Telus Corp. will spend about $30 million a year for at least the next three years to bolster its fibre-based Internet protocol television (IPTV) service in parts of eastern Quebec where it operates as the incumbent telco, Clement Audet, the company’s vice-president of the consumer market in Quebec, said in an interview. The investments, which are part of $840 million the company is spending in the province, will help it expand its Optik TV footprint in cities such as Baie-Comeau and Rimouski, Que., and extend it to small communities with just a few hundred households, such as...
Canada’s six largest private broadcasters' specialty channel revenues collectively rose by $193.8 million in 2011, or 8.53 per cent, as pre-tax profits fell by $40 million, an analysis of aggregated CRTC data shows. Specialty channels owned by BCE Inc., Rogers Communications Inc., Quebecor Media Inc., Shaw Communications Inc., Astral Media Inc. and Corus Entertainment Inc., as well as those companies’ subsidiaries, reported revenues of $2.47 billion in 2011, up from $2.27...
Total revenues for Canadian AM and FM radio stations reached $1.6 billion in 2011, up from $1.55 billion in 2010, the CRTC said Monday. In a release of the 2011 financial results for Canadian...
Canada should follow Australia’s lead and consider getting rid of “anachronistic” broadcasting licences, Malcolm Long, a member of the Australian Convergence Review Committee, told The Wire Report in an email interview. “I think it is definitely worth considering,” Long, also a principal...
Michael Hennessy is leaving Telus Corp. to assume the role of president and CEO of the Canadian Media Production Association (CMPA) effective June 18, the association said Thursday. In an interview, Telus’ departing senior vice-president of regulatory and government affairs said he will carry on the direction of...
The different transmission characteristics of digital over-the-air television signals have had a minimal impact on Canadian TV viewers following last year’s switch from analog, Scott Hutton, the CRTC’s executive director of broadcasting, said in an interview this week. “There was this wild card...
The CRTC will hold a final offer arbitration hearing on June 29 to resolve a carriage dispute between Bell Media and independent broadcast distributors, the commission said in a letter released Thursday. In documents filed with the commission in May, Bell Media, a division of BCE Inc., and the Canadian Independent Distributors Group (CIDG), said they remain at odds in a dispute over the distributors’ right to carry 29 Bell specialty channels. They asked the commission to initiate a final offer arbitration process to help settle the dispute. In a letter dated May 9, Bell said five issues continue to prevent the two sides from reaching an agreement, including the price of fixed rates; the “appropriate pricing and packaging principles” associated with an alternative...
A Stanley Cup final between two American hockey teams will draw viewership levels 20 to 30 per cent lower than one involving at least one Canadian team, Jeffrey Orridge, CBC’s executive director of sports properties, said in an interview. The New Jersey Devils and the Los Angeles Kings kick off the Stanley Cup...
The early success of Astral Media Inc.’s all-comedy AM radio station in London, Ont. will lead other radio broadcasters to consider all-comedy stations, industry insiders and analysts said in...
CBC/Radio-Canada should allow communities to take control of hundreds of local analog TV transmitters the public broadcaster plans to decommission this year, the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS) said. CACTUS said in a release Friday that the roughly 620...
Shaw Communications Inc. will launch a marketing initiative this summer to promote an underused program that offers free satellite services to rural Canadians affected by last year’s digital transition, the company said....
Online streaming services offered directly by professional sports leagues will increasingly compete for viewers as online and mobile video consumption grows, analysts say. Over the past decade, major North American sports...
BCE Inc. and Rogers Communications Inc. will keep their Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) properties separate from the companies' other corporate operations given “the competitive dynamic” between them, the companies said in CRTC filings released Thursday. “Given the competitive dynamics...
Cablecos Rogers Communications Inc. and Quebecor Media Inc. are offering steep discounts, free set-top boxes, and upgraded platforms to combat declining subscriber numbers as rival telco BCE Inc. expands its fibre-based Internet protocol TV (IPTV) service in Ontario and Quebec. “Cable is playing defence and telcos...
