The "Toronto One" TV network decision was also a bad one.  Over the Air television was already in decline.  Licensing the Craig family from Bandon MB to operate a S. Ontario network made absolutely no economic sense.  Some "social engineering" by the CRTC to try and make a small regional player, into a quasi National player.  I can't ever remember tuning to any programs on Toronto One.  Perhaps someone on this board has a recollection of compelling Canadian programming that they watched on that station.

I was watching on a ipad in an undisclosed location way, way,  south of the border….The camera was focused on the interviewee most of the time, so we didn’t see the “action” on the field.  That’s on the director…but very frustrating.   I thought however that Ben had improved greatly in his calling of balls and strikes since last season, and is sounding more like his father.  Must have had some tutoring in the off season.  Last year Sportsnet picked up the Phillies TV feed for a lot of games and that was a disaster.  Their coverage was mostly interviews of their players when the Jays were up to bat.  But it’s only spring training.  So grapefruit league coverage is like “bad” radio, with some pictures….oh well.

I'd bet Jr. Shulman from the studio watching monitors.

 

I disagree with RadioAaron.  I believe that on the $18.99 monthly fee (lowest pricing for cars) the monthly copyright fee is 95 cents CDN. 

I believe the tariff in Canada for SXM for 2024-2025  is as follows:
At present, the only such service operating in Canada is SiriusXM Canada. The proposed royalty rate for 2024-2026 is 5% of service revenues, subject to a minimum fee of 50¢ per subscriber per month. The proposed tariff adjusts the minimum fee in concert with the higher percentage of revenue royalty.

Not surprising.  As some car makers haven't included the SXM tech in new models, such as Tesla, and in some parts of the country, i.e. B.C., EV's are taking up to a 10% share of sales,  that's got to hurt SXM.
I know from experience, in my EV, there is no way to stream SXM unless I use up a lot of data on my phone, which I'm not going to do.  Perfectly happy with Tune-in (free) and Spotify - which I pay for, and Apple Podcast app (free).   Not missing SXM or the constantly escalating rates.

Desjardins Financial handled the virtual data rooms and solicited offers.  Nothing has been publicly stated by Bell regarding the recent process.   There was a time limit in the RFP, for CRTC filings after acceptance of offers.  The CRTC would only announce the identities of the buyers, when the CRTC staff have vetted the applications and designated them for public hearing.  Most if not all would be asset transfers, meaning they will have to be placed on a public hearing.   The CRTC is required to publish the application(s) at least 55 days prior to the designated public hearing date.  Many of the applications will be dealt with as “non appearing” items.  But it takes 4-6 months for the staff to process applications before they are designated for hearing.  That means, you will start to see applications (made public) by late spring or early summer 2024.  To the best of my knowledge, Desjardins contacted potential buyers directly.  I assume that someone at Bell pre-vetted some of the potential buyers, and gave Desjardin a list of parties.  In a few cases parties who were not originally contacted by Desjardins, “found out” about the RFP process, and entered into NDAs.

My wife and I had the pleasure of dining with the Smothers Bros one night in the late 1970's when they were performing in Toronto in the play "I love my wife".  The brothers were much different than their TV personas.  Now here's my 6 degrees of separation.  Marjorie (Marge) Anthony was at that time, a VP at CTV Network and I worked with her.  She had been the personal manager of the Smothers Brothers, in a previous career. Hence, the dinner invitation to spend an evening with the Brothers. But that's not the whole story.  Marjorie Anthony (Linden) was a force of nature, and she had been born in NS.  She was one of the first female TV weather presenters in Canada, Her wikipedia entry is really impressive.   Every time we read or hear of the Smothers Brothers, we think fondly of Marg.  She was an extraordinarily talented person, at a time when few women achieved that level of success in broadcasting or talent management.  Here's just a snippet from the wikipedia entry.

"She moved to the United States to further her career, and was a producer at the NBC affiliate in Houston. Her works there included Furnishings of the White House, and A Texan Visits the White House featuring Lady Bird Johnson. She moved to work in Hollywood in the 1960s, and became vice-president, artist relations, for the company handling the Smothers Brothers. Then she worked in New York at CBS Records, with such artists as Kenny Rogers, [url=h

Pardon my ignorance, but I have no idea who Sankofa is/was and why that name is appropriate for a major public square.  I read the Toronto Star Article today and am no further ahead.  Did Moore explain why that name was chosen?  What has always puzzled me in this 1-way debate about Dundas St., is no one at city hall ever tallied up the costs to businesses to change letterhead, invoices, billing systems, HST registrations, CRA registrations, from Dundas to some other name.  And the electronic media seems always to be asleep at the switch on that story.  

