MONT TREMBLANT – At tonight’s opening gathering, the president’s reception dubbed “The Event in a Tent”, at Connect 2008, the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance gave out a couple of its annual awards.
The member company of the year is Dery Telecom of La Baie, Quebec. The company has been a leader in the province of Quebec and key to helping the organization sign on more Francophone members.
“By standing together we will always be stronger,” noted Dery’s Eric Banville, in accepting the award at the CCSA’s annual conference and AGM.
And, for the first time, the CCSA split the supplier of the year award to co-recipients Corus Entertainment and Astral Media.
Noting that it’s taken a while (seven years) to hammer out master affiliate agreements with Astral’s The Movie Network and its other channels, CCSA president and CEO Alyson Townsend was appreciative, noting of Astral, "they are leaders and also partners who listen to the needs of the independent distributors."
“We look forward to the upcoming year… to continue to grow together,” said Astral’s senior vice-president of sales and marketing, Domenic Vivolo.
The CCSA and Corus actually did a new deal for 15 services and Corus’ Gord Lee sung the praises of working on “a strong partnership with independent distributors” – and alluded to an announcement coming tomorrow on a new joint initiative with Astral, so watch Cartt.ca for that news on Monday morning.
– Greg O’Brien