BCE Inc. specialty channel TSN grew its 2011 profits 37 per cent over 2010, generating $58.3 million in profits last year despite a decline in subscriber numbers, financial data released Wednesday by the CRTC showed. Higher revenues and lower expenses helped TSN increase pre-tax profits by nearly $16 million, or 37 per...
Colba.Net Telecom Inc. will move quickly to become one of Canada’s “major national” telecom and broadcast carriers if granted the regulators’ permission to launch Internet protocol TV (IPTV) service in regions across the country, the company’s president, Joseph Bassili, said. Licensed to operate an IPTV service in Montreal since October, 2010, Internet, IPTV and voice-over-IP (VoIP) provider Colba.Net filed applications with the CRTC this year to expand the TV service to major markets across the country. Applications to serve parts of Ontario, Quebec, Maritimes, the Prairies, and British Columbia are now under consideration as part of CRTC proceedings. If...
New governance and a new student “fee agreement” will ensure a future community radio station at Ryerson University will not face the same troubles as a previous station whose licence was revoked last year, CRTC commissioners heard at a Toronto-area hearing Monday. Representatives of Radio Ryerson Inc. appeared before commissioners during...
Rogers Communications Inc. has asked the CRTC to order a Toronto regional municipality to cover the company’s costs of burying cables as a part of a “beautification” program. In...
Rogers Communications Inc. is hoping its acquisition of the Saskatchewan Communications Network (SCN) will help increase national advertising revenues across its Citytv network, Rogers Media president...
There is no evidence that Telus Corp.'s lack of exclusive sports rights is a disadvantage in the competition for mobile customers, Bell Canada Enterprises Inc. said in documents filed with the Federal Court of Appeal. Bell is appealing a CRTC decision in December 2011 that ordered the company...
Canadian broadcast distributors are expected to seek exclusive partnerships with Apple Inc. for the release of its luxury iTV device to draw new high-end customers on multiple-year contracts, an analyst and industry insider say. David Adams, vice-president of corporate development at Accedo, an Internet TV app developer headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, said in an interview that the iTV is expected to function with an Internet connection alone and that TV providers wouldn't appear to be acting in their best interest by offering a device “that promises cord-cutting.” Still, he said he can see broadcast distributors seeking an exclusive deal with Apple. “I can...
TVO will start decommissioning its analog, over-the-air broadcasting system this summer, leaving at least 14 markets in Ontario without the station's over-the-air television service, the...
TV subscriptions continued to rise last year with 11.8 million Canadian households paying for an analog or digital TV service at the end of 2011, up 2.6 per cent from the 11.5 million who subscribed in 2010, Ottawa-based consulting firm Boon Dog Professional Services said in a report released Monday. Digital and analog...
Astral Media Inc. has been granted licensing flexibility to shift Cancon spending across all of its English and French television services. In a licensing renewal for the Astral broadcasting group issued Thursday, the CRTC said it would monitor Astral’s allocation of Canadian...
Rogers Communications Inc. lost 21,000 cable TV subscribers during the first quarter of 2012, including a loss of 1,000 digital TV customers, the company said in a financial statement Tuesday. The company said it had 2.276 million TV subscribers at the end of the first quarter ended March 31, down from 2.303 million at...
Richard Stursberg, who served as head of CBC/Radio-Canada’s English services from 2004 to 2010, says that a “national conversation” about the future of the public broadcaster is more important now than ever. In his new book entitled The Tower of Babble: Sins, Secrets and Successes Inside the CBC,...
U.S. customs’ enforcement of copyright by blocking websites from global public access is similar to controversial SOPA legislation in the U.S. and could have consequences for Canadian companies, consumer rights advocates say. Since late 2010, authorities at the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S....
A CRTC complaint alleging CBC/Radio-Canada's new online music service benefits from an undue competitive advantage is “vexatious” and should be dismissed, the public broadcaster said in a response filed with the commission. CBC launched the free, online radio service and app, CBC Music, in February. Its...
