VANCOUVER – For a guy who has supposedly moved to the boardroom from the CEO’s chair, Darren Entwistle still did a lot of talking during the Telus Q2 conference call with financial analysts.
The Telus executive chairman primarily spoke to a pair of important regulatory files which have the potential to dent the big wireless and wireline carrier’s performance (along with Rogers and Bell, for that matter): wholesale wireless roaming rates, and wholesale wireline broadband access.
Entwistle hammered home his point that facilities-based competition (where operators are required or incented to build…
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GATINEAU – Despite the fact cable and other TV carriers in many countries are compiling and using data gleaned from customer set top boxes to modify their programming and advertising, Canadian companies seem loathe to do the same or are apathetic about moving quickly to gather that real-time information, according to their submissions to the CRTC’s TV Policy Review, slated to get under way a month from tomorrow.
The Commission asked nine different questions about establishing a set-top box (STB) audience measurement system in Canada, covering issues from consumer privacy to costs and governance. With a few exceptions (especially from…
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GATINEAU – Now the really hard part begins for Robert Lantos: Convincing Canadian BDUs their customers will pay for an (almost) all-Canadian movie channel.
On Wednesday, the CRTC approved a Category B specialty channel license for Lantos’ Starlight, “a national, English-language specialty Category B service that would be devoted to Canadian movies, in particular, feature films and documentaries intended for theatrical release. It would include Canadian feature films, Canadian feature documentaries, Canadian made-for-TV movies, and programs with or about Canadian creators. All feature films intended for theatrical distribution would be presented without commercial interruption,” reads the…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC has approved two of 13 competing applications for new radio stations and retransmitters in the Vancouver area. But the decision wasn’t unanimous, and the dissenting commissioner believes one of the approvals puts the Regulator’s licensing process itself into question.
In the decision issued Wednesday, the Commission approved an application from 0971197 B.C. Ltd., a.k.a. Roundhouse Radio, for a spoken-word station in downtown Vancouver at 98.3 FM, and an adult contemporary music station in Surrey at 107.7 FM owned by Sukhvinder Badh’s South Fraser Broadcasting Inc. It denied the other nine applications for…
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CAIRO/LONDON – Despite an uncertain future, Wind Mobile continues to add subscribers in good sized chunks, adding 38,875 net new customers in the quarter ended June 30th – according to the financial results of its parent company Global Telecom Holdings (part of the VimpelCom empire).
To put it into perspective that’s more net new subs than Vidéotron (one of Wind’s apparent suitors) and equal to the net new wireless postpaid subs which Rogers attracted in the second quarter.
As of the end of June, Wind Canada had 741,000 customers (20% more than the end of the second…
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MONTREAL – Though Quebecor’s Thursday morning conference call with financial analysts was ostensibly about its solid second quarter financial results, the biggest chunk of the hour on the phone was spent talking about what it would take for the company to take wireless national and when it might make a decision. Here are the main points we took away.
1. If Videotron (or some other brand) is going to go national, it likely won’t be going it alone. Company CEO Pierre Dion and CFO Jean-Francois Pruneau were pretty clear about that. The value the company brings…
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GATINEAU – Rogers has been left quite a regulatory pile of laundry to sort through with its license renewals announced Thursday. And, the company was told "no" a lot.
The CRTC has renewed the licences of most Rogers-owned television services until 2016, but though it’s a short-term renewal (at Rogers’ request, so it lines up with the licence terms of the other major English-language broadcasters), the decision makes a lot of changes to how Rogers will operate, particularly in light of its $5.2-billion deal for rights to National Hockey League games.
The biggest change in the decision is that Rogers’s services…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC today announced it is prohibiting exclusivity provisions in all roaming agreements between Canadian wireless service providers, saying it has found clear instances of unjust discrimination by Rogers Communications.
In December 2013, the CRTC launched a public proceeding to look at whether wireless service providers were subjecting smaller Canadian competitors to unjustly discriminatory roaming rates, terms and conditions – and it found some.
“Rogers has imposed exclusivity clauses in roaming agreements that prohibited smaller service providers from using networks from any other carrier. Additionally, they charged some new Canadian service providers significantly higher roaming rates compared to rates…
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TORONTO – Rogers Communications and WWE today announced a 10-year broadcast and multimedia agreement, making Rogers the exclusive distributor of WWE's flagship programming in Canada through 2024.
Financial terms were not disclosed but the deal extends WWE's current programming on Sportsnet 360 (formerly The Score) and includes the right to distribute WWE Network as a premium linear channel, with a preview beginning August 12, according to the press release.
Rogers will be the exclusive distribution partner of all WWE pay-per-view events throughout Canada and will sponsor an application to the CRTC to bring the popular WWE Network to Canada as a…
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GATINEAU – There is broad consensus among parties to the CRTC’s TV policy review that a mandated small basic package is not likely to come with a lower price tag.
A skinny basic to go along with a pure pick-and-pay channel regime could also cause some sticker shock, not only for consumers but also for broadcast distributors looking to acquire programming, according to the big content owners and the VI companies.
Bell Canada argues that broadcasters will bear the brunt of unbundling. First, because channels will have less penetration, fewer customers will share the costs of that service, driving prices skywards….
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