TORONTO – Is Canada’s broadband infrastructure lagging or leading that of other countries?
According to a recent report by Canadian telecom consultant Mark Goldberg and Giganomics’ Suzanne Blackwell, that question can be difficult to answer. International comparative statistics have been conflicted on Canada’s broadband performance, in large part due to methodological errors in some of the research that in turn biased the resulting rankings.
The authors are particularly critical of the OECD rankings which they describes as “highly dependent on per country sampling data used”, while its penetration metrics are biased in favour of countries with smaller household sizes. Also, the OECD…
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THE PUBLIC RELATIONS war between Canadian BDUs and broadcasters over fee-for-carriage got a little sillier yesterday.
Right away, I already know the broadcasters are reading that opening line and getting hot under the collar. “It’s not fee-for-carriage, it’s value-for-signal,” or “it’s about the right to negotiate for fair value for our signals,” they are muttering.
And now, the BDUs out there are thinking “screw that, it’s a fee, call it what it is.”
In an extreme nutshell, broadcasters are trying to re-frame the debate saying now they only want the ability to negotiate for a fee for their local TV signals, which…
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TORONTO – A coalition of some of Canada’s biggest TV service providers have teamed up on a campaign to tell their side of the story on the contentious issue of fee for carriage.
Bell, Bell Aliant, Cogeco, EastLink, Rogers and Telus have joined forces on ‘Stop the TV Tax’ which they say is designed to ensure “that Canadians hear the whole story”.
"Cable and satellite subscribers have united to stop the broadcasters’ costly proposal because it amounts to a tax, pure and simple”, said Rogers vice chair Phil Lind, in a statement. “This tax will hit viewers for stations that have always…
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EDMONTON – Using some of the most inflammatory language we’ve seen in a press release (invoking both a rodent and the seal hunt), supporters of pay TV service Super Channel are calling for people to boycott Rogers Cable.
The must-carry pay channel is currently operating under creditor protection and the Allard-family-owned service recently won a victory at the CRTC, where the Regulator said Rogers wasn’t marketing the new service fairly, as we reported nearly two weeks ago.
Super Channel also has a civil case pending against Rogers.
But the press release, issued Tuesday evening by “The Friends of Super Channel”…
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THE BIG BROADCASTERS and BDUs fought this, but by September 14th, those companies had to file their aggregate financial data from their 2008 fiscal years with the Commission.
On the weekend, the CRTC posted the figures on its web site and since the industry it currently roiling over the continuing fee-for-carriage debate, we looked at the numbers largely through that prism.
After spending several hours examining a lot of the data, I can tell you the most lucrative place to work is Bell TV – which paid its 1,398 employees an average salary of $90,136 – or CTV, whose average…
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TORONTO – A “challenging” fourth quarter contributed to a shortfall of -12.7 % in national radio sales for the 2009 broadcast year, says Canadian Broadcast Sales (CBS).
Q4 was down -25.2% year-over-year, with weakness in the financial services sector (-61%), the alcohol beverages category (-47.8 %) and automotive (-40.5%).
“Radio hasn’t experienced a decrease in revenue since the months immediately after September 11th, 2001, and even that downturn was less than half of Q4’s minus 25.2%,” said CBS president Patrick Grierson, in the press release. “Last September and October represented the peak of a six year run of year-over-year increases. November…
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MONTREAL – Cogeco Cable’s Louise St-Pierre has been promoted to senior vice-president, residential services, the company has announced.
In this newly created position, she will be responsible for customer service, technical operations, engineering, information technology, telecommunications, human resources, TVCogeco and community relations in Canada.
St-Pierre (pictured) had previously been VP customer services and Ontario operations. No decision has been made whether or not to replace with another head of Ontario ops, said a spokesperson.
www.cogeco.ca
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TORONTO – Canada’s two largest cable companies have very different opinions of a nine-year old agreement that had its genesis during a March 2000 dinner in Toronto between Ted Rogers and Jim Shaw – and the dispute has led the country’s two largest cable companies to court.
Rogers Communications is asking the Ontario Superior Court of Justice for an injunction blocking the $300-million sale of Hamilton’s Mountain Cablevision because Shaw signed a letter that became effective in March of 2001 which says the Calgary-based MSO wouldn’t mess in Rogers’ territory and the big red machine would stay out of the…
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GUESS WHAT? Canadians don’t want to pay any extra per month for their television. They also don’t want to lose their local TV stations.
Independent producers think that broadcasters should have to buy lots of shows made by them and those broadcasters would prefer to use those producers a little less, so that they can make (and sell) some of their own dramas.
The creative side of the industry is afraid of the word “flexible” when it comes to the broadcasters’ requests for changes to their Cancon requirements because flexible might mean less Canadian drama and comedies altogether, fewer hours in…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC will require the owners of Canada’s biggest distributors and broadcasters to publicly disclose aggregate financial data.
Ownership groups such as Astral Media, BCE, Bragg Communications, CBC, Canwest Media, Cogeco, Corus Entertainment, CTVglobemedia, Newcap, Quebecor Media, Remstar Broadcasting, Rogers and Shaw, must file confidential and public aggregated annual return forms with the Commission by November 30 of each year. The filing requirement for the aggregated annual returns, which will begin with the 2007-2008 broadcast year, are due by September 14, 2009.
The public data will be posted on the Commission’s website. The Commission announced in April that the…
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