CRTC speeches preview 2019 CMR numbers

Canadians are continuing to consume media from traditional broadcasters, while the percentage of households who have access to basic service standard speeds has increased slightly, according to figures from the 2019 edition of the Communications Monitoring Report (CMR) cited by a CRTC representatives. The report will be released “in a few weeks,” commissioner Monique Lafontaine said in Toronto on Nov. 7, according to a transcript released Thursday. Chris Seidl, the CRTC’s executive director of telecom, told the Rural and Remote Broadband Conference in North Bay, Ont. that the percentage of households that have access to the CRTC’s basic service requirement of 50 Mbps download speed and 10 Mbps upload speed increased from 84.1 per cent in 2017 to 85.7 per cent in 2018. However, Seidl pointed out, “break those numbers down into the urban-rural divide and they tell a story you know too well.” Only 40.8 per cent of rural residences met the speed targets while nearly all urban residences did, though that number was up from 37 per cent in 2017. Seidl said, according to a transcript, that while some 90 per cent of residents in British Columbia and Quebec have broadband access at the universal service objective speeds, only 55 to 60 per cent of residents in the Atlantic provinces and the Prairies have such speeds. “The worst off, and most in need, are people living and working in the far North,” Seidl said, where no one has access to broadband that meets the CRTC’s requirements. CRTC chairman Ian Scott cited that as the reason the first call for applications for the regulator’s broadband fund was focused on Northern and remote communities. Fibre-to-the-home availability is up from 35 to 44 per cent, but the urban-rural divide remains. Fibre was available to 48.5 per cent of urban homes, but only 16.9 per cent of rural homes, Seidl said. On the broadcasting side, commissioner Lafontaine told the Ontario Association of Broadcasters last week in Toronto that “Canadian adults continue to spend significantly more time connecting with traditional broadcasters.” According to the speech, adults spent 14.6 hours a week listening to radio stations, and 8.1 hours listening to online services. The gap, she said, according to a transcript, is even wider when it comes to television, where adults spend 26.2 hours watching traditional television and only 3.2 hours watching online content. While the numbers are much smaller when it comes to teenagers, those between the ages of 12 and 17 still listen to 4.4 hours of radio and 13.9 hours watching television.

CRTC speeches preview 2019 CMR numbers

Brief | November 14, 2019

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CRTC speeches preview 2019 CMR numbers

Brief | November 14, 2019

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