Post Tagged with: "broadcast"

CityTV Videographer by Kurt Bauschardt (CC BY-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/9Sy5Bd

Rogers Calls for Expansion of Media Bailout to Cover Broadcast Organizations…and Thinks Netflix Should Pay For It

My series on previously secret submissions to the Broadcast and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel (earlier posts on Bell, Shaw, and Cogeco) continues with the Rogers submission, [Update: Rogers notes that it posted the submission on its site roughly three months after the submission deadline, so it has not been secret since early April] also obtained under the Access to Information Act. There are several notable aspects to the submission, but perhaps none more than Rogers calling for an expansion of the new tax credit for media organizations by extending the approach to broadcasters and expecting Netflix to help pay for it. The media bailout has attracted considerable criticism, particularly given the government’s implementation that has raised serious independence concerns. Before the recent controversies, Rogers envisioned expanding it:

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June 6, 2019 7 comments News
Cogeco Warns Against Online Video Services Undermining Canadian Sovereignty in BTLR Submission

Cogeco Warns Against Online Video Services Undermining Canadian Sovereignty in BTLR Submission

Cogeco, the fourth largest cable operator in Canada (and number two in Ontario and Quebec), warns the broadcast and telecommunications legislative panel about the dangers of unregulated video services such as Netflix to national sovereignty in its previously secret submission. Obtained under the Access to Information Act (much like the previously discussed Bell and Shaw submissions), the Cogeco submission opposes new digital consumer protections and net neutrality rules but strongly supports increased regulation for online video services.

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May 31, 2019 6 comments News
Shaw Go Wifi by Mack Male (CC BY-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/hbkTu1

No Mandated Netflix Cancon Payments: Shaw Argues Success Lies in More Regulatory Flexibility in BTLR Submission

Yesterday’s post on the still-secret broadcast and telecommunications review submissions obtained under Access to Information focused on Bell, which proposed extensive new regulations for Netflix that would result in hundreds of millions in payments that could spark a trade battle with the United States. The major Canadian communications companies are not united on this issue, however.  While there are similarities on wireless (most oppose mandated MVNOs), the broadcast perspectives differ significantly. This post reveals some of the details in Shaw’s submission to the BTLR, also obtained under ATIP.

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May 29, 2019 5 comments News
BELL CANADA 2016 by Jose de Francisco https://flic.kr/p/GJHtQW (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Self-Serving in the Extreme: Bell’s Broadcast and Telecom Submission to the BTLR Revealed

The government’s expert panel on broadcast and telecommunications law reform is expected to release its preliminary report on the results of its public consultation next month. The panel has remarkably kept the submissions to the consultation secret, rejecting an open and transparent policy making process that the government insists is essential to good policy development. I filed an Access to Information Act request for some of the more notable submissions (some have been made available and are posted online by the FRPC). An interim release of that request just arrived in my inbox and I’ll have a couple of posts on point over the next few days.

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May 28, 2019 22 comments News
Monica Auer, In Committee from the Senate of Canada: Modernizing Canada's Film Industry, CPAC, http://www.cpac.ca/en/programs/in-committee-from-the-senate-of-canada/episodes/65290478

The LawBytes Podcast, Episode 9: The CRTC Watcher – A Conversation with FRPC’s Monica Auer

Many Canadians follow telecommunications and broadcast issues at the CRTC from a distance – the cost of wireless services, the speed of their Internet access, the availability of broadcasting choice. Others engage more closely on issues such as net neutrality, Cancon regulation, or Netflix taxes. But there is one Canadian who doesn’t just follow the CRTC.  She watches it through the use of access to information laws that present a perspective on the CRTC that would otherwise remain hidden from view. Monica Auer, the Executive Director of the Forum for Research and Policy in Communications, joins the podcast this week to talk about insider access, slow reimbursement of costs for public interest groups, the number of CRTC meetings, and the Commission’s seeming indifference to commissioning original research. The interview is interspersed with comments from current CRTC Ian Scott taken from one of his first public speeches after being named chair in 2017.

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April 30, 2019 Comments are Disabled Podcasts