Consumers in the United States are willing to pay $1.50 US per channel under an a la carte television distribution model, a new report by RBC Capital Markets says. The report, released Monday, said results from a proprietary survey of more than 1,000 consumers suggest “more than 90 per cent of consumers would...
GATINEAU—CBC/Radio-Canada spent $15 million of local programming funding last year on news shows that resulted in $1.1 million in additional advertising revenues for local stations during the supper hours, officials from the public broadcaster said at a CRTC hearing Tuesday. That $15 million, spent directly on increasing and improving local programming on eight CBC stations across the country, was a portion of the $40 million the Crown corporation received through the CRTC's $106-million Local Programming Improvement Fund (LPIF) last year. Christine Wilson, executive director of content planning at the CBC, said the broadcaster used the $15 million to increase supper-hour local news programming from 60 to 90 minutes at seven of the eight stations. She said the investment...
OTTAWA—Supreme Court justices raised questions at a hearing Tuesday about whether the CRTC's proposed value-for-signal regime goes too far by giving local TV stations the right to black out signals from carriage by cable or satellite TV distributors. The CRTC’s proposed value-for-signal regime, released...
GATINEAU—Sixteen of Bell Media’s local TV stations are unprofitable without subsidies and face closure if they don’t continue to receive funding from the CRTC’s $100-million...
Roku Inc. on Monday officially launched its streaming devices in Canada, with more than 100 channels, or apps, available, the company said. The channels available to Canadian users include Netflix, CNBC, Facebook, and Wheel of...
Broadcaster Stingray Digital Group Inc. filed a complaint with the CRTC last week alleging that CBC/Radio-Canada's online music service is benefitting from an undue competitive advantage by combining public funding and advertising revenues. CBC launched the online radio service and app, CBC...
The Conservative government's elusive position on value-for-signal continues to play out in a case before the Supreme Court as broadcasters say the government has been silent about the policy and never responded to a CRTC report to cabinet on the issue two years ago. Broadcast distributors, including Cogeco Cable Inc., Rogers Communications Inc., Telus Communications Co. and Shaw Communications Inc. have appealed to the Supreme Court to overturn a divided Federal Court of Appeal decision issued last year that said the CRTC has the jurisdiction under the Broadcasting Act to implement its value-for-signal regime. The commission policy, laid out in a decision in March 2010, said...
As the CRTC ponders the need for increased consumer flexibility in the broadcasting distribution market, industry players, experts and consumer interest groups say that moving to a "pick-and-pay" TV distribution model could make winners of consumers and losers of independent specialty channels. “For...
The Conservative government's budget cuts to CBC/Radio-Canada will not affect the quality of its programming, Heritage Minister James Moore said Tuesday. In an interview on CBC TV’s George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight, Moore said he believes CBC “will be fine.” He said the public broadcaster has seen more difficult...
Announced layoffs at CBC/Radio-Canada will not match record employee reductions in the 1990s but their impact on programming will be “just as great, if not greater,” former president and CEO of the public broadcaster Robert Rabinovitch says. “The question really isn’t how many people,”...
The ability to appeal to an underserved demographic will be key to the success of whatever station wins the single FM radio slot available in Toronto’s valuable radio market, broadcasting...
The CRTC said Thursday that it encourages TV distributors to adopt “consumer friendly packaging options” but that specialty channel owners would need time to adjust to a more consumer-focused approach to the packaging of their channels. “The Commission considers that a programming service should...
Restructuring CBC/Radio-Canada to compensate for budget cuts of 10 per cent and staffing layoffs of 650 people will be a “tough job” and push the public broadcaster “to do more with less,” experts say. Last Thursday's federal budget released by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said the CBC will be...
BCE Inc. has lost more than $2 billion on its Bell Satellite TV service since its launch in 1997, the company said in a brief filed with the CRTC Monday. “As the Commission is aware, the DTH [direct-to-home] business...
