Ahmad Hathout

By Ahmad Hathout After five years of injunctions against a host of unlicensed content, Canada's major broadcasters earlier this week filed a notice to the Federal Court ending their legal action against GoldTV – a case that spawned a new era of court authority over content pirates. The broadcasters first got an interlocutory injunction against the website in the summer of 2019, which meant GoldTV was ordered by the court to stop broadcasting the unlicensed content of the major broadcasters – in this case, Rogers, Bell, Groupe TVA. That order was renewed in December 2022 for a period of two...

By Connie Thiessen The CRTC has issued an order prohibiting Gill Broadcasting from illegally operating a South Asian radio station in Winnipeg. The decision follows numerous complaints from Winnipeg multi-ethnic station CKJS-FM, owned by Evanov Communications, over the past eight years that a tourist information station was carrying on programming without a broadcast licence. Gill... Read more »

The Federal Court of Appeal ruled Monday that the major foreign streamers may have a legitimate grievance against the imposition by the CRTC of a base financial contribution levied on them to support Canadian content.

Bell Media announced Monday the official rebranding and programming slate for its suite of currently branded Discovery channels and Animal Planet, which will sport their new channel names as of Jan. 1. Bell Media’s Discovery is rebranding as USA Network in Canada, while Bell Media’s Investigation Discovery rebrands as Oxygen True Crime. Both channel rebrandings are a... Read more »

Rogers Communications last week announced it has received clearance from the Competition Bureau to proceed with its acquisition of Bell’s 37.5-per-cent stake in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE). Rogers said the two telecom giants received a “no-action letter” on Dec. 12 from the Bureau, indicating the Commissioner of Competition will not challenge Rogers’s acquisition of Bell’s... Read more »

By Ahmad Hathout The House committee on Industry is calling on the CRTC to launch a "full review of the matter of price certainty and the issue of surprise fees increasing during fixed term contracts” and to take regulatory action on it, according to a report that was delivered to the House floor last week.... Read more »

Bell Media announced Wednesday it has committed to co-developing and co-producing an original scripted TV series from Point Grey Pictures and Lionsgate. Point Grey Pictures is the film and TV production company founded by Canadian filmmakers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg in 2011. The agreement with Bell Media was made through Lionsgate’s first-look television deal with Point... Read more »

Application comes after CRTC also said Rogers can’t change Corus channel numbers By Ahmad Hathout The CRTC ruled in a confidential decision last month that Rogers must continue carrying certain Corus channels and refrain from altering their channel numbers, even after the cable giant obtained an Ontario court opinion allowing it to make unilateral changes... Read more »

Total TV and film production volume was down by 18.5 per cent in Canada compared to last year, according to data released by the Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA).

Bell announced Friday that it has successfully hit download speeds of 50 Gbps on its existing fibre infrastructure. The demonstration of the 50G PON (passive optical network) shows that the telco can get speeds of up to 10 Gbps, 25 Gbps and now 50 Gbps on a single fibre, it said, adding it opens the... Read more »