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Ottawa, 5 February 2013
Our reference: Case ID #594792
Mr. Ted Woodhead
Senior Vice-President
Federal Government and Regulatory Affairs
TELUS Communications Company
215 Slater Street, 8th Floor
Ottawa, Ontario K1P 0A6
ted.woodhead@telus.com
Re: Telus Communications Company (“Telus”)’ compliance report with respect to the loudness of TV commercial messages
Dear Mr. Woodhead:
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’s (the “CRTC”) acknowledges receipt of the compliance report dated October 15th, 2012 submitted by Telus.
As you are aware, Canadians overwhelmingly expressed concern over the excessive loudness of television commercials and urged the Commission to take action. In response, the Commission amended the Broadcasting Distribution Regulations (Regulations) to require the adoption of measures, specifically, ATSC Recommended Practice A/85, to ensure that commercial messages and regular programming are broadcast at an even volume. These amendments came into force on 1 September 2012. The purpose of the compliance report is to demonstrate that the appropriate actions set out in the Broadcasting Information Bulletin CRTC 2012-471 have been taken to ensure that every television commercial message complies with ATSC Recommended Practice A/85 by September 1st, 2012.
The CRTC’s Consumer Affairs and Strategic Planning Sector has reviewed Telus’ compliance report and notes that your company recognizes that it has still not installed the proper equipment to ensure compliance, with regards to non-Canadian programming services. Indeed, your firm states that it plans to deploy new equipment in two phases beginning in November 2012. The first phase will ensure compliance with respect to high definition services and will be completed by March 2013. The second phase will ensure compliance with respect to standard definition services, following the completion of the first phase.
However, a solution to effectively ensure that all commercials and regular programming are broadcast at an even volume should have already been implemented upon or before the entry into force of the Regulations, i.e., September 1st, 2012.
At this time, pursuant to section 6 of the Broadcasting Information Bulletin CRTC 2012-471, it has been determined that your firm’s compliance report fails to demonstrate that the requisite measures have been taken to ensure compliance with the Regulations. Consequently, the above noted file was referred to the CRTC Compliance and Enforcement Sector on November 25th, 2012 for further action.
After review of this file, the Compliance and Enforcement Sector considers that such a failure raises the risk that commercial messages that are non-compliant with the ATSC technical requirements will be distributed by your service. Commission staff notes that in addressing any future potential violations of the Regulations, your failure to implement the requisite measures to prevent any non-compliance will be one of the factors taken into consideration when determining the appropriate response to any such violations of the Regulations.
The Compliance and Enforcement Sector requests the following information, in order to follow-up closely with your company’s implementation progress:
1. A detailed plan:
- describing the steps taken to obtain the proper equipment to implement ATSC technical requirements; and
- that includes a timetable for the installation, maintenance, operation, and periodic testing of this equipment by March 7, 2013. The staff training program should also be implemented within this timeframe. This timetable should significantly reduce the unreasonable delay announced in Telus’ compliance report and/or provide additional warranty of compliance during this sensitive period of time.
Further, in order to have a complete understanding of steps taken, please provide the following additional information:
2. Information regarding the encoding format(s) used by Telus for the distribution of audio content to your subscribers.
- If applicable, please confirm that your firm passes through unaltered audio metadata for AC-3 encoded audio when content is received in this format.
- If applicable, for audio content that is received in an encoding format that is not distributed to your subscribers, please provide a detailed description of the technical measures that have been implemented to ensure that the loudness of the content is unaltered in its distribution.
3. Confirmation that the measures you have undertaken to ensure compliance with the Regulations affect all audio content associated with standard definition and high definition programming services that you distribute, including described video.
The information requested above should be received by the CRTC no later than February 20, 2013. As set out in the Information Bulletin, the absence of a satisfactory response may result in further action by the CRTC’s Compliance and Enforcement Sector.
Please address all communication, including any questions you may have with respect to the above, to Lynne M. Perrault by e-mail at lynne.m.perrault@crtc.gc.ca.
Sincerely,
Andrea Rosen
Chief Compliance and Enforcement Officer
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