Spending cuts to CBC/Radio-Canada announced in the Conservative budget Thursday will weaken the broadcaster's programming and give more ammunition to its critics, broadcasting experts say. Brian Schecter, a media analyst with Puddle Duck Productions in Vancouver, said in an interview that the budget cuts to the CBC...
OTTAWA—CBC/Radio-Canada will face reductions to its $1.1 billion annual public spending budget of 2.5 per cent this year, rising to 10.4 per cent starting in 2014-2015, according to the Conservative government’s federal budget. The budget, tabled in the House of Commons by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty Thursday, said the public broadcaster will experience a $27.8 million budget cut in 2012-2013, which amounts to 2.53 per cent of the CBC’s $1.1 billion in annual parliamentary appropriations. For the following year, CBC’s reductions will increase to a total of $69.6 million, or 6.33 per cent of $1.1 billion. The reductions will increase to a total of $115 million,...
Television distributors that offer personal video recorder (PVR) services say the Conservative government's copyright reform Bill C-11 could prevent the launch of TV recording and playback...
Rogers Communications Inc. is projecting more than $4 million in annual losses for the next two years on its new Saskatchewan specialty channel the Saskatchewan Communications Network (SCN), documents filed with the CRTC show. According to a Rogers forecast for SCN, which the company is acquiring from Bluepoint...
GATINEAU—A group of more than 100 independent distributors and BCE Inc. offered confidential concessions during a carriage dispute hearing at the CRTC Thursday but the two sides remain far from a commercial agreement to carry Bell Media's 29 specialty channels. “[This] is basically a proposal for further...
BitTorrent Inc. will have to develop a critical mass of users and better convince broadcasters it is an ally, not an enemy, before its new streaming application BitTorrent Live can become successful, experts say. Industry experts and consultants told The Wire Report in interviews that BitTorrent, which once called its...
Bell Canada Enterprises Inc.’s agreement to purchase Astral Media Inc. will mean the company is looking at 11 too many stations under the CRTC's radio ownership rules, according to an analysis by The Wire Report. Last Friday, Bell announced that it reached an agreement with Astral to acquire the company for $3.38 billion (including debt of $380 million). Through the purchase of Astral, if approved by regulators, Bell will add 22 television services, 84 radio stations and more than 100 websites and digital media services to its broadcast properties. Astral’s 84 radio stations would be added to the 33 that Bell now owns, leading experts to speculate that some stations must be sold off under the CRTC's radio ownership policies. According to an analysis of Bell and...
BCE Inc.’s $3.38-billion acquisition of Montreal-based Astral Media Inc., and the company's 22 specialty channels, will come with a French-language, Quebec specialty channel viewership share of 17.6 per cent, according to CRTC data. The CRTC’s most recent Communications Monitoring Report, which...
Copyright collective the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) said it is evaluating CBC/Radio-Canada’s new streaming web radio service, CBCMusic.ca, and that the rights holder group is “months away” from deciding whether the broadcaster’s copyright tariff should be...
OTTAWA—The House legislative committee on copyright reform Bill C-11 finished its work on the bill Tuesday, passing modest technical changes and reporting it back to the House of Commons. The governing Conservatives, whose members control the committee votes, rejected all amendments from the opposition...
OTTAWA—The Bill C-11 copyright committee breezed through the first day of clause-by-clause considerations Monday without making any significant changes to the Conservative government's omnibus copyright reform bill. The committee approved, without amendment, clause 34 of the bill, which...
Radio Ryerson will compete against 21 other applicants in its effort to claim a CRTC licence to operate a campus radio station on Toronto’s 88.1 MHz frequency. The Ryerson University organization is among several companies and individuals that responded to a CRTC call for applications to...
Telus Communications Co. added 194,802 TV subscribers during 2011, the most of all the major Canadian TV distributors, according to a year-end analysis of TV subscriber numbers by The Wire...
