MONTREAL – Cogeco Cable launched its Digital Phone service to most of its Hamilton region today.
“Like the residents of Burlington, Oakville, Windsor and Kingston, Ontario, and of Trois-Rivières, Drummondville and Saint-Hyacinthe, Québec, the majority of Hamilton residents will be able to enjoy this appealing offer, starting today, whether or not they already subscribe to a Cogeco Cable service. Service will be extended gradually to the rest of Hamilton city homes and will continue to be rolled out to most cities in Cogeco Cable’s territories by the end of 2006,” says the press release today.
Cogeco is the third…
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MONTREAL – While Cogeco Inc.’s radio division (RYTHME FM) continues to grow, the company’s TV broadcast outlet, TQS, struggled through 2005.
However, with new shows, the company is hoping to turn TQS around and has invested in some populist (some might say low-brow) reality shows. All part of the plan, however. “In television, TQS’s commitment to its ‘black sheep’ positioning is stronger than ever. The channel’s bold programming is blazing new trails for conventional television in an environment that is fiercely competitive and constantly changing,” reads the company’s third quarter results press release.
Loft Story II (a French Big…
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MONTREAL – Beating its guidance and re-setting projections going forward, fiscal 2005 finished pretty well for Cogeco Cable.
While its media side didn’t perform as strongly, all of the company’s cable financial and subscriber goals were met or exceeded for the year ended August 31st. Operating income before amortization rose 11.9% while net income finished 30% higher than forecast at $28.7 million. Free cash flow was $45.3 million, within the projected range, even with a pretty big ramp-up in telephony spending. CFO Pierre Gagne said in a conference call with financial analysts that without the voice over Internet…
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MONTREAL – Fourth-quarter revenue climbed by $9.6 million, or 6.2%, over the same period last year at Cogeco Inc., but poor performance on the company’s broadcast TV side dragged down its overall results.
The improved penetration of high-speed Internet services (HSI) and higher rates for cable TV services are mainly responsible for this increase. Net income came in at $600,000, or $0.04 per share, compared to $2.1 million or $0.13 per share in the previous fiscal year. “The net income dropped due to a reduction in operating income before amortization in the media sector,” says today’s press release.
"Among the…
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TORONTO – Asian Television Networks has acquired the exclusive Canadian rights to the Videocon Cup, a twelve game cricket series with India vs. South Africa and India vs. Sri Lanka beginning today and running through to the end of November 2005.
ATN also announced the launch of ATN-ZEE Cinema, a popular Indian movie channel, ATN-ZEE Gujarati, a regional Language channel, ATN-Aastha, a Spiritual, devotional and faith based channel with yoga, fitness, aromatherapy and live telecasts of major festivals of India, and ATN Bangla, the longest running independent satellite channel from Bangladesh.
All three launched October 19th on Rogers Cable.
ATN…
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MONTREAL – With published reports (including one here) saying that Cogeco is about to expand into Portugal through a major acquisition, CEO Louis Audet said this morning the company has actually looked into eight European expansion opportunities involving 10 countries.
Responding to what he called “rumors and speculation about alleged acquisition plans,” Audet read a prepared statement this morning about the company’s European expansion possibilities. He cautioned against advancing such theories and said he had nothing specific to announce.
“Wild speculation is never a good thing,” said the CEO during his quarterly conference call with financial analysts.
Noting that…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Look for a local telephony price battle in Montreal.
The CRTC took a first step towards local telephony deregulation on Thursday when it granted – on an interim basis – Bell Canada’s request to price its voice over IP service differently in different regions. Until now, if telcos wanted to drop prices, it had to drop prices across its entire footprint and could not target certain markets.
However, in Quebec, MSO Videotron is offering local telephony for as little as $16 a month and Bell is losing thousands of customers per week.
Bell doesn’t face similar pricing…
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ATLANTA, GA and PETERBOROUGH, ON – Canadian equipment supplier Capella Telecommunications this week announced a deal where it will sell, supply and service video on demand manufacturer Concurrent in Canada.
"With Capella’s experience, resources and relationships, Canadian operators will be able to deploy our innovative, field-proven video-on-demand solutions into their networks quickly, with smooth system integration and first-rate support,” said Concurrent’s vice-president of sales, Gary Brust, in a press release.
Under the terms of the agreement, Capella will immediately provide a direct sales and marketing channel along with system integration support for all of Concurrent’s on-demand technology, including their…
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TORONTO – G4techTV Canada announced today that digital cable and satellite subscribers of Rogers, Cogeco, Shaw, Videotron, Star Choice, Bell ExpressVu and Sasktel will get a free preview of the channel through November – and a chance to win a $5,000 digital makeover.
Viewers can win by spotting the G4techTV contest icon. Every time the icon is spotted, viewers can enter online (www.g4techtv.ca) by naming the show where they saw the icon. At the end of November, G4techTV will pick one lucky winner to win a $5,000 digital makeover for the hottest tech and gaming gadgets. Continue Reading
MONTREAL – Cogeco Cable announced today that it is adding Warner Bros programming to its video on demand service.
The cable company has signed an agreement with Warner Bros International Television Distribution (WBITD) to add new titles and classic movies.
WBITD will provide Cogeco Cable with box office hits such as Million Dollar Baby, Alexander, and soon Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Batman Begins and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire as well as many other titles from its extensive library.
Cogeco Cable customers can now choose from over 1,000 hours of programming including new movies, classics and…
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