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 estimate that cord cutting and cord shaving combined could impact annual television and EBITDA by $1.7 billion and $1.1 billion, respectively, by [2017] representing 13 and 27 per cent of potential distribution revenue and EBITDA, respectively,” the report said. The report’s authors, Drew McReynolds, Toze...
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 whether the incentive will be effective at slowing cord-cutting, they say. Astral announced Tuesday at an annual general meeting in Toronto that it intends to launch an online, on-demand service in Canada modeled around the HBO Go platform. The new service will stream on-demand programming from Astral's programming from HBO Canada and The Movie Network and is expected to be launched...
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 of concern for industry groups that say increased flexibility could allow the broadcaster to transfer mandatory Cancon spending from its English-language services to services on the French-side, where money is more readily spent. This would allow Astral to reduce its English-language Cancon funding, the organizations say. “The opportunity created by more flexibility would be too hard to...
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....
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....
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 could lead to weak returns for broadcasters airing the NHL team's 82 regular season games, analysts say. “You never know how much [advertising] you’re going to sell until you go out and sell it,” Carmi Levy, an independent technology analyst, said. “This doesn’t strike me as any different.” Levy said broadcasters typically do not...
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 met individually with commissioners and CRTC staff Nov. 16 -18 to discuss over-the-top content services online and how they will impact the Canadian broadcasting sector. Staff from the Industry and Heritage departments, the Copyright Board, and the Competition Bureau were also present to hear what companies and organizations had to say. Organizations made 30-minute, off-the-record presentations...
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...
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...
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 the sealed information public could violate the constitutional separation between the courts and the judiciary. The public broadcaster submitted the documents to the ethics committee despite receiving a legal opinion from the Borden Ladner Gervais law firm that said the order is “unconstitutional and outside the scope of parliamentary privilege.” The legal opinion, released...
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 Thursday. Speaking on a panel at the Canadian Telecommunications Forum in Ottawa, Gourd, an independent broadcasting consultant and chair of an industry working group of 30 executives studying over-the-top services, said the CRTC’s new regulatory framework governing vertically integrated companies may have given too much of an advantage to online content...
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...
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...
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 Oct. 17 with a view toward finalizing the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) sometime next year. Officials say “everything” is on the table in a trade agreement that includes EU proposals to increase rights holder protections under the Copyright Act and open up Canada's telecom sector to foreign ownership. One official said there...
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. Leblanc said the access-to-information debate between CBC and Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault comes down to an interpretation of the law. “It’s a regime of exception and a regime of exclusion,” he said. Leblanc said that right now, under the terms of exclusion, the information commissioner does not have access to specific documents falling under...
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...
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...
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 Media Inc. more ammunition to target the broadcaster, he said. “I cannot agree with the CBC when they say that the release of this information would put them at a disadvantage,” Bernstein told the committee. He said the answer to the CBC's problem is not to highlight Quebecor's competitive strategy and its slew of access-to-information requests about the broadcaster. “CBC...
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 Modernization Act, is a replica of the former Bill C-32 that died at committee stage when the 40th Parliament dissolved for a federal election in March. Like its predecessor, the new bill will move to a special legislative committee after passing second reading in the House, which is expected within a few weeks. The new committee can continue the study begun under its...
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.,...
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...
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 Interest Clinic (CIPPIC), says Voltage does not intend to take the file sharers to trial. The studio is instead pursuing a business strategy of extracting settlements from people involved in the unauthorized transmission of the film, he said in an interview. “This is a business strategy that is completely illegitimate, in my perspective,” Fewer said. The...
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 copyright concerns are some of the issues that have kept converged regulatory agencies on their toes over the past few years, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) says in a new report, titled “Converged legislative frameworks—International approaches,” released Aug. 29. “While the introduction of converged legislation involved...
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...
Google Inc.’s introduction of YouTube Movies into the Canadian market last week signals an increasingly competitive market for over-the-top entertainment services which could lead to downward pressure on pricing and spending for content rights acquisitions, industry experts say. “It’s conventional...
Following the shut down of analog over-the-air signals and a move to digital broadcasting around the world, the U.S. and other countries are now embracing the potential of mobile digital television—or picking up free, over-the-air digital broadcasts on cellphones. But as Canada also converts to digital...
ACTRA and the WGC are calling on the Heritage Department to require Telefilm Canada to monitor and encourage more Canadian involvement in international co-productions for film and television. The organizations say new requirements enforcing more Canadian participation in TV shows and films could double the amount of...
The CRTC took a get-tough approach to radio licence compliance Wednesday, imposing several short-term license renewals and mandatory orders on radio stations. The orders and short-term renewals resulted from various non-compliance infractions of the radio regulations and license requirements. The commission issued a...
