TORONTO – Cable viewers can watch many of their favourite Olympic moments over and over again, on demand thanks to a video on demand agreement signed with four cable operators.
More than 700 hours of video on demand coverage in English and French of the 2010 Winter Games will be available via Rogers Cable, Shaw Cable, EastLink and its subsidiary Delta Cable and Source Cable, free of charge. This represents more than triple the amount of on demand coverage of Turin 2006 (221 hours).
(Ed note: As a Cogeco Cable customer and Olympics fan, we here at Cartt.ca are very hopeful…
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HAMILTON MEDIA OUTLETS aired a city-wide telethon yesterday to raise money for two hospitals in Haiti which have long-standing working relationships with Hamilton’s St. Joseph’s Health System.
According to the most up-to-date reports, Hopital Universitaire la Paix – a 150 bed hospital – is standing, but is overwhelmed with patients and is suffering a critical lack of supplies. Approximately 50% of University Hospital – a 750 bed hospital in downtown Port-Au-Prince – has been destroyed and it too is experiencing the same demands from those affected by the earthquake.
Channel Zero’s CHCH, The Hamilton Spectator, Corus-owned 900 CHML and cable community…
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TORONTO – Cogeco Cable’s Chris Macfarlane, Telonix’s Eric Goulden and Jason Lowe of Clearcable are the three newest additions to the board of directors of the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers Ontario chapter.
They were the top three candidates after chapter members’ recent vote.
They join TVC Canada’s Bill McMillan, Rogers Cable’s James Myles, and Cogeco’s Daniel Sacolle on the board of directors and will assume their roles starting February 1,2010.
Boris Eventov (Cogeco), Rob McCann (Clearcable) and Bruce Marshall (Mountain Cablevision/Shaw) will be retiring from the board, after having served their term.
www.scte-ontario.com
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TORONTO – The primary headline will be the $40 million raised by Canada’s broadcasters via a pair of telethons on Friday (one in Toronto and another in French in Montreal), but there are a lot of other stories out there of companies from our industry rallying their employees or their customers to the cause.
Canada For Haiti, Friday’s one-hour, commercial-free special produced collaboratively between CBC Television, CTV and Global Television and also aired on Citytv, has raised more than $13.5 million to date for relief efforts in Haiti, it was confirmed today. (Citytv also aired its own “Help for Haiti”…
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HALIFAX – Just three months after his departure from EastLink, Dan McKeen’s career will continue in the same East Coast city in which it began.
The former co-CEO at Bragg Communications-owned EastLink was recently named senior vice-president of customer solutions at Bell Aliant. He left EastLink October 27, 2009 and begins his new job next Thursday.
In an interview with Cartt.ca, McKeen (who spent 24 years first at Halifax Cable, right out of university, which later was purchased by Bragg) is happy to be staying put, while looking forward to moving on. “This lets me work in the industry…
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THE CANADIAN cable, broadcast and telecommunications industries have been quick to mobilize support of relief efforts in Haiti.
We at Cartt.ca are awed by the collective level of compassion and generosity, and offer our sincere congratulations to the companies who have pledged to aid the people of the tiny island ravaged by last week’s earthquake.
In addition to the efforts by Rogers and by Cogeco and Quebecor, below are some other initiatives that we have learned of:
– Telecom equipment supplier Ericsson is sending volunteers, all telecom experts, to set up a container-based mini GSM-system to enable mobile communication for aid workers…
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MONTREAL – Canada’s biggest cable companies continue to step up to support Haiti following Tuesday’s earthquake.
Cogeco Cable pledged to donate $50,000 to the Red Cross to support the organization’s efforts, while Videotron said that it will allow its residential cable telephone subscribers to place calls to Haiti without incurring long-distance charges. It also said that it will credit subscribers with any long-distance charges to Haiti retroactive to January 12, for a period of one month.
Quebecor’s TVA Network and Canoe will broadcast a benefit concert live at 9 p.m. ET on January 22 featuring several Québec artists who have expressed their desire to help…
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MONTREAL – Cogeco Inc. will raise its 2010 financial targets thanks in large part to steady growth at its Canadian cable operations.
For the first quarter ended November 30, 2009, Cogeco said that revenue increased by 6% to reach $317.4 million, and operating income before amortization grew 5.9% to top $122.6 million.
Net income amounted to $56.7 million. Excluding a favourable income tax adjustment related to the reduction of Ontario provincial corporate income tax rates, net income would have amounted to $26.9 million, a 17.2% increase compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2009.
The company now anticipates that annual revenue for…
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MONTREAL – Cogeco Cable has added LCN HD to its high definition line-up in Quebec.
The French news channel features interviews, debates and complete news coverage every 15 minutes of the day, all day. It will be offered in the majority of the areas where Cogeco offers digital cable and HD television.
www.cogeco.cawww.lcn.canoe.ca
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TORONTO – Despite a write-down in the value of its European subsidiary, Cogeco Cable presented 2009 financial year-end results that exceeded projections at its annual shareholders meeting late last week.
Consolidated revenue for 2009 grew by $141 million to $1.22 million, a 13.1% increase over the previous year. Consolidated operating income before amortization was up 17.7% to $524.4 million, due mainly to growth in revenue-generating units (RGU), rate increases and recent acquisitions in Canada.
However, Cogeco still recorded a net loss of $256.7 million for the year, due in large part to $383.6 million impairment loss of net of related income…
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