TORONTO – Cogeco has added Rogers’ channels CityNews Channel and FX Canada to its digital TV lineup in Ontario.
CityNews Channel will air on channel 415 in standard definition and in high definition on channel 821. FX Canada can be found in standard definition on channel 410 and channel 750 in high definition, and will be available on free preview through August 31.
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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OTTAWA – Communications giant Bell Media was batting .500 Friday after the CRTC awarded it a win, and a loss, in two final offer arbitration disputes between it and the Canadian Independent Distributors Group (CIDG) and Telus.
In its decision on Bell Media versus the CIDG, a group consisting of the CCSA, Cogeco and MTS, the Commission noted that both sides made “significant strides” to resolve the issues between them, and that both offers provided commercially reasonable terms and more consumer choice.
The CIDG final offer affiliation agreement, however, was “inconsistent” with the standstill rule of the Commission’s vertical…
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MONTREAL – Cogeco Cable is expanding into the U.S. after buying Atlantic Broadband for US$1.36 billion, the company announced Wednesday.
Atlantic is the 14th largest cable television system operator in the United States, serving about 252,000 basic video customers in Pennsylvania, Florida, Maryland, Delaware and South Carolina. It also offers high speed Internet and telephony services.
"This acquisition marks an attractive entry point into the U.S. market for Cogeco Cable”, said president and CEO Louis Audet, in a statement. “There are sizable opportunities for growth including: increasing the penetration of the small and mid-sized business segment, and maximizing the bundling potential…
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MONTREAL – Profits and revenues at Cogeco Inc. continued to rise for the third quarter of fiscal 2012.
Profits bounced back to $55.4 million this quarter, compared to a $179.2 million loss in the same period of the previous fiscal year which was mostly attributable to the write-off of its net investment in its Cabovisao Portuguese subsidiary.
For the period ended May 31, revenue was $358 million, up 8.4% from $330 million in the same quarter last year, primarily due to its cable sector and recent acquisition of Metromedia. Cable revenue grew 7.2% to $319.8 million from $298.2 million, while revenue…
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GATINEAU – Unless there is a last minute change of heart from one side or the other, a panel of three CRTC commissioners will soon decide the terms of the next carriage agreements for 29 Bell Media specialty channels on a number of independent BDUs.
The Commission panel will choose one offer over the other in the final stage – known as Final Offer Arbitration (FOA), sometimes referred to as “baseball arbitration” – of this carriage battle. It’s high-risk business brinksmanship. In Major League Baseball, if a player and his team can’t come to a negotiated salary agreement, an arbitrator…
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OTTAWA – Telus, Cogeco, Eastlink and MTS Allstream have all told the CRTC that they are opposed to BCE and Rogers’ proposal to take control of sports channels Leafs TV, NBA TV Canada and Gol TV Canada from parent Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE).
The interventions filed by the independent distributors claim that the move, which comes as part of the BCE/Rogers $1.32 billion bid for a majority stake in MLSE, “are bad for the Canadian broadcasting industry, further extending the control exerted by these large vertically integrated conglomerates”.
“Increasing the already extensive market power enjoyed by vertically integrated programming…
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MONTREAL – When Cogeco Diffusion purchased three regional music radio stations from Corus Quebec in 2011, they were "moribund," vice-president Richard Lachance told journalists on Wednesday.
In one case, with a two per cent market share, "the photocopier reached more people," he joked.
So the broadcaster is reinventing those three stations (which were part of a larger, $80 million 10-station purchase announced in spring 2010), changing their format from music/talk to news/talk and hoping to replicate the huge ratings success the company has seen with talk radio in Montreal.
The three stations – CKOY-FM…
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TORONTO – Cogeco Data Services celebrated the opening of its new state-of-the-art data centre in the heart of Toronto's business district.
The new centre will serve local customers as well as organizations requiring easy access and low latency connections to Canada's largest business and financial institutions. The company said that the move comes as more organizations move from on-site environments to cloud computing and hybrid service models.
"The trend has been to move data centres outside the downtown core because real estate is at a premium in major economic hubs like Toronto," said president Tony Ciciretto, in the announcement. "But Canada's largest business…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC will stage a public hearing starting Tuesday morning to consider 18 renewal applications from radio stations that are in apparent non-compliance with the Commission’s radio regulations and/or certain conditions of licence.
One of the applicants, Aboriginal Voices Radio (AVR), issued a statement Monday accusing the Commission of censorship after being directed to restrict its presentation to matters pertaining to its licences for CKAV-FM Toronto, CKAV-FM-2 Vancouver, CKAV-FM-3 Calgary, CKAV-FM-4 Edmonton and CKAV-FM-9 Ottawa. AVR, in association with the National Indigenous Media Association of Canada, had proposed that the CRTC also review its native broadcasting policy at that…
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