GATINEAU – The long-anticipated expansion of Amazon Prime Video into Canada could happen as early as December 1.
At least Mary Ann Turcke, Bell Media president, believes it, having told the CRTC as much on Tuesday during the company’s license renewal hearing.
"Now, a new global OTT competitor – Amazon Prime – is entering the Canadian market in two days. So it's not just our fellow Canadian broadcasters who will try to outbid us for first run, original programming, but it's Netflix and now Amazon, two entities that are not subject to the same regulatory requirements as us and that have…
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TORONTO — Since launching five years ago with 11 full-time employees, under the leadership of Canadian TV industry veterans Jay Switzer and David Kines, commercial-free movie service Hollywood Suite has slowly but surely been growing.
After rejigging its original studio-focused channels a year ago and rebranding them as a quartet of decades-focused channels in anticipation of the rollout of the pick-and-pay regime, company executives believe the company is well positioned for the new market reality of a la carte TV channel choice.
Despite continuing to be small in stature, now employing 14, Hollywood Suite’s success shouldn’t come as too…
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GATINEAU – The demise of Shomi has raised a number of questions regarding the future of domestic streaming services in the face of competition from global competitors such as Netflix, including some from CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais today. But for Rogers Media, it means that partnering with global giants might be the best approach going forward.
Rick Brace, president at Rogers Media, noted during the company’s appearance before the CRTC’s major English language broadcasters licence renewal hearing, that while shomi was a response to Netflix, it quickly became apparent that the cost to acquire programming was escalating quickly and the…
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TORONTO – According to new research, 30% of all Canadian online households (3.4 million of them) now have adedicated streaming device (Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku, etc.) attached to a TV set, more than double the 12% with such devices in December 2013.
Solutions Research Group’s latest installment of its Digital Life Canada independent syndicated study also shows households headed by millennials (singles, couples or with kids) are the most avid users of dedicated streaming devices and subscription over-the-top services like Netflix – based on trajectory of growth, these are poised take over paid TV by mid-2018.
As well, cord-shaving is also…
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LAVAL – CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais stressed the idea of “citizenship obligations” as he concluded a hearing Thursday into licence renewals for major French-language private television broadcasters.
Questioning Corus Entertainment, Bell Media, Groupe V Média and Quebecor Media as they presented replies to interveners, he asked each of them about how they could better serve indigenous and minority-language producers and viewers, and their commitments to closed captioning. The latter led to an awkward moment as Blais admonished V’s representatives.
“I was preoccupied Tuesday when I asked questions about subtitles to TVA and I heard laughs from your group in the audience,”…
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LAVAL — After a day of pushing major French-language television broadcasters to justify their demands for fewer regulatory burdens, the CRTC pushed the other way on Wednesday, for interest groups to justify the need for regulatory intervention as Canadians increasingly get their audiovisual content from unlicensed sources.
“I see a representation of a corporate interest, but not necessarily from the person that the CRTC must serve, the TV viewer,” chairman Jean-Pierre Blais told the Association québécoise de la production médiatique, one of many production groups to present at the licence renewal hearing in Laval, north of…
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TORONTO – In a sometimes entertainingly worded decision, Ontario Superior Court of Justice judge Fred Myers sided with Bell Media in saying VMedia’s new Roku TV skinny basic cable application launched in September breaks the law and that Bell’s channels CTV and CTV2 must be removed from the service.
He also awarded $150,000 in costs to Bell Media. The case over the app, which we reported on previously, was heard last week in Toronto.
While noting “some of the statutory drafting and terminology used in…
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OTTAWA – The disruption of the traditional broadcast TV model – the one-to-many into a one-to-one relationship – means that data has become critically important to the future of broadcasting.
Kelly Steen, partnership strategy lead at Wattpad, highlighted how data from its storytelling application is leading to the creation of new types of programming during a session at last week’s International Institute of Communications Canadian chapter conference in Ottawa. For reference, Wattpad has 45 million monthly visitors, adds 103,000 new users every day and has an average viewing time of 30 minutes. All this from a large millennial audience.
She noted…
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LAVAL – “There’s so much discussion of flexibility that you’d think we were at a yoga club,” cracked CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais during day one of the license renewal hearing for Canada’s French-language TV broadcasters.
The broadcasters, as is their wont, called for more flexibility and reduced quotas for Canadian programming – and both Quebecor Media and Groupe V Média took shots at the national public broadcaster, even though it’s not part of the hearing.
“We’re worried about the fact that Radio-Canada continues to stray from its mandate to adopt a resolutely commercial approach,” said TVA president Julie Tremblay (pictured), in…
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Also offers up new best practices: PIAC says not far enough
GATINEAU – While noting Canadian subscription TV carriers are operating within the rules, the CRTC made the unprecedented decision to renew the large carriers' broadcast distribution undertaking licenses for just a single year, as opposed to the usual seven-year term.
To the CRTC, this continues its efforts to put consumers at the centre of the Canadian broadcasting system. In the November 21 decision, the Regulator offered what it sees as the best practices that broadcast distributors should undertake to ensure that Canadians are aware of small basic packages, their limits and offers related to them.
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