Search Results for: shaw

Radio / Television News

Winnipeg’s top morning drive guy takes to TV

by Myron Love WINNIPEG – Larry Updike’s top-ranked morning radio show on CJOB/68 can now also be seen on cable television (Shaw TV, Channel 9). The simulcasts started on Monday, September 10. Updike has been hosting the morning show for the past seven years. The CJOB Morning Show has consistently had the largest audience (per share) of any radio show in Canada. The simulcast is a collaboration between Shaw and Corus Entertainment (Shaw and Corus share the same controlling family). The arrangement augments Shaw TV’s programming and is largely for their benefit, Updike notes. He says that CJOB is… Continue Reading

Cable / Telecom News

CTF decision not coming until December

OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Time to revive all the old jokes that CRTC stands for “Can’t Release ‘Til Christmas”. The Commission today confirmed that the complex issues facing a decision on what to do about the Canadian television fund were too much to consider prior to the previously-set September deadline. A December decision means it will have been about a year since Shaw Communications tried to blow up the fund by withholding payments and saying it would rather give money claimed from cable and satellite bills for the CTF, back to its customers. Quebecor Media’s Videotron soon followed suit. This is… Continue Reading

Radio / Television News

The TUESDAY INTERVIEW (Thursday edition): Former CHUM CEO Jay Switzer

JAY SWITZER HAS IT bad for the Canadian TV industry. After less than three months out of work, the former CEO of CHUM Limited dearly misses the people he has worked with for over two decades and the work of providing hours of TV programming to Canadians. The self-professed "content guy" – who spent some time this summer riding into the sunsets of the U.S. southwest – is not about to ride into the sunset and retire. He’ll be back, but he has months to decide where and when. Last week, he sat down with Cartt.ca editor and publisher… Continue Reading

Cable / Telecom News

COMMENT: BDU policy review preview

ANYONE WISHING A BIT of a preview of January’s hearings on broadcast distribution undertaking and specialty services policy changes need only speed through Shaw Communications intervention in the CanWest Global/Goldman Sachs purchase of Alliance Atlantis proceeding. The three page document outlines in very brief terms what Shaw – and likely other cable companies – will be looking for once that policy review comes around. Shaw didn’t object at all to the proposed merger but the company rarely misses a chance to state its case on where it believes the regulator should be heading. "In combination with other recent… Continue Reading

Radio / Television News

The TUESDAY INTERVIEW: Brad Danks on the challenges facing OUTtv

IF THERE HAS BEEN a Canadian television channel that has struggled more with its programming, carriage, ownership and identity than OUTtv, which began its life in September 2001 as Pridevision, we don’t know of it. The original category one digital specialty service license went to a surprising place to begin with. The CRTC, preoccupied at the time with trying to uplift smaller broadcasters, gave the must-carry digital license to what then was Headline Media, the owners of what has become The Score, a straight-male all-sports station where no one had experience in the gay community. Granted, Headline did partner… Continue Reading

Cable / Telecom News

Community channels to broadcast interrupted CFL game in full

REGINA – In co-operation with the CBC and Shaw Communications, Access Communications Co-operative’s community channel, Access7, will re-telecast the CFL football game played on Saturday, August 18 between the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the Edmonton Eskimos. During the fourth quarter of the game, the power went out at the stadium and interrupted the game for almost an hour. When the power finally came back on, the CBC didn’t come back to the game, instead showing a movie rather than the fourth-quarter comeback by the Roughriders. The CBC did show the rest of the game in Saskatchewan, however. Tonight the game… Continue Reading

Cable / Telecom News

Shaw launches Setanta Sports

CALGARY – Setanta Sports’ professional soccer and rugby from the English Premier League, the Rugby World Cup and the Aussie Football League will be available beginning this weekend to Shaw Digital Cable and Star Choice customers. The Setanta International Sports Pak includes over 600 professional and international soccer games and over 450 international rugby matches not available on other Canadian sports channels, according to the company. Viewers can follow some of the world’s most popular soccer teams with Setanta including Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea. "With soccer participation and interest in North America at an all time high,… Continue Reading

Cable / Telecom News

COMMENT: Coming Cabinet shuffle may see Bernier boosted, Oda ousted

OTTAWA – The one thing most everyone agrees on is that Prime Minister Stephen Harper will be announcing a Cabinet shuffle early next week. According to multiple reports, all ministers have been told to be in Ottawa this weekend and next week, meaning that the PM may have major changes in mind and not just some minor tweaking (Gordon O’Connor is certainly gone from National Defense, they say). But what will it mean for the two ministers overseeing the cable, radio, television and telecom industries? Industry Minister Maxime Bernier, by any measure, has been a very successful minister who,… Continue Reading

Cable / Telecom News

Shaw/Star Choice adds NHL Centre Ice

CALGARY – Some of its customers will probably say "finally" as Shaw Communications announced today it will add the NHL Centre Ice package to its viewing options on Shaw Digital Cable and Star Choice DTH. The NHL Centre Ice package consists of at least 1,000 regular season and selected play-off games from the first two rounds of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Centre Ice customers will have access to over 40 games per week drawn from a variety of regional and national networks in Canada and the U.S. In addition, over 200 games in the Centre Ice package will be… Continue Reading

Cable / Telecom News

CRTC allows Shaw to show VOD commercials

OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Shaw Cable has received partial approval from the CRTC to air some kinds of commercials on its video on demand service. The commission has approved Shaw’s application to show programs containing commercial messages when the program has already aired in Canada on a Canadian channel. It’s also allowed to charge a fee to subscribers to watch those programs containing commercials. But the regulator denied Shaw’s request to show programs with commercials that had already aired in Canada but on a non-Canadian channel that’s on the list of eligible foreign satellite services. The decision applies to Shaw’s wholly… Continue Reading