GATINEAU – This sounds something like the Spike TV debate.
In January this year Discovery Wings changed its name to The Military Channel and significantly altered its programming. Soon after, the Canadian Cable Telecommunications Association asked for a change in the eligible satellite list to reflect the switch.
The CCTA has submitted that the Commission’s current authorization to distribute Discovery Wings extends to The Military Channel. The U.S. channel is owned by Discovery Communications.
On Monday, however, the CRTC issued a call for comments on the CCTA’s request to alter the list. The channel remains on the digital…
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TORONTO – The Ontario Hockey League, along with Rogers Cable and Cogeco Cable today announced the 2005-06 broadcast schedule of games for the OHL Action Pak.
The schedule includes an unprecedented 439 game broadcasts through the 2005-06 regular season schedule. Additional broadcasts will be announced during the 2006 OHL Playoffs.
The OHL Action Pak on Rogers and Cogeco was introduced last November and offers Digital Cable subscribers throughout Ontario and New Brunswick with more Ontario Hockey League game coverage than ever before.
In addition to the OHL Action Pak, live OHL broadcasts of local games can be seen live…
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TORONTO – Manitoba Telecom Services president Cheryl Barker said Tuesday that the company recently added its 45,000th digital television customer, meaning the Manitoba telco now serves over 20% of all TV customers in Winnipeg.
During a panel session at the BMO Nesbitt Burns Media and Telecom conference Tuesday in Toronto Barker said that the company hit the mark on September 5th (leaving unsaid the sizable dent the figure put in Shaw Cable’s customer rolls in the city).
MTS TV is a digital subscriber line delivered digital TV service which offers three streams of digital TV and high speed Internet to…
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TORONTO – Sonic hit the shelves this week, a new music magazine developed by Max Trax, Galaxie and Toronto-based ad agency ZiG. It’s a free bilingual consumer publication “for music lovers with a thirst for knowledge and a desire to constantly expand their music collection,” says the press release. Sonic (Volume I, Issue I, at right) will be distributed to all Canadian cable and satellite providers beginning the week of September 12.
The 20-page premiere issue features rock icons U2 on the cover, as well as articles looking at seven genres of music found throughout the…
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THIS IS A BIG JOB. No wonder Rogers Communications Group’s president and COO Nadir Mohamed doesn’t want to talk about succession. He’s got lots on his plate to worry about now, rather than what his next job might be.
Besides, last week’s National Post Business article beat that story to death (and then some) last week.
What we wanted to know is where the company’s priorities lay. What’s job one for him rightnow? How is he going to bring together two disparate groups (cable and wireless, together a $5 billion business), two completely different technological platforms, into a cohesive,…
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WHILE WE CAN’T SAY for sure that Compton Communications will be the smallest North American video on demand provider when it launches this fall, we figure it’s pretty unlikely that many other 5,000-customer cable companies in Canada or the U.S. are planning on offering it that soon.
It’s a very expensive technology, fraught with difficult to solve issues, especially for a small operator. Think Paramount’s EVP of programming will have Compton’s VOD launch on his priority list, for example?
Compton Cable (which serves the Port Perry, Ont. region, about an hour’s drive northeast of Toronto, on Lake Scugog) has…
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TORONTO – Look forward to seeing every grain of sand in the bunkers – not to mention every drop of sweat rolling down John Daly’s thick neck – as TSN and CTV will show every minute of the Bell Canadian Open golf tournament in high definition.
The Bell Globemedia TV channels today announced live coverage of the first two rounds will air September 8 and 9 beginning at 1 p.m. ET on TSN and TSN HD. The third and final rounds on September 10 and 11 will be seen live on TSN and TSN HD from 1 p.m. to…
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MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – As if the voice market wasn’t crowded or confusing enough, Google Inc. yesterday launched Google Talk, a downloadable Windows application that enables its Gmail users to quickly and easily talk or IM with their friends for free.
Google Talk is not voice in the way that carriers such as Bell or Rogers or Shaw or Cogeco or Primus offer it. Those carriers offer voice service the way most people use it – on the phone. Google Talk is chatting via computer
"Google Talk further enriches our users’ communications experience, whether they choose to communicate via…
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MONTREAL – Videotron is adding telephony customers as fast as it can keep up and the company announced today that it is rolling out its residential cable telephone service in Montreal.
Consumer response to Videotron’s new product has been strong and as of August 12, six months after the service was launched, more than 62,500 customers in Laval, the South Shore, the West Island and the Quebec City area had made the switch.
Those numbers make Videotron the leader among telecom companies in Canada that provide telephone service via IP (Internet Protocol) technology, but early reports out of Shaw,…
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PHILADELPHIA – While CTAM Canada put together a fun night for programmers and distributors on Sunday evening here in Philadelphia (see photos below this story), CTAM Summit attendees on Monday morning were shown that the programmer-distributor relationship can be as contentious as ever when we start talking about high definition.
During the “Monetizing Advanced Video Services” session, Time Warner Cable’s SVP programming Lynne Costantini, Showtime Networks’ SVP marketing Geof Rochester and Channing Dawson, SVP emerging media at Scripps Networks (Food Network, HGTV, Fine Living, DIY Network) argued about who should pay for HDTV.
When Dawson complained about the high…
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