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Canadian regulator triples US streamers’ financial contributions to Canadian content

OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Large online streaming services must contribute 15% of their Canadian revenues to Canadian content, the country’s federal broadcast regulator said Thursday.

That figure is three times the 5% initial contribution requirement the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, CRTC, set out in 2024, which is being challenged in court by U.S.-based major streamers, including Apple, Amazon and Spotify.

The CRTC made the decision as part of its implementation of the Online Streaming Act, which the U.S. has identified as a trade irritant ahead of trade negotiations with Canada.

Contribution requirements for traditional broadcasters in Canada, which currently pay between 30% and 45%, will be lowered to 25%.

“The total contributions are expected to stabilize the funding at more than $2 billion in support of Canadian and Indigenous content, such as French-language content and news,” the regulator said in a press release.

The CRTC also set out rules on how the money must be spent for both streamers and broadcasters, including contributions toward production funds and direct spending on Canadian content.

Most of the streamers’ financial contribution can go toward content, though the CRTC is imposing rules on how that money must be spent for the largest streamers.

For instance, streamers with Canadian revenues of more than $100 million Canadian ($73 million) annually must direct 30% of spending toward partnerships with Canadian broadcasters and independent producers.

The new financial contribution rules apply to streamers and broadcasters with at least $25 million Canadian ($18 million) in annual Canadian broadcasting revenues.

The CRTC is also establishing a new fund to support specific TV channels, including CPAC, the Canadian service that provides direct coverage of political events.

Iran attacks Bahrain and Kuwait following US strikes, threatens to end talks to end the war

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard launched drone and missile attacks Sunday targeting Bahrain and Kuwait in response to U.S. airstrikes that hit the Islamic Republic, and threatened a “complete halt” could come to negotiations to end the war if Washington continues its attacks. Efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf that once carried a fifth of the world's oil and natural gas, without Iran's direct oversight sparked the crossfire now gripping the region. A multinational maritime body overseen by the U.S. Navy said Saturday that it would expand a route near Oman in the Strait of Hormuz to allow for both inbound and outbound traffic — setting up a new flashpoint with Tehran. Iran insists it alone must govern the strait after the war, upending decades of the world considering that the strait was international waters free for all, despite its sitting in Iran and Oman's territorial waters. Tehran has twice attacked vessels going through the Oman route, backed by a United Nations agency, in recent days. Early Sunday, the U.S. military’s Central Command said it struck Iranian military “surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities and minelayer capabilities” following an attack on a ship at sea early Saturday morning. That ship, the Panamanian-flagged tanker Kiku, carried crude oil for the state-run energy company of Qatar, a key negotiator between Iran and the United States.
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