OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Canadian broadcasters have offered at least tepid support for a Rogers Cable application to the CRTC to alter the video on demand regs to allow for greater advertising flexibility in the VOD platform.
Some of those organizations which filed an intervention on the issue added that a decision on what Rogers wants should be deferred and discussed under the upcoming review of broadcast distribution undertaking policy recently announced by the Commission.
As the rules stand right now, ads within video on demand content must have already appeared on a linear Canadian TV channel, there must be a…
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FOR SALE: ONE SMALL, independent cable company. Reasonable price. Best offer.
Kaslo Cable is one of a very few remaining independent cable systems. It’s an older system that doesn’t offer high speed Internet nor digital cable to its 300 or so customers – which is part of the reason they want to sell, says co-owner Kul Nijjar. She wants to see a new owner foot the bill for the expensive upgrades needed to go digital.
In lieu of a classified ad explaining the company is for sale, Nijjar (pictured below) chatted with Cartt.ca editor and publisher Greg O’Brien on…
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TORONTO – All the hard work and milestones met by Canadian Satellite Radio (which does business as XM Satellite Radio in Canada) is not being reflected in the company’s share price, CEO John Bitove complained today on the release of the company’s third quarter results.
As of May 31st, XM Canada had 269,900 subscribers and Bitove added there will be plenty more to come as the National Hockey League hockey season gets closer. As of the upcoming season, XM is the exclusive satellite radio provider for the NHL.
Bitove also pointed out how many cars being made and sold…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Remember 1997? Almost nobody had the Internet and even fewer had satellite TV. Digital cable barely existed. VOD was a lab engineers dream. HD was nowhere to be found and PVR still only meant player value ranking.
Tier III, with such brands as The Score, HGTV, History Television, and Teletoon, launched that fall. Titanic was the top-grossing film. Worldcom and MCI had announced their $37 billion dollar merger (which, of course, failed spectacularly and helped marked years of doom for telecom and related stocks), and we were all glued to our news channels for a time that…
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MONTREAL – France’s Legion of Honour, the highest of that country’s national orders, is being conferred on Radio-Canada’s executive vice-president Sylvain Lafrance at a special ceremony in Ottawa on Friday.
Lafrance has been so named "in recognition of his outstanding efforts within the public service to develop and project French language and culture, and of his commitment to issues of diversity, cultural coexistence and protecting identities," says the CBC press release.
He joins a distinguished list of recipients that includes such folks as retired U.S. General Norman Schwartzkopf, singer Barbara Streisand, chemist Louis Pasteur, Canadian film director/producer Denys Arcand,…
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OTTAWA – While operating revenues for TV broadcasting companies continue to rise, profits fell sharply last year according to Statistics Canada.
Overall, revenues for the television broadcasting industry just topped $6 billion in the 2006 broadcast year, ended August 31, 2006. That’s a gain of 8.2% over 2005 and was the third largest year-over-year revenue increase in the past decade.
Ad revenue for the whole Canadian TV industry rose 7.6% to $3.3 billion, while subscription revenues jumped 11.3% to $1.6 billion, continues the Statscan report.
However, profits before interest and taxes for private conventional television fell 62.5% from $242.7 million…
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TORONTO – Ethnic web-caster JumpTV announced a partnership with Telelatino today that grants JumpTV the exclusive Internet broadcast rights to the World Cup of Soccer Finals and the Women’s World Cup in the Spansh, Portugese and Italian Languages.
CBC holds the multiplatform rights for English and French and the Jump-Telelatino agreement is subject to the approval of FIFA, the sport’s governing body. If approved, soccer fans throughout Canada will be able to see all of the FIFA championship tournaments through 2014 live on the Internet. Hundreds of matches which won’t be available on television in Canada are expected to…
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OTTAWA – If the level of radio today’s teenagers now listen to stays consistent as they age, the long-term future of radio appears a little bleak.
Numbers released today by Statistics Canada show that overall, Canadians devoted less time listening to their radios as a form of entertainment in 2006 than in previous years (see chart below), especially teenagers and young adults, many of whom appear to be switching to digital music players and online music services.
"On average, Canadians tuned in to their radios for 18.6 hours during ‘measurement week’ in fall 2006, down from 19.1 hours…
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VANCOUVER – The best of 2006 were honoured over the weekend in Vancouver as the association of electronic journalists, RTNDA Canada, gathered to present and receive its annual awards.
This year RTNDA Canada created five new award categories to recognize outstanding videography, use of sound, new media, information programming and diversity.
The RTNDA "Diversity Tool Kit" which was released across the country in January offers practical solutions to bring diversity to our stories and to our newsrooms. To acknowledge those accomplishments RTNDA created a new Diversity Award.
Global Calgary, CBC Radio 99.1 Toronto, CBC National Radio News and The…
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OTTAWA – Astral Media Radio Inc. is proposing a $63.3 million benefits package over seven years as it seeks regulatory approval for its $1.082 billion acquisition of 52 over-the-air radio stations and two small-market TV stations from Standard Radio Inc. Astral also pledges to take measures to ensure compliance by the Standard Radio stations that didn’t meet licence conditions with regard to Canadian content, and to pay any outstanding tangible benefit amounts connected to stations previously purchased by Standard that are included in the Astral deal.
Referring to the deal as “evolutionary, and not revolutionary,” Astral tells the CRTC…
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