OTTAWA – Canada's Telecommunications Hall of Fame has announced that Omer Girard, a founding father of Canadian cable television, is the 2012 recipient of the coveted Neotelis Canadian Telecom Career Service Award for material contributions to the promotion of telecommunications in Canada. Girard, soon to celebrate his 92nd birthday, was selected to receive the Canadian Telecom Career Service Award for industry leadership and vision, innovation in service and dedication and sacrifice in advancing the interests of the Canadian cable television industry.
Omer Girard's outstanding career in the Canadian telecom industry began 55 years ago…
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OTTAWA – On Thursday, the Supreme Court of Canada will release its ruling on whether or not the CRTC has the jurisdiction to let conventional, over-the-air local broadcasters pursue a fee for the carriage of their signals by subscription television providers. The appeal was heard back in April, as Cartt.ca reported.
The ability for local broadcasters to charge a cable, satellite or telco TV provider a wholesale fee (and by extension of course, Canadian subscribers) has been something TV station owners have pursued off and on for decades. The CBC asked for the ability to pursue…
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MONTREAL – Cogeco Cable has launched its Turbo 20, Ultimate 40 and Ultimate 60 High Speed Internet (HSI) packages in Chelsea and Wakefield, Quebec. The company says its DOCSIS 3.0 HSI packages offer speed and pricing comparable to competitors in the region.
"We always strive to offer our customers more flexibility, speed and choices. Today, the whole family can use the Internet at the same time for online banking, video gaming, shopping or for downloading videos or films, and all with the same service. Cogeco's HSI packages Turbo 20, Ultimate 40 and Ultimate 60 meet those…
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GATINEAU – Having heard nine days of complaints, plaudits and the general direction of questions being asked by commissioners CBC/Radio-Canada committed to air more programs of national interest (PNI), regional French-language programming and children’s TV shows during the reply stage of its CRTC licence renewal hearing which wrapped up on Friday.
Some of the new proposals in French language services include 100 hours of per year of original Canadian programming, a commitment to do its best to reach 10 hours of local production in the Windsor market beginning in September 2013, and a willingness to accept a condition of licence…
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MONTREAL- Cogeco Cable reports it has completed the acquisition of Atlantic Broadband from ABRY Partners which was announced on July 18, 2012. Formed in 2003, Atlantic Broadband operates cable systems in Western Pennsylvania, Southern Florida, Maryland, Delaware and South Carolina.
Serving about 251,000 television service customers, Atlantic Broadband is currently the 12th largest cable operator in the United States and provides analog and digital television, as well as high speed Internet (HSI) and telephony services.
"This is a very important day for Cogeco Cable as this acquisition marks our entry into the United States market….
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TORONTO – Sixteen Candles, one of the most popular teen movies from famed 1980s movie director the late John Hughes, will be the first movie shown on Rewind, Channel Zero’s latest specialty channel brand, when it launches Saturday.
Replacing Movieola in channel lineups (the short film channel moves to its new online home) Rewind will feature flicks such as The Godfather, Blues Brothers, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Moonstruck, Edward Scissorhands and many others – all targeted towards Generation Xers who came of age in the 70s, 80s and 1990s. In fact, the whole first weekend is being dubbed “High School…
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MONTRÉAL – Cogeco Diffusion’s senior management has apologized for comments and actions that 98.5 FM on-air host Jacques Fabi made when a woman phoned in to his show “Fabi la nuit” and called the Holocaust a beautiful thing. Fabi never attempted to interrupt the woman and even sympathized with her statements.
Cogeco Diffusion also confirmed it has suspended Fabi without pay for a period of one month, effective on the date of the incident which occurred on November 21. B'nai Brith Canada is still demanding an on-air apology from Fabi.
"Cogeco Diffusion and 98.5 FM…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC is threatening to withhold subsidies to four Quebec small ILECs for delays in opening up their networks to local telephone competition. Cogeco Cable claims the delays have prevented it from offering competing triple-play bundles (telephone, Internet, television) to those regions.
The regulator denied Cogeco the settlement it sought, but instead issued a Notice of Consultation regarding the potential withholding of subsidy payments to CoopTel, Téléphone Guèvremont Inc., Téléphone Milot Inc., and Sogetel Inc.
The decision stems from the failure of the ILECs to complete an interconnection arrangement based on leased…
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MONTREAL – Henri Audet, the elder statesman of the Canadian cable and broadcast pioneers who built Cogeco from a single broadcast TV station, died November 3. He was 94.
With an electrical engineering degree from MIT, Audet joined the CBC in 1949 when it was just a radio broadcaster beginning to explore television. He and a few others led the public broadcaster’s push into the new medium, which saw the first station go live in Toronto in 1952 – and two years later the first French-language CBC TV station in Montreal.
However, the CBC’s television coverage was very limited then and…
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MONTREAL – Cogeco Cable is adding 66 new HD channels bringing its HDTV programming line-up to 150 channels in the majority of its Ontario market.
New channels include youth programming (Disney XD HD, Cartoon Network HD, Teletoon HD, ABC Spark HD), sports programming (Sportsnet World HD), movie programming (TMN Fest HD, TMN Encore 2 HD), lifestyle programming (Travel&Escape HD, food Network HD), and more (Space HD, Discovery HD, Comedy Network HD). Cogeco’s HD channels are free with the subscription of the equivalent standard definition channel.
“Cogeco HD TV service offers an exceptional quality and viewing…
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