The Canadian Broadcasts Standards Council (CBSC) on Wednesday overturned an earlier ruling that required broadcasters to edit out the word “faggot” when they aired the Dire Straits song “Money for Nothing.” A national panel decision from the CBSC on Wednesday said the offensive word “is not...
CBC/Radio-Canada says it does not expect to meet its new August 2012 digital transition deadline and that it hopes to receive another extension from the CRTC so that about 20 of its analog transmitters in mandatory markets are not required to convert to digital. Steve Guiton, vice-president and chief regulatory officer at...
A historic 2004 Supreme Court decision that dealt with the copyright liability of online caching is being raised in a key court battle on whether online music services should have to pay an additional royalty for the download of songs. The argument is found in documents filed with the Supreme Court earlier this month by the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC). The CIPPIC submission points to historic Supreme Court ruling in a 2004 case, SOCAN v. CAIP, which saw the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) pitted against Internet service providers (ISPs) on issues of copyright law. Often known simply as the Tariff 22 case, the decision...
CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein would like to remain on the job for the time being but a term renewal beyond January 2012 appears unlikely, industry sources say. The Conservative government's public skirmishes with the regulator over the past few years—on issues such as wholesale usage-based billing and whether...
The CRTC's deregulation of sports channels will have impacts for small television distributors and television subscribers, Michael Fiorini, general manager at independent broadcast distributor Cable Cable Inc., said in an interview. “I think it has the potential to increase costs to the end user,...
In the winter of 2006-2007, Shaw Communications Inc. stopped its payments to the Canadian Television Fund for a few months. The company held them back until it was forcibly ordered to contribute by the CRTC. At the time, Jim Shaw, then CEO of Shaw, said he was dissatisfied by the fund’s...
Canadian telco and media companies are well-positioned to weather a potential double dip in the American economy thanks to firm consumer attitudes about telecom services and interest in new technologies, industry insiders say. Their assurances come amidst significant volatility on stock markets around the globe as...
Nearly one year after Google TV’s initial U.S. release, market analysts say speculation of any imminent expansion of the over-the-top service into Canada has disappeared amid slumping sales and limited access to content rights. And Google Inc. is not saying that Canada should expect to see the service here soon. Released to significant fanfare in the U.S. last October, Google’s content aggregator for the television set was quickly billed as preparing for international expansion in 2011. In May 2010, technology news service Mashable cited Google TV sources when it reported that an “[a]ggressive international expansion is planned for 2011.” Although Google executives at the time declined to identify which international markets the service would target for...
Rogers Communications Inc. says it will not pursue a French-language sports channel, calling the market “sufficiently serviced” with the upcoming launch of Quebecor Media Inc.’s TVA Sports. “Since we applied, the business environment has changed in Quebec with Quebecor and TVA launching TVA...
Next-generation wireless networks could make mandated wholesale access to the incumbents' Internet and telephone services unnecessary, the CRTC said in a new report released Thursday. The commission report, entitled Navigating Convergence II: Charting Canadian Communications Change and Regulatory Implications, says...
Following a CRTC decision Friday that gives the CBC an extension on its deadline for the digital television transition, the commission is being accused of enforcing different rules for public and private broadcasters. The commission announced Tuesday that it will give the CBC permission to continue broadcasting analog...
Significant customer losses reported by U.S. cable and satellite distributors in the second quarter of 2011 are more a reflection of the state of the economy than “disruptive” cord-cutting, analysts say. News sources reported last week that the six largest publicly traded satellite...
Hundreds of Canadian communities could lose access to free television signals in non-mandatory markets if broadcasters don’t replace ageing, analog transmitters, the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS) says. But the organization says it has a fix and is trying to empower people...
The Copyright Board of Canada says it is aware of problematic delays in its proceedings and that reducing its decision-making process to a timeline of nine months is a realistic target. “The delays, not only in our decisions but with the entire process, are problematic, for sure,” Gilles Mcdougall, secretary...
The Copyright Board of Canada is feeling pressure from industry and user groups to speed up its decision-making process. The Wire Report spoke to six sources—some on the record and some on a background basis—who said the delays are frustrating and that it often takes more than a year for the board to issue a...
Boxee needs to boost its consumer profile if it wants to make a stronger impression in Canada among other over-the-top television services, the company acknowledges. Boxee is free software that aggregates web content into a single portal for users who connect their computers or Boxee hardware to the television set....
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued new rules governing carriage disputes between broadcasters and cable and satellite distributors Monday, leaving Canadian independent broadcasters with the hope that the CRTC follows suit with a similar “standstill” policy. The FCC decision established procedures for a standstill “of the price, terms, and other conditions of an existing programming contract by a program carriage complainant seeking renewal of such a contract.” The decision is a significant one from the FCC, which, like the CRTC in Canada, is regulating a consolidated broadcast industry where the major broadcast distributors in the country also own major programming assets. The situation presents opportunities for carriers to...
