SEVERAL SOURCES have told Cartt.ca over the past number of weeks that Rogers Communications has grabbed the over-the-top bull by the horns and has been signing a massive number of content deals and at least one significant partnership agreement (if not more) in an effort to battle back against Netflix in Canada by launching a new, national, OTT video portal.
Our multiple sources (all of whom requested anonymity for business reasons) have told Cartt.ca that Rogers is spending over $100 million buying all the video content windows available from as many rights holders (such as Disney/ABC, Warner Bros., 20th Century…
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TORONTO – Corus Entertainment said Monday that it officially closed its acquisition of Historia, Séries+ and the remaining 50% of Teletoon Canada Inc. on January 1, 2014.
After receiving the CRTC’s blessing on the deal late last month, Corus now owns 100% of Historia, Séries+ and Teletoon Canada (which includes Teletoon, Télétoon, Teletoon Retro, Télétoon Rétro and Cartoon Network). Last April, Corus also consolidated its ownership of ABC Spark and divested its 20% interest in Food Network Canada to corporate cousin Shaw Communications.
Corus said that the net cash consideration for these assets is $481 million Cdn. and was paid…
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OTTAWA – Corus Entertainment has received CRTC approval to proceed with its purchase of a number of television stations being sold by Bell Media.
The Commission said Friday that the $400 million sale of Teletoon, Historia and Séries+ “will result in a consolidation that will facilitate the creation, promotion and distribution of diverse, high-quality Canadian programming for Canadian and international audiences, particularly in the children’s and animation programming sectors. It will also enhance diversity and foster greater competition in the French-language market.”
It did, however, impose conditions of licence designed to “limit the potential for anti-competitive behaviour by Corus”, and ordered the broadcaster to file licence…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Canadians will soon be able to subscribe to any homegrown news service they want, either in theme packs or a la carte, the CRTC announced Thursday.
“Canadian news services are an important part of our democracy,” said CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais, in a statement. “With the rules we are announcing today, Canadians, as citizens, will have access to the news services that are of interest to them and will therefore have an opportunity to be exposed to a variety of opinions on matters of public concern.”
The move is like Christmas coming early for struggling Sun News Network which…
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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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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC has laid out a $233 million, four-year modernization plan for Northwestel that includes improved broadband Internet services and 4G wireless services for northern Canadians.
The Commission said Wednesday that these improvements must include:
– upgrading and expanding its broadband Internet service offering;
– extending wireless services to many additional communities; and
– upgrading equipment in order to support enhanced calling services, such as call display and call waiting, as well as local number portability and local network interconnection.
“We recognize that modern telecommunications services play an essential role in the North’s economic development and in meeting the growing demand for…
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OTTAWA – The federal government is capping domestic wholesale wireless roaming rates in an effort to benefit Canadian consumers and give a leg-up to new wireless entrants.
Industry Minister James Moore said Wednesday that the Government will amend the Telecommunications Act to prevent large wireless providers from charging other companies more than they charge their own customers for mobile voice, data and text services. This measure will be in place until the CRTC, which launched its own investigation into roaming rates last week, makes a decision.
Minister Moore said in a statement that high domestic roaming rates hold back many providers, especially…
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FOR A YEAR NOW, Sam Norouzi has been working tirelessly toward getting a new conventional television station on the air.
It's not something you see much these days. Unlike specialty channels, where applications come in by the bucketload (but are launched by the thimbleful…), the number of conventional television stations has only shrunk over the past decade. In 2006, there were 101 private commercial stations in Canada, according to the CRTC. By 2012, after the bottom had fallen out of the advertising market, that had dropped to 91.
Even tougher for Norouzi, his station, dubbed ICI, is an ethnic station –…
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THE FINE FOLKS AT CHCH recently let Cartt.ca editor and publisher Greg O'Brien take camera operator Thomas Bowser out on the streets of Oakville and Hamilton to do what the CRTC is doing – and hoping the industry will do more of – ask Canadians to Talk TV.
We spent a few hours on November 22nd on Lakeshore Drive in Oakville, then in Hamilton on the corner of King William and James St. N., and the corner of King St. W. and Marion Ave. and did our best to Talk TV with these random Canadians. CHCH even had Greg on…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC is expected to rule this week on Corus Entertainment’s request to buy French specialty channels Historia and Series+ and the piece of Teletoon (including its other animation brands) it does not yet own.
Corus agreed to purchase the assets last March as part of the divestitures required as conditions of Bell Media’s purchase of Astral Media. While Corus already held 50% of Teletoon/Télétoon (as well as Teletoon Retro in English and French, and the Cartoon Network) with Astral, it owned neither of the two French specialties, both of which had been split…
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