By Greg O’Brien
AS A YOUNG CANADIAN growing up in Timmins (hometown of NHL legends Frank and Peter Mahovlich, among several others) Saturday night hockey on TV was as regular, or normal, or expected, as church on Sunday. As reliable and loved as our family’s dog.
Hockey Night in Canada wasn’t just a staple. It was as much a part of life as eggs and cereal for breakfast or snow on the ground in the winter. We had a single-dial television in the mid-1970s that caught the few stations we had off-air. I was my dad’s remote control, standing by the…
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TROIS-RIVIERES, QC – Cogeco Inc. has nailed the naming rights to the new Trois-Rivieres amphitheatre.
The facility, which is scheduled to open in the spring of 2015, was officially unmveiled as ‘Amphitheatre Cogeco’ on Tuesday. The deal includes three optional five-year extensions, which could bring the duration of the agreement to 20 years.
Cogeco called the agreement “highly symbolic” noting that Trois-Rivieres is the company's birthplace.
"We are delighted that the amphitheatre will bear the Cogeco name," said Cogeco Cable president and CEO Louise St-Pierre, in the news release. "Cogeco was founded more than 56 years ago in Trois-Rivieres, where it blossomed…
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MONTREAL – Bell Media is making ten of its French-language specialty channels available for free to subscribers of Bell Satellite TV, Bell Fibe TV, Cogeco Cable, Shaw Direct, Videotron, and select other service providers.
The month-long free preview, dubbed Le Grand Débrouillage (The Great Freeview), runs from December 12 to January 12, 2014 and includes Canal Vie, Canal D, Ztélé, Historia, Séries+, VRAK TV, Disney Junior (French), MusiquePlus, MusiMax, and RDS Info.
The event also includes a contest where viewers have a chance to win $25,000. Bell Media is promoting Le Grand Débrouillage with a multi-platform campaign on television, radio, out-of-home,…
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ROGERS COMMUNUCATIONS' BLOCKBUSTER NHL deal puts a direct focus on the sheer costs of sports programming for distributors and their customers, the Canadian consumer.
Cartt.ca interviewed several executives across the Canadian television industry (including some distributors who spoke to us on the condition they not be identified) to discuss the impact sports is having on broadcasting in Canada and whether or not the business can survive the spiralling costs of this rich content.
Alyson Townsend, president of the independent cable group Canadian Cable System Alliance, said no one should be surprised by the consistent price increases consumers have paid for cable…
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OTTAWA – Leveraging a long line of food and lifestyle programming already under his belt, Chris Knight is taking his next gig, Gusto TV, to the Canadian TV masses this week.
With shows like Cook Like a Chef, Licence to Grill, The Great Canadian Food Show and Road Grill part of Knight’s pedigree Gusto is “a natural extension” to what he was already doing. The concept behind the channel came in 2009, when as he says, he looked at media concentration that was taking place then and realized “I was running out of guys to make TV shows for.”
Thus…
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MONTREAL – Fans of police investigations and forensics will have a channel that they can call their own when Canal D/Investigation debuts on December 12.
The new Bell Media-owned service is a French-language channel specializing in documentaries that explore the fascinating world of crime. It promises more than 500 hours of programming never-seen-before in Québec, including home grown productions Opération Police from Productions Sovimage, and Amour Fatal from CMJ Productions, as well as docu-reality shows on people who fight crime, and the history of organized crime.
“Television channels for fans of investigations and forensics have grown exponentially all over the world. That's…
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– SHAWINIGAN, QC – Cogeco Cable and TGV Net Mauricie have finalized a partnership aimed at providing businesses, organizations and residences in the Mauricie region with access to an inter-connected fibre-optic network and a range of related services.
TGV Net Mauricie is a non-profit entity whose mission is to act as a ‘carrier’ providing broadband connectivity throughout the Mauricie region by having accredited service providers offer various telecommunications services to businesses, organizations and homes in the region. This agreement allows Cogeco to offer high-speed Internet, telephone and digital television services, using the public network owned by TGV Net and its…
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TORONTO – Rogers’ new 12-year $5.2 billion broadcast and multimedia deal with the NHL may have grabbed headlines across the country, but will likely have little impact on the company’s bottom line, say industry analysts.
Rogers Communications executives said Tuesday the deal will be immediately EBITDA-accretive to its Media division, predicting an influx of $25 – $35 million in the first year, rising to more than $60 million per year after that. But Dvai Ghose, managing director/head of research for Canaccord Genuity, pointed out that Rogers Media only accounted for 4% of the parent company’s 2013 third quarter adjusted EBITDA.
In…
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OTTAWA – Turns out that creating actual public policy is far more complicated than a few easy sound bites about choice and protecting jobs.
While the federal government last week demanded a report from the CRTC on letting Canadians break up their subscription TV bundles by April 30th, the written direction to the CRTC from the Privy Council shows an argument that is far more complex than the throw away sentences about “protecting consumers” which were a part of the Speech from the Throne on October 16. It seems to be demanding a report on providing pick and pay without…
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OTTAWA – Forcing broadcast distributors to offer specialty services on a pick and pay basis may not result in big savings for consumers, Kevin Crull, president of Bell Media, said during a luncheon keynote speech at the International Institute of Communications Canada’s annual conference in Ottawa on Monday.
Crull’s comments come as the CRTC has undertaken a broad conversation with Canadians about the future of TV and as the federal government has all but told the industry it will force pick-and-pay upon it. After talking directly to consumers for a while, the Commission will…
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