WHILE BRAD SHAW is now CEO of a much different Shaw Communications than the one his father JR and brother Jim built and ran, one aspect hasn’t changed.
No handlers.
As a journalist, I’ve interviewed many CEOs and other senior executives at large corporations. Most of them come to interviews with one or two others in tow who keep tabs on the interview or have other tasks. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s just not the way the Shaws do things. Never been their style. When a reporter calls the company with a question, invariably the president or CEO is the…
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TORONTO – While generating profit remains a key goal for companies, how you create profit is even more important according to a Cogeco Data Services survey.
"While generating profit will always be the fundamental tenet of creating and selling goods and services, our survey results show that for many companies, how you create profit is even more important," said Cogeco Data Services president Tony Ciciretto in a press release. "Canadian business leaders are now saying that finding innovative ways to boost productivity is a smarter, more sustainable route to profitability rather than focusing on just cutting costs."
"The more a company…
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MONTREAL – Cogeco Cable announced Tuesday the launch of its Ultimate 30 and Ultimate 50 High Speed Internet (HSI) packages for consumers in Shawinigan, Québec, as well as its new Business Ultimate 50 package for businesses.
Cogeco says the three packages, powered by DOCSIS 3.0, offer advantages in speed and pricing compared to competitors. The Ultimate 30 package offers speeds of up to 30 Mbps for downloads and up to 1.5 Mbps for uploads with a monthly download cap of 100 GB. For the Ultimate 50 package, speeds can reach 50 Mbps for downloads and 1.5 Mbps for uploads…
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GATINEAU – Without indemnifying broadcasters and distributors and limiting their legal liability, ongoing development of a national emergency alerting system may be at risk, the CRTC’s hearing on Pelmorex Communications Inc.’s licence renewal heard this week.
But Commission chair Konrad von Finckenstein (a former judge) suggested that the whole liability issue may in fact be a red herring.
David Townsend, a professor in the Faulty of Law at the University of New Brunswick, who was appearing with the Canadian Association for Public Alerting and Notification (CAPAN), agreed.
“It’s overblown, but when parties are refusing to participate and really help the…
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NOT LONG AGO I ASKED A CRTC senior policy advisor I know how work was going. It was one of those just-making-conversation questions we all ask, but I was a little surprised at his response:
“Livin’ the dream,” he excitedly told me. Now, I’m not sure my facial expression betrayed my wonder at that statement and I don’t remember what I said next, but he continued to add that he found it exciting, interesting and fun to debate and then help craft what would become the “law of the land.”
Upon reflection, it shouldn’t have come as such a shock –…
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MONTREAL – Cogeco Cable added 6 new high definition channels to its Ontario lineup on Tuesday.
Effective immediately, HD customers can now subscribe to NFL HD, Big Ten HD, eqhd, radX, Treasure HD and Oasis HD.
"Our customers just love the outstanding quality of HD Television and the experience it brings”, said Ron Perrotta, VP of marketing and strategic planning at Cogeco, in the announcement. “We always strive to provide them with the most interesting and relevant programming in the market. This is why we continually invest in this technology. With the addition of these channels, our goal is to offer more…
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GATINEAU – The winds of criticism were blowing Pelmorex Communications’ way during the first day of its licence renewal hearing in Gatineau on Tuesday as CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein and Pelmorex senior VP of regulatory and strategic affairs Paul Temple sparred over aspects of the company’s licence renewal application.
In addition to asking for a seven-year licence renewal, Pelmorex is requesting an extension to the 2009 mandatory order on 9(1)(h) that would keep the Weather Network and MétéoMédia on basic carriage until 2018. The company says that it needs the extension to help offset the costs of operating…
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CALGARY – Shaw Communications said today that thanks to the national backlash over the concept of usage-based billing, it is asking customers to participate in consultation sessions to share their thoughts on how the big ISP should handle Internet usage allowances and billing.
That’s despite the fact the whole UBB furor has little to do with Shaw as it has just a single third party ISPs riding on its network and hadn’t yet begun charging retail customers for exceeding the gigabit download thresholds the company had set (“High Speed” has a 60 GB file transfer limit, “Extreme” has a 100…
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HOW DID A CRTC DECISION on usage-based billing that affects so few total Canadians become a national story and potentially an election issue?
It’s your fault, big ISPs.
According to recent research, most customers of the large Canadian ISPs were not even aware their Internet packages were subject to bandwidth caps and extra billing if they went over those limits. They didn’t know they were capped and sure didn’t know how much extra it could cost.
In short, the big ISPs were and are doing a poor job letting their customers know their limits and what they mean. People aren’t…
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GATINEAU – The way the dance works in these CRTC proceedings is the applicant draws a few lines in the sand in its application and presentation, a few in granite, listens to a few days of appearances by intervenors, gauges the reaction of the commissioners to various ideas presented – and then re-draws those sandy lines for their final public follow up appearances.
BCE was no different Friday morning during its appearance on the closing day of the CRTC hearing into its acquisition of CTV.
Right off the bat, its executives told the CRTC it is ready to endorse the Commission’s…
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