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…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
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
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – The Canadian broadcast and telecom industries appear to have plenty to say about the proposed merger of Bell and CTV. With comments and interventions due on Tuesday, three weeks in advance of the CRTC hearing, most stakeholders offered their conditional support, but only with safeguards in place to preserve industry competition.
Rogers tied its support of the deal to Bell’s continued opposition to the issue of value-for-signal (a.k.a. fee-for-carriage). Bell, Rogers, Cogeco, Shaw and Telus at one point banded together to challenge the CRTC before the Federal Court of Appeal arguing that the Commission lacks the power…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – It was good to be a TV distributor in 2010.
That’s the message we see in the CRTC’s aggregate financial data recently posted on the Commission’s web site. Expenses are up (in some cases, way up), but then again, so was revenue, and profits.
• According to the data submitted to the Commission by the big cable and satellite companies for the 2010 broadcast year (ended August 31, 2010), the largest six companies (Shaw, Bell, Rogers, Videotron, Cogeco and Bragg) together earned $12.15 billion in revenue from their video, high speed internet and VOIP telephone services (the data does…
Continue Reading
MONTREAL – Cogeco has bulked up its roster of on-demand content in Ontario with the addition of NFL Network On Demand and Big Ten Network On Demand.
NFL Network On Demand (channel 657) and Big Ten Network On Demand (channel 658) are available for free to customers who are subscribers of those channels, representing more than 25 hours of new sports content as the playoff and Bowl season approach.
"Enriching Cogeco Cable’s Video On Demand offering is just one of the many initiatives Cogeco constantly deploys to bring its digital cable TV subscribers an entertaining line-up that’s always fresh”, said Ron…
Continue Reading
WE JOURNALISTS JUST love our year-end lists, don’t we? They are everywhere. However, we don’t do predictions here. They only thing I have found to be certain when trying to predict the future is that nearly all the time, the predictions are wrong.
So instead, here’s our list of 10 open questions heading into 2011.
1. How much market share will the Telus and Bell Canada IPTV services take from incumbent cable companies? The user experience of the Microsoft Mediaroom-driven Optik TV and Fibe TV is just so darn good and so darn integrated (I’d switch just for the whole-home PVR…
Continue Reading
