Act is detrimental to the broadcaster and could lead to a loss of independence and credibility. The CBC is...
A new service from Bell Canada Enterprises Inc. offering its mobile customers early access to behind-the-scenes footage of the Montreal Canadiens hockey team could become a test case on the CRTC’s new regulations for vertically integrated companies, analysts say. Announced in a Thursday...
Competition for subscription TV viewers in the West is escalating as Shaw Communications Inc. has almost chopped prices in half for its new Gateway digital set-top boxes. But analysts continue to say Shaw is under pressure to follow competitor Telus Corp. by further subsidizing its Gateway product with a special...
Cultural groups are telling the CRTC to deny Astral Media Inc.’s application to be recognized as a “designated bilingual” television broadcast group. The groups' comments were submitted to the commission for its proceeding on the licence renewals for large, French-language television groups, for which the comments deadline passed Sept. 27, 2011. In its application, Astral requested that the commission “relax the rules” for its services, saying that more flexible licence requirements would allow it to deal with increasingly fragmented audiences. The company said its revenues are almost equally distributed between its French and English-language services,...
Netflix Inc.'s online streaming service has reached near-ubiquitous awareness in Canada at a rate of 93 per cent, a new survey says. The survey, released this month by the Canadian chapter of the Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM), said that, although awareness of Netflix is “extremely...
CBC/Radio-Canada should “come clean” and give up its fight against the release of records under the Access to Information Act, former TV news producer Howard Bernstein told the House of Commons ethics committee Thursday. The CBC's battle to keep records under wraps gives Quebecor...
The CRTC has tweaked its approach toward the deregulation of online content platforms, opening a “watching brief” on over-the-top services and scheduling a more comprehensive consultation on the issue in May 2012. The commission reported Tuesday the results of the fact-finding...
New reports about the Canadian film industry from the Canadian Media Production Association (CMPA) shows that broadcasters are pulling back their funding of film, critics say. “We see it among our members who are telling us how difficult it is for them to get financing for their projects,” Lisa Fitzgibbons,...
Bell Canada Enterprises Inc.’s aggressive remarks towards the CRTC over its new vertical integration rules is a part of a strategy to appeal to the Conservative cabinet, industry experts say. The question for Bell is whether the strategy could backfire and pose a risk to its regulatory and consumer relationships....
Following the return of House of Commons business this month, a handful of parliamentary committees are gearing up for studies dealing with Canada’s broadcasting and media sectors. CBC/Radio-Canada will be in focus at at least two of the committees. The House of Commons heritage committee has not yet...
OTTAWA—In an effort to push reintroduced copyright legislation through the House of Commons by the Christmas break, a special legislative committee studying the bill will sit for up to 16 hours a week, Heritage Minister James Moore told reporters Thursday. Introduced in the House Thursday, Bill C-11, The Copyright...
The Supreme Court of Canada said Thursday that it will hear an appeal of a Federal Court of Appeal decision that upheld the CRTC's jurisdiction to implement its controversial value for signal regime. The court announced Thursday that it will look at the jurisdiction of the CRTC and whether it is empowered under the Broadcasting Act to establish the...
Quebecor Media Inc. says it supports a more flexible, across-the-board, 75 per cent minimum for the Canadian content spending of large, French-language broadcasters. The deadline for interventions on the CRTC’s group-based licence renewals for French-language television companies passed Tuesday. Astral Media Inc., Quebecor subsidiary Groupe TVA Inc. and others are asking for a more flexible Canadian content framework. "The vision of TVA is simple in that it is limited to the essential: the promotion Canadian content, which has become TVA's recognized brand. We firmly believe it is in the interest of the Canadian broadcasting system that all conditions of licence based on a qualification or quantification of programming should be definitively abolished in favor a unique...
The CRTC's 12 follow-up proceedings related to its vertical integration decision are key to ironing out a few wrinkles but are also a reflection of CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein’s “heavy” regulatory hand, broadcasting insiders say. The CRTC released a decision last week...
