HUNTSVILLE – Delegates to the 2012 Canadian Cable Systems Alliance annual Connect conference were advised by a series of speakers Monday afternoon (and we’re paraphrasing here) that their customers care only about themselves and what’s happening, or isn’t happening, on their screen, whichever one they happen to be using, rightnow.
As any cable operator will know, customers are increasingly demanding, but this where independents have a chance to shine, digital marketing expert Mitch Joel of Montreal’s Twist Image told delegates (a number of pictures of whom are posted below this piece). He demonstrated how the retail world is moving more…
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HUNTSVILLE – Channel Zero president and COO Cal Millar officially announced a new channel at the CCSA Connect conference on Monday and shifted another to the online world.
While accepting the CCSA’s supplier of the year award at the Board of Directors dinner Monday evening at the Deerhurst Resort, Millar (pictured below) announced that the company which owns brands CHCH-TV, Silver Screen Classics, Movieola and Ouat Media is adding another brand to its stable, dubbed Rewind: Movies Worth Watching… Again.
Movieola, the short film channel,…
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GRANTING BELL THE RIGHT to buy Astral Media will make an already big company that acts badly, enormous, add incentive for it act even worse, which in the end will crush competition and choice in Canada. Therefore, the deal needs to be quashed altogether or tough new rules applied to constrain the biggest player in Canadian media, say final replies to the CRTC’s public proceeding into Bell Canada’s quest to buy Astral Media.
Those last written rejoinders to the Commission’s public proceeding into Bell Canada’s purchase of Astral Media (CRTC 2012-370) from intervenors were due into the Commission on Friday,…
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MONTREAL – With its traditional business of residential television, Internet and phone in Canada maturing, Cogeco Cable CEO Louis Audet says the United States will be one of the company’s main growth avenues over the next number of years.
Speaking at a CIBC institutional investors conference in Montreal on Thursday, Audet identified Cogeco’s burgeoning business services unit (telecom, data hosting, other IT services and so forth under its Cogeco Data Services division) and further network purchases Stateside as prime growth levers he intends to pull on.
The first plunge into the American cable market came earlier this year with the company’s…
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QUISPAMSIS, N.B. – The CCSA has renewed its agreement with Universal Electronics Inc (UEI) for the supply of remote controls and has added HDMI cables. CCSA connects over 100 independent cable operators (its members) and their subscribers with programming and equipment.
“UEI’s control products can address both the simplified and advanced interaction requirements of CCSA member companies. The customer remote continues to be a vital link between the subscriber and the advanced digital video services offered by CCSA member companies,” says Alyson Townsend, CCSA President & CEO.
“UEI is pleased to extend our agreement with CCSA to supply member…
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MONTREAL – One wants the Bell deal to purchase Astral stopped, the other doesn’t – but in the end, independent cable group CCSA and Independent Broadcaster Blue Ant both say Bell is big enough to need to be held back.
Up first on Friday morning, the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance demonstrated directly how, in its view, the existing market power of Bell Canada (without Astral) negatively impacts the price and availability of choice available to its member companies’ customers. The CCSA represents independent distributors who collectively serve about 750,000 Canadians and is worried the addition of Astral Media to Bell…
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TORONTO – AMC president and CEO Josh Sapan will lead a discussion next month on the value of original programming and how to create entertainment brands of distinction in an increasingly competitive world.
Presented by CTAM Canada, the event will take place on September 5 from 5:30 to 8 pm at the Velma Rogers Theatre, located within Rogers Communications, at 333 Bloor Street East in downtown Toronto. It will be followed by a reception on the 10th floor patio.
One of entertainment's premier innovators and a pioneer in the cable industry, Sapan leads AMC Networks Inc., which owns and operates AMC,…
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QUISPAMSIS – The Canadian Cable Systems Alliance (CCSA) has added its voice to those speaking out against the proposed merger of Bell and Astral.
Describing the matter as “profoundly a consumer issue”, CCSA president Alyson Townsend said that should the deal be approved, Canadian TV viewers will continue to be denied the ability to buy and pay for only the channels they really want. In addition, small cable and telephone TV distributors presently serving rural and remote communities in Canada would most likely be put out of business or gobbled up by Bell.
Citing her organization’s experience as a member of the…
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TORONTO – It’s not just about choice, it’s about how that choice is defined.
According to the Canadian Independent Distributors Group (CIDG), which lost its final offer arbitration dispute against Bell Media just over a week ago, the CRTC appeared to agree with the communication giant’s definition of choice which, simply put, is the more television channels that Canadian viewers can buy, the better.
But is choice about volume, or is it the ability to pick only the channels that viewers actually want to watch?
According to the CIDG, made up of Cogeco, MTS and the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance (CCSA), their consumers…
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OTTAWA – While Friday’s CRTC rulings may indeed eventually pave the way towards more choice for consumers in the selection of TV channels, what remains unclear is whether that “choice” will truly be driven by Canadian viewers or continue to be shaped by the country’s biggest broadcasters and television service providers.
Friday’s CRTC decision, which chose Bell Media’s final offer over the one presented by the Canadian Independent Distributors Group (CIDG), noted that “both parties’ offers moved in the direction of providing more consumer choice”, plus contained “incentives to provide a wide choice of programming in the broadcasting system, and…
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