In my experience, all vehicle radios and the few portable radios that are out there, lock into the HD signal automatically - that is HD-1 when the signal is strong enough.  For those of us who "know" that there are HD2's or HD3's and know how to tune them and store them in "favourites" the HD signal will lock in at the press of a button.  But it is lamentable that Zoomer, Rogers and Bell don't bother to promote those HD signals on their AM stations which are rebroadcast on FM HD.  I believe that CIRV-FM (REDFM) actively promotes and ID's its HD's on air.  Same with "The Region 105.9".   But in those cases, there's revenue derived from the parties who use the HD's.

My 2 cents worth.  All English language broadcasters can allocate a portion of their schedule to ethnic programs, between 6 a.m. and midnight.  It's in the Radio Regulations.   If there is an ethnic station licensed to serve the market, then up to 40% of the programming can be ethnic.  That's a lot of hours a week on each of CHAM and CKOC.  If there is an ethnic station in the market, then they would each be limited to 15% of their weekly 6 a.m. to midnight hours - around 18+ hours per station.  It will come down to whether under current CRTC "market" definitions there is an ethnic station that serves the market.   The nearest ethnic station would be, I believe CJMR Mississauga/Oakville, but CHIN-FM might have a 3 mV/m signal over the Hamilton market.

• (4) Despite subsection (3), an A.M. licensee, F.M. licensee or digital radio licensee that is licensed to operate a community station or campus station may devote


• (a) if it is broadcasting in a market where there is no ethnic station, up to 40% of a broadcast week to third language programs; or
• (b) if it is broadcasting in a market where there is at least one ethnic station, except as otherwise provided by a condition of its licence, up to 15% of a broadcast week to third language programs.

it's buried on the RadioWest site.  But very hard to find postings.  The site is shambolic with a lead strand called "what's it going to take?".   Perhaps a better organized website for starters.   Probably not worth the time or effort to search out the infrequent Canadian Radio News postings.  Pity.

any and all sports betting ads, which run incessantly on Sportsnet and TSN.  I could live the rest of my life without ever betting on sports, or knowing the "odds" on a particular game.  The Canadian sports networks are addicted to gambling advertising $, even though the Sportsnet and TSN packages now cost $50 per month (retail).   They have gone to "in program" advertorials giving you betting info as well.  A pox on them all.

CITS very much improved and very stable the last few days at Davenport Road & Christie St. Toronto.
 

not getting CITS in mid-town Toronto today. But CHCH booming in as usual

CRTC Commissioners are, how can I put it nicely "technically challenged" and the staff is no better suited to deal with this issue. Their willingness to allow OTA to be shut down in most parts of the country - where there weren't robust alternative services, (i.e. rural areas) underscores how little the CRTC cares about OTA.

I might note that there was scant outcry from OTA viewers in rural areas, let alone cities where OTA was switched off.  Each broadcaster had to "apply" to discontinue OTA service.  Hardly anyone wrote into the CRTC.  I suspect the CRTC took that as a "sign" that nobody cared.

 The largest OTA groups, Bell, Rogers and formerly Shaw, and Videotron,  much prefer to serve customers who want to watch OTA channels,  via their cable, fibre or satellite systems, thereby accruing huge subscriber fees (which are still in the billions of $ per year), for services which would otherwise be "free" - over the air.  Do you see where I'm going?  A bit of a conflict of interest on the part of the guys who still operate OTA transmitters.  And there has always been a revolving door from the CRTC to the "private sector".  So no one at the CRTC is too fussed about pissing off their good BDU buddies.  Besides, almost all OTA stations in Canada report that they are losing money....another excuse not to implement 3.0.    So I would not foresee the CRTC mandating a change to 3.0 nor the shut down of current atsc 1.0.  If they did move in the direction of mandating 3.0, I would speculate that Rogers, Bell, Corus, Videotron l and other remaining quasi-independent players (Pattison? Stingray? ZoomerMedia) would give a lot of thought to deleting the licenses, rather than make the large investment to implement 3.0.  I suspect that we might see a tiny build-out in Toronto, Montreal, and a handful of other cities, perhaps CHCH and YES TV would be the key players who might upgrade, since they are well suited in Hamilton with the common antenna/tran