MONTREAL – Cogeco Cable urged the CRTC to keep close watch over the potential merger between Bell and CTV in order to “preserve competition and protect consumer interests”.
Appearing Wednesday morning at the hearing into the transaction in Gatineau, president and CEO Louis Audet stressed the importance of obtaining specific regulatory safeguards as soon as possible, and definitely before the upcoming vertical integration policy hearing in June, to “prevent abuse of the dominant position” that the new conglomerate would have if the transaction is approved.
"Ultimately, Canadian consumers risk footing the bill for concentration and vertical integration in the absence of greater oversight”, he…
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GATINEAU – Tuesday afternoon, BCE president and CEO George Cope (who looked a little grey as he fought through a bad cold) was unequivocal when it came to MPEG-4 video compression technology: Without benefits money, the company won’t do that upgrade.
Ever.
Bell’s proposed benefits package proposes an MPEG-4 conversion for Bell Satellite TV that would then see it able to carry all local OTA TV stations which are eligible for the local programming improvement fund (LPIF is a fund created by the CRTC in 2009 to assist small local TV broadcasters). Those local ‘casters have long complained that the fact…
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TORONTO and MONTREAL – The sale of Corus’ Quebec radio stations to Cogeco Inc. was completed on Tuesday as planned, the companies announced.
Cogeco acquired Montreal stations CKAC-AM, CFQR-FM, CHMP-FM, CKOI-FM and regional stations CFEL-FM and CFOM-FM in Quebec City, CHLN-FM in Trois-Rivieres, CHLT-FM and CKOY-FM in Sherbrooke, CIME-FM in St-Jerome and CJRC-FM in Ottawa-Gatineau.
To comply with the CRTC’s decision and the common ownership policy limiting the number of FM radio stations that can be operated by any one owner in a given market, Cogeco confirmed that it will sell the two FM stations in Quebec City, plus 104.5 FM in the Sherbrooke market. The three…
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ST. CATHARINES, ON – A new television station is gearing up to take on the cluttered airwaves of the Golden Horseshoe area of Ontario.
Niagara News TV (NNTV), which bills itself as the Niagara region’s first and only local newscast, will launch on February 7. Available free to Cogeco digital subscribers on channel 556, the station will air a nightly newscast Monday through Friday from 5 – 11 pm which will include community events, news, sports, and public affairs with a local angle. Stories from CNN and the Canadian Press will be used to augment content. Outside of the newscast, the station…
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U.S. CABLE OPERATORS likely ended up generating a record US$5 billion in commercial services revenue in 2010, up 25% from $4 billion in 2009, according to the latest data (figures in US dollars).
What’s more, the three largest American MSOs all scaled the $1 billion threshold for business services revenue for the first time last year. In December, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Cox Communications all indicated that they would easily clear the $1 billion mark for 2010.
Speaking at a Light Reading conference on cable business services in New York recently, Craig Collins, senior vice-president of services sales and marketing…
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MARKING A STUNNING break with the past, North American cable operators are now embracing telco-like PON (passive optical network) technology to deliver multimedia services over fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) networks.
In a key move signaling this change, CableLabs recently announced that it would shortly issue a new set of standards for leveraging Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON) technology on fibre lines. The planned new specs are designed to provide a common way of using DOCSIS provisioning and back-office systems for supporting EPON-based fiber networks. Known as DOCSIS Provisioning of EPON (DPoE), the specs are intended primarily for commercial-class IP and Ethernet…
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TORONTO – Cogeco Cable has become the latest BDU to add Rogers Sportsnet One to its programming lineup.
Cogeco launched the five month old national sports channel on Wednesday in standard definition on channel 426 and in HD on channel 736. It also launched a “companion channel” called Sportsnet Sens which accommodates the regional broadcast restrictions of the NHL’s Ottawa Senators.
www.sportsnet.ca www.cogeco.ca
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MONTREAL – Despite stable subscriber growth, first quarter profits at Cogeco Inc. dropped by almost 30%.
The company blamed the result of a one-time favourable income tax adjustment last year for the decrease in profits this year. Cogeco reported net income of $16 million in the first fiscal quarter of 2011, down from $22.7 million in the same quarter last year. Revenue increased by 4.5% to reach $342.8 million.
Cogeco Cable added 70,690 Canadian subscribers and 20,179 customers in Portugal this quarter. The growth in cable, Internet and digital phone subscribers, which the company calls revenue generating units (RGU), was a modest…
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TORONTO – Corus Entertainment said that it will oppose Astral’s applications challenging the CRTC’s approval of the sale of Corus’ Quebec radio stations to Cogeco.
Corus said Thursday that like Cogeco, it “considers that the applications filed by Astral are without merit”. It also confirmed that it will continue with the process to effect the closing of the transaction on February 1, 2011.
As Cartt.ca reported earlier this week, Astral Radio is appealing the CRTC’s decision to allow Cogeco to maintain a third radio station in the Montreal market, an exemption to the Commission’s common ownership policy. It filed a…
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MONTREAL – Astral Radio is appealing the CRTC’s decision to allow Cogeco to maintain a third radio station in the Montreal market, claiming the move “disrupts the competitive equilibrium”.
In a motion filed with the Federal Court of Appeal on Tuesday, Astral called the decision “prejudicial”, and said that it “puts an end to nearly twelve years of consistent application” of the common ownership policy. The common ownership policy limits ownership to two FM stations of the same language in a market. The Commission let Cogeco keep a third FM station in Montreal as part of its overall approval of Cogeco’s plan to purchase of Corus’ Quebec radio assets.
"The sudden lack of predictability…
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