CRTC filings and other interventions

On this page are links to filings and interventions I have made with the CRTC, the Canadian broadcast regulator. They are listed in reverse chronological order by topic.

CRTC specifically

1. 2013 licence-renewal and mandatory-carriage hearings (2013.03.13):
   1. The Accessible Channel, which still should not exist
   2. OutTV, a nonviable business
   3. The Score, the most contemptuous broadcaster in Canada when it comes to captioning, now looking for a payday
2. CRTC’s latest failed attempt at a captioning “standard”:

   1. French

3. Group licensing hearings, 2011, in which Bev Milligan sashays in and acts like the entire Bell accessibility fund, which does not exist yet, is hers to control
4. Reply comments in Shaw’s takeover of Canwest: No, Bev Milligan, you cannot build an empire with other people’s money (2010.09.30)
5. Response to call for comments about time credit for en-CA programming dubbed into fr-CA in Canada. (The real problem is en-CA captioning)
6. CRTC accessibility hearing 2008:
   • Speaking notes (2008.11.19)
   • Rush transcript
   • Intervention. Shorter Canadian Association of Broadcasters: Scrollup captioning is just fine on all programming and cigarettes don’t cause cancer
7. No, Quebecor, you may not refrain from captioning porn (and preschooler programming! ¶ 2008.08.18; denied!)
8. Intervention in licence renewal of TFO: No, you can’t get away with failing to caption live programming, especially since you did it back in 1996 (2008.03.04)
9. Appeal of licence issued to the Accessible Channel
10. Intervention in (very) qualified support of CTV’s proposed takeover of CHUM
11. Intervention against the National Broadcast Reading Service’s claimed Accessible Channel (2007.03.07)
    • Edited transcripts from NBRS’s and intervenors’ testimony before the CRTC (2007.04.04)
12. Appeal to Canadian government concerning 100% captioning: Apparently the only way to achieve 100% captioning and a significant amount of audio description is to file a human-rights complaint (2006.10.02)
13. Intervention in the CRTC’s review of over-the-air television (Broadcasting Notice of Public Hearing CRTC 2006-5), which had a great deal of discussion of captioning and next to no discussion of other accessibility issues (2006.09.27)
    • Reply comments (2006.12.20)
14. Three interventions with the CRTC:
    1. Against Bell ExpressVu’s sale of shares unless it fulfills its social-benefits obligations, the new investors’ having to pony up their own social-benefits cash, and my project gets funded (2006.04.05)
    2. Against MuchMusic, insisting that its free ride with accessibilty come to a close (2006.04.06)
    3. Against YTV and Food Network, arguing in the former case and for all broadcasters that scrollup captioning for fictional narrative programming be banned, and in the latter case that they at least learn how to do scrollup captioning (2006.04.06)
15. Request for extension of deadline in broadcasting renewals: The CRTC seems willing to permit broadcasters to limit viewing of renewal and application documents to their own offices. I petition for a deadline extension and an end to this practice (2006.03.23)
16. Accessibility of Canadian cinema: Submission to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, 2005.09.15
17. Intervention in Notice of Public Hearing CRTC 2005-6 opposing all four applications for new pay-TV movie channels
18. Intervention in Application Nº 2004-0514-3, the acquisition of Craig Media by CHUM Limited
19. Intervention in over a dozen 2003 license renewals (2003.05.01)
20. Telelatino license intervention
21. Simultaneous substitution of U.S. described programming
22. CTV, the CRTC, and audio description
23. “Evidence” I gave before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage on 23 April 2002. Did you know the Broadcasting Act permits unconstitutional illegal discrimination against blind and deaf Canadian television viewers?

Other government specifications

FCC

1. Comments on reinstatement of FCC audio-description rules
2. Response to FCC Public Notice on closed-captioning rules (2010). Yes, we need captioning standards, because everything always gets worse (2010.11.25)
3. Comments on FCC technical working group on digital captioning and description (2009.05.15)

AODA: Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities information and communications specification

1. Comments on Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities (AODA) information and communications specification (2008.09.12)

Other government agencies

1. Response to Australian government accessibility consultation of November 2009 (2010.01.29)
2. Response to BCI (Ireland) consultation on access services (2004.11.10)
3. Response to 2004 Ofcom (U.K.) proposals on accessibility for digital TV networks (2004.03.12/2006.08.16)

See also

• Comments on a Library of Congress notice on alternate-format books (2009.04.21)
  • Second set of comments (2009.11.10)
• Intervention in “Application for Exemption Under Section 55 of the Disability Discrimination Act,” something else the Australians are doing wrong
• “Evidence” given before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, May 2002
• A semi-secret CRTC document on audio description, “Current Domestic and International Status of Descriptive Video,” made available with corrections and clarifications
• A transcript of my oral intervention in the CTV hearings (2001.04.23)
• Previously, I exhaustively catalogued commitments to and requirements for captioning and audio description on new Canadian digital specialty channels
• Even before that, I had written a guest editorial for the Toronto Star predicting that the CRTC would blow it in accessibility requirements for new digital stations. And of course I was right

Updated: 2013.03.13 11:54