The Canadian Public ^®

Here are a few recent items of interest.

• The recent CRTC decision on Usage Based Billing or UBB definitely affects us. Essentially, UBB is a way for large incumbent telecommunications companies such as Bell to impose an abusive pay-per-usage scheme on all residential customers of third-party Internet service providers.

  The problem is that this scheme imposes huge user fees on the amount of data transferred through Bell’s private network, with pricing mark-ups estimated at between 32,000 and 96,000 percent — if the data flowing through Bell’s internal network actually touched the Internet at all, which it doesn’t.

  As a result, the exorbitant fees Bell wants to apply to all Canadians with DSL service will make these customers think twice about watching this channel’s live feed out of fear of receiving a huge bill of a few hundred dollars.

• Considering the channel might not make it to air by its March 19th deadline, we’re in the process of preparing two new television license applications (one for an English language channel, and one for a French language channel) which will contain important modifications of the channel’s primary mandate.

  Much has changed in the four years since the original license application was approved, making it very difficult to launch the channel while respecting its original concept. So it’s time for a major update which will delay the launch of the channel until the end of the year.

• We’ll also launch a separate production company so that we can start producing our own content on a larger scale. These shows will also be sold into syndication to any channel wishing to carry the programming. Proposed shows in development include the reimagined version of “The Starlost”, an automotive show which will be a cross between the British automotive shows “Top Gear” and “Fifth Gear”, and an evening talk show called “The Pub Crawl.”

• Dining Room Table Reviews might be reviewing a car very soon. The teaser will be released shortly.