Independent broadcasters say they are encouraged by the CRTC's new rules regulating a vertically integrated broadcasting sector but that they intend to propose some amendments to the regulations. “The actual implications of what the commission has done will require some thought,” Joel Fortune, counsel with the...
GATINEAU, QUE.—In a highly anticipated decision Wednesday, the CRTC took several steps to check the power of vertically integrated broadcast companies, including a ban on the companies’ ability to offer their own TV programs exclusively on new media platforms. ...
New data on Canadian mobile use and subscriber numbers point to a “perfect storm” for the wireless advertising industry in the months ahead, comScore Inc. vice-president of sales Bryan Segal said at the Wireless Canada Technology Showcase in Ottawa Tuesday. A high number of Canadians about to retire their old...
One week following the launch of Quebecor Media Inc.'s new TVA Sports channel, the company says it will thrive without the rights to Canadiens games or carriage agreements with rival BCE Inc. TVA Groupe Inc., owned by Quebecor, launched TVA Sports on Sept. 12. Pierre Dion, president and CEO of TVA, announced that the channel is proposing to broadcast 38 Ottawa Senators games over the next three seasons. But the station will not air any games where the Senators play the Montreal Canadiens because the rights are held by specialty channel RDS, owned by BCE's Bell Media. Last year, Senators' regular season games brought 133,000 viewers to RDS, La Presse reported last week, compared to an average 797,000 viewers for the Habs. Dion said in an interview with The Wire Report that...
Proposed anti-spamming regulations are too broad and will impact consumers and legitimate businesses, telcos and other industry associations have told the CRTC. Overly restrictive definitions, unrealistic requirements, and a wide scope that fails to accommodate today's communications tools are some of the complaints...
Voltage Pictures LLC has won a court order from the Federal Court seeking the names and addresses associated with 30 IP addresses involved in the transmission of its Oscar-winning film The Hurt Locker on peer-to-peer (p2p) networks. David Fewer, counsel with public interest group the Canadian Internet Policy and Public...
Canadian broadcasters will have to control the loudness of their TV commercials by next September, the CRTC said Tuesday. The commission said in a decision that, during a public proceeding on the issue that began in February last year, it received more than 7,000 comments from viewers complaining about the volume...
Four competing companies have put forward their applications to the CRTC on why they should be awarded the coveted 690 kHz and 940 kHz Montreal area AM radio frequencies. On Sept. 7, 2011, the CRTC opened a consultation on radio licence applications from broadcasters seeking access to the pair of Montreal AM frequency...
Music service provider Rdio Inc. says social media functions tied into new mobile music services will help them compete with music giant iTunes. U.S.-based Rdio is looking to capitalize on the social media aspect of its streaming music service, which customers of Telus Communications Co. can now subscribe to as a...
Newly released U.S. embassy cables about Canada's copyright reform process have shone a spotlight on the industry lobbying that goes into the U.S. Special 301 Priority Watch List. The list is where the U.S. publicly identifies countries as laggards on copyright protection, but in a new twist, one...
As countries around the world look to merge their telecom and media legislation, there remains little information evaluating how effective converged statutes are in an ever-changing online environment, a new report by Australia’s regulator says. Packet prioritisation, online data protection, and privacy and...
FreeHD Canada is on track to launch a new satellite broadcasting distribution service in Canada next year after securing an agreement to use foreign satellite facilities, company chairman and founding CEO, David Lewis, said in an exclusive interview with The Wire Report this week. “It’s probably time for us...
Quebecor Media Inc. CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau appeared before the Quebec Superior Court this week as hearings began in a case seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages from Quebecor's main competitor in the province, BCE Inc. Quebecor argues that Bell has not taken necessary and sufficient measures to prevent piracy on Bell's satellite television service Bell ExpressVu (now Bell Satellite TV). Quebecor subsidiary Videotron Ltée. is seeking damages of $41 million in losses related to subscriptions between September 2002 and February 2005 and another $248 million in future lost subscribers between March 2005 and December 2015, according to court documents. The...