OTTAWA—The parliamentary committee studying copyright reform Bill C-11 should amend the legislation's proposed “making available right” to stop the collection of additional royalty fees on music and movie files sold online, Shaw Communications Inc. said at a committee meeting Monday. Shaw said the C-11...
OTTAWA—Telus Communication Co. supports a new penetration-based carriage model floated by Bell Media in a commercial dispute before the CRTC but the company must first see the rates that Bell is proposing, Ann Mainville-Neeson, Telus’ director of broadcast regulations, said Friday. Telus is among a group of...
More than a quarter of all Canadian mobile subscribers owned a tablet before Christmas and that number will rise when post-holiday numbers are released in April, ComScore Inc. media analyst Brent Bernie said at a conference Friday. About 26 per cent of Canadian mobile subscribers had a tablet before Christmas, Bernie said at the Canadian Media Production Association (CMPA) Prime Time conference. “We’ll have some new [post-Christmas] data in about another 30 days,” he said, “and I will bet you that that number goes over 30 [per cent].” Canadian tablet penetration surged last year, increasing by 37 per cent in the nine-month period between January and September, he said. That compared to a 36 per cent growth in smartphone penetration during the same...
In March of 2010, CRTC decision 2010-167 introduced a group-based approach to licensing for large broadcasting groups, which granted more flexibility to English-language TV stations. A follow-up decision on licence renewals last year released the requirements for English-language broadcast...
OTTAWA—The broadcast sector should move away from traditional, one-way broadcasting to online distribution and two-way dialogues that encourage an exchange with audiences on social networking platforms, media expert Robert Tercek said Thursday at the Canadian Media Production Association’s (CMPA) Prime Time...
OTTAWA—The “safe harbour” provisions in the Conservative government’s copyright reform bill should be amended so that rights holders have more responsibility to inform cloud service providers about copyright-infringing works hosted on their networks, Jacob Glick, Canadian policy counsel at Google...
Canadian over-the-air TV has declined since last year's switch to digital broadcasting in part because too many Canadians don’t know they can receive over-the-air, digital signals, experts say. “I am surprised that there aren’t more people taking advantage of over-the-air HD,” Gregory Taylor, a...
This week, Retail Council of Canada president Diane J. Brisebois attacked our Copyright Board application for a new tariff on microSD electronic memory cards (“Harper government should quash proposed memory card levy,” The Wire Report, Feb. 27, 2012). On behalf of the Canadian Private Copying Collective (CPCC), I am grateful for the opportunity to respond. First, let’s be clear about what the private copying levy actually is, and why it makes sense to apply it to microSD memory cards. Canadians use these cards to make copies of music written, performed and owned by those who CPCC represents. Since 1997, under Canada’s Copyright Act, Canadians have been permitted to make copies of music for personal use. Prior to 1997, such copies were illegal. In exchange for...
OTTAWA—The Conservative government should broaden its “enabler provision” in the Copyright Act to catch a wider array of sites that can enable copyright infringement, the Canadian Independent Music Association (CIMA) said Wednesday at the legislative committee studying the Conservative government's...
Removing a music royalty shelter in the Copyright Act for radio stations would mean the difference between losses and profitability for small, local stations, Don Conway, president of Pineridge Broadcasting Inc., said Tuesday before the House of Commons legislative committee on Bill C-11....
A group of independent broadcast distributors is challenging Bell Media’s request to keep key pieces of information confidential as the two sides head into CRTC mediation over stalled carriage negotiations. In a letter to the commission Feb. 24, the Canadian Independent Distributors Group (CIDG)—which...
Imagine buying a digital camera only to discover that you are paying an extra hidden “tax” targeted at devices that play music. A camera doesn’t play music. You are being taxed to take family photos to subsidize the mostly foreign-owned music industry. This is the astonishing and expensive scenario...
Bell Media has added another layer to a carriage dispute with cable distributors by filing an undue preference complaint with the CRTC against MTS Inc. for the company’s decision to repackage two Bell channels. In a complaint filed with the CRTC Feb. 15 and posted on the commission’s website Tuesday, Bell...
