Telecom has been teasing launch for months
By Ahmad Hathout
Cogeco executives said Wednesday the telecom will fully launch its much-anticipated wireless services as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) this fall.
The declaration comes after years of inquiries and after it opened pre-registrations earlier this year for its existing internet customers that executives said yielded demand that exceeded their expectations.
“We already have an initial cohort of users on the service and will broaden sales in 12 markets over the coming weeks, ahead of a full commercial launch later this fall,” Cogeco CEO Frederic Perron said…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The Federal Court of Appeal has set a date for a hearing into whether the CRTC erred in freezing Rogers’s ability to move and remove certain Corus channels.
The court will hear the case on September 23 at 9:30 am in a special sitting in Toronto, according to an order dated Friday.
Rogers filed the original application against two confidential November decisions of the CRTC that froze its ability to remove or relocate three Corus channels: Slice, Home Network, and Flavour Network.
Rogers has argued that the Broadcasting Act’s standstill rule – which requires the two companies…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Corus is preparing to pull the plug on a handful of children’s services come September 1, Cartt has learned, amid the company’s pursuit to cut down on costs and as the CRTC weighs what to do about such at-risk programming.
Corus has told distributors that Disney XD, Disney Jr., Disney French (La Chaine Disney), Nickelodeon, and ABC Spark will be pulled at the start of the new broadcast year, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told us, which was then confirmed by Corus.
“Corus regularly reviews its portfolio of channels to ensure we are meeting the evolving…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Telus is asking the CRTC to ensure that all Canadian distributors get a fair shot at negotiating carriage of content held by Rogers and Bell.
“It ensures that Canadians nationwide will have competitively priced access to readily discoverable Canadian content that should be accessible to Canadians across the country at fair prices because it precludes vertically integrated companies like Rogers and Bell from keeping important content to themselves,” Daniel Stern, Telus’s associate general counsel, said Thursday.
The overarching Telus position is that service providers must be able to bundle television and internet to compete against these VIs. The…
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By Ahmad Hathout
In an extraordinary legal filing, Bell is accusing Telus of training and using door-to-door salespeople to pitch an unlicensed IPTV application to get customers to switch to Telus internet services.
The activity is allegedly taking place in areas where Telus wholesales internet service from Bell, according to a statement of claim in Ontario Superior Court, filed Thursday.
The representatives “promote, facilitate, authorize, and assist in the installation of an illegal, unlicensed IPTV application … that reproduces and retransmits Canadian and international programming, including works and signals in which Bell and its affiliated programmers hold copyright,” the statement alleges.
The representatives…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The head of Corus said Thursday that the CRTC’s recent decision to make the company’s 15 Global stations eligible for funding from the Independent Local News Fund (ILNF) will make a significant impact on its financials, as it deals with advertising uncertainty heading into the fourth quarter.
It’s too soon to tell whether the roughly three-week-old decision will come in time to assist the media company going into the traditionally softer fourth quarter. But if it does, it would come at an important time for the company, as it battles a difficult advertising and high-content-cost…
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By Ahmad Hathout
An Eastlink executive said Wednesday that the company has experienced challenges getting large streaming platforms to do deals with a smaller distributor like itself, as more Canadians seek bundles with both linear and online options.
“It is extremely key,” Andy Garrett, vice president of product management, said about being able to do package deals with big streamers like Netflix and Apple TV. “I know a lot of the larger streamers are looking for or wanting to do business with a large provider. So they would typically say that we’re too small and we’re not worth their time.
“Not being…
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Northwestel announced Wednesday that Atlin, B.C. — a community previously unconnected to terrestrial internet — is the first community in northern Canada to receive 1 Gbps internet speeds powered by fibre-to-the-home technology.
Northwestel said it completed its fibre transport network to Atlin in December 2024, which enabled Bell Mobility cellular service in the community. “Now that the in-community fibre infrastructure is in place, Northwestel has begun offering fibre internet, TV, and fibre phone services to Atlin,” a Northwestel press release said.
To celebrate the launch in Atlin, Northwestel is offering discounts for a limited time…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Quebecor said Thursday that the CRTC should consider eliminating rules that have no equivalent in the online world, including what it calls micromanaging of commercial relationships under the decade-old Wholesale Code.
Similar to sentiment from Bell on Wednesday, Quebecor executives told the CRTC studying the market dynamics between broadcasters and programmers that the Canadian system is no longer a “walled garden” environment closed off from the myriad of online options, and that more needs to be done to level the playing field.
Quebecor’s recommendations in general include the removal of the Wholesale Code; in particular, it…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Bell urged the CRTC on Wednesday to loosen the rigid rules surrounding how broadcasters and programmers are allowed to negotiate the packaging and payment of content.
The vertically-integrated company said there are certain commission rules dating back to 2015 that are hampering the ability of both the distributor and programmer to get the best commercial outcome in a system that is now flooded with online options.
“Since the introduction of the Wholesale Code, there’s a lot of prohibitions on specific packaging terms in our negotiations with BDUs,” Ben Keys, Bell Media’s director of content distribution, said Wednesday. “And what…
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