BCE Inc. has filed a court challenge of a CRTC decision that barred the company from offering exclusive NFL and NHL mobile sports content to its customers, a letter to the CRTC shows. In a decision issued last December, the CRTC said BCE's Bell Mobility subsidiary violated the commission's undue preference rules...
The House of Commons legislative committee studying the Conservative government's omnibus copyright bill has agreed to a new witness list and a rigorous meeting schedule to finish up with the bill by March 29. The committee will meet four days per week starting Feb. 27. Bill C-11, the government's copyright reform...
A lobbying campaign by independent broadcaster Channel Zero Inc. has inspired hundreds of people to direct letters and comments to the CRTC in support of its local TV fund. The 10-day campaign run by CHCH-owner Channel Zero, from Feb. 3-12, asked the Southern Ontario station’s viewers to complete a three minute...
Conventional television stations owned by public broadcaster CBC/Radio Canada should not be eligible for millions of dollars in CRTC funding intended for local stations, some of the country’s largest broadcast companies told the commission. In submissions filed with the CRTC Wednesday as a part of its consultation on the $106-million Local Programming Improvement Fund (LPIF), Bell Canada, Shaw Communications Inc. and Quebecor Media Inc. objected to the public broadcaster’s eligibility to draw on the fund. They argued the $1.1 billion in public funds the CBC receives each year from Parliament ensures its financial viability and that additional access to LPIF funds gives the...
A coalition of technology and telecom companies sent a letter to the federal cabinet last week seeking a regulatory exemption for a possible copyright tariff on the memory cards used in smartphones. The Canadian Private Copying Collective (CPCC), a copyright collective responsible for collecting and distributing...
Bell Media and Quebecor Media Inc.'s conventional television stations reported profits for the 2011 broadcasting year as other conventional television stations continue to lose money, documents filed with the CRTC show. Bell's profits for the broadcast year ending Aug. 31, 2011 were $57.89 million, up from $54.1...
Shaw Communications Inc. was the largest contributor to the CRTC’s Local Programming Improvement Fund (LPIF) last year and CBC/Radio-Canada was its largest recipient, CRTC documents show. Shaw, one of Canada’s largest broadcast distributors, which owns the Global Television network and also receives LPIF...
A new group representing a series of independent broadcast distributors has asked the CRTC to step in to solve an ongoing carriage dispute with Bell Media Inc. In an application filed with the commission on Jan. 17, the Canadian Independent Distributors Group (CIDG) said its members had reached a dead end in their...
A CRTC proposal to require vertically integrated broadcast companies to carry more independent, English-language specialty services will result in fewer third-language channels on cable and satellite television, two of Canada’s largest cable carriers say. The proposed new 3:1 linkage rule, laid out in CRTC consultation 2011-806, would require all vertically integrated broadcast distributors to carry at least two unaffiliated English-language Category B services for each affiliated English-language Category B service they offer, plus one unaffiliated channel of any language. In addition, at least one of those unaffiliated English-language specialty channels must be from an...
Rawlco Radio Ltd. appeared before CRTC commissioners at a hearing Wednesday to argue for a “social media” radio station on Calgary’s 100.3 MHz FM frequency. Hearings continued in Calgary, Alta., where commissioners are hearing companies’ proposals for new stations. Douglas Rawlinson,...
Bell Canada Enterprises Inc. division Bell Media Radio appeared before CRTC commissioners Tuesday to request a licence to operate Flow 95-3, an interactive FM radio station for youth on Calgary Alta.’s coveted 95.3 MHz frequency. Bell will be competing for the frequency with Harvard Broadcasting Inc., which has...
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...
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...
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 potentially more effective than strictly targeted advertising since it reaches a larger number of influencers as well as decision makers,” Deloitte said in its 2012 predictions report. “There are actually very few TV ads that will never influence what we purchase, either today or in the future.” Deloitte said one of TV’s most important roles is serving the launch of new...
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...
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....
