TORONTO – The Connection 2012 conference attracted a record number of attendees reports the Ontario Association of Broadcasters (OAB).
“ OAB Connection 2012 hit a new high level for our annual conference. Our six speakers presented a diverse set of perspectives on current trends affecting our industry through the eyes of marketers, programmes, an investment analyst, a sales professional, and a market researcher,” remarked OAB President, Doug Kirk.
The conference, at the Westin Bristol Place Hotel, featured an extensive line-up of industry speakers including Scott Cuthbertson, Sean Ross, Donald Cooper, Paul Weyland, and Alastair…
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TORONTO – Network service providers must do much more to make sure all Canadians can gain access to the internet, no matter where they are, or what their economic situation said CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais on Monday.
In his keynote address to the 2012 Canadian ISP Summit, the chair noted that the Internet “defines how Canadians live, work and play. It is part and parcel of almost every aspect of our lives,” he said. Creators can share their work more easily, Canadians can consume that work multiple ways, relationships can be brought closer together, and key services like education and…
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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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GATINEAU – The CRTC is holding a public hearing on November 7, 2012, to consider three applications:
• Rogers Broadcasting's application to acquire the assets of the Montreal-based television station CJNT
• An application to operate a new over-the-air television station in Montreal that would be called International Channel/Canal International (ICI)
• CHMZ-FM Radio Limited's application to acquire the assets of the radio station CHMZ-FM Tofino. The Commission says it will also address past and current compliance of CHMZ-FM with respect to its regulations.
The hearing will be held in the Conference…
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OTTAWA – Bell is falling far behind schedule in rolling out broadband services to rural communities using public funds and will only have 12 Commission-approved communities completed by year’s end, not the 49 communities it forecast says the CRTC. The regulator is now demanding that Bell Canada and Bell Aliant submit quarterly reports on the status of their deferral account project to ensure it gets back on schedule in order to be completed as agreed by August, 2014.
In an August, 2010 decision regarding how Bell should dispose of the funds remaining in its deferral account the…
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OTTAWA – Industry Canada has plans to deal with the mobile spectrum crunch. It involves allocation tweaks, technology innovation and some potential harmonization with the U.S.
Just before Industry Minister Christian Paradis spoke about spectrum on Tuesday afternoon, Helen McDonald, senior assistant deputy minister for spectrum, information technologies and telecommunications at the department told the IIC Canada conference that the 270 MHz mobile broadband spectrum currently available could double to nearly 550 MHz of bandwidth by 2014. Much of this could come from allocation changes in the 1700 MHz and 2100 MHz bands as well as…
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OTTAWA – Does the “Made in Canada” brand matter to Canadians when it comes to their television and film content? Does it matter internationally? If so, how can the industry better promote it to make it matter?
Those were some of the questions discussed Monday during the pre-conference symposium on the promotion of Canadian film and TV content held in conjunction with the International Institute of Communications annual Canadian conference here in Ottawa. Sponsored by Telefilm Canada, the Canada Media Fund and the CRTC, the symposium delegates tried to come up with ways of better-promoting Canadian film and TV in…
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MONTREAL – BCE Inc. reports profits slipped 12% in the third quarter to $569 million compared with $642 million a year earlier, but is still on track to meet the 2012 financial guidance it issued in August. It attributed the drop “mainly due to lower income tax expense in Q3 2011 from the favourable resolution of tax matters.” Revenue increased 1.8% to $4.3-billion, while operating revenue rose 1.5% to $4.98 billion. Bell EBITDA was up 5.2% in Q3 on growth of 15.2% at Bell Wireless and 92.6% at Bell Media, partly offset by a 6.2% decline at Bell…
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OTTAWA – Wireless carriers have until December 4 to file their intervention regarding the upcoming CRTC hearings to create a mandatory code for mobile wireless services which begins February 11, 2013 and is expected to run all week. It has also added a two-phased online consultation process which begins this November 13.
The Commission notes that, as a result of this proceeding, it could impose additional obligations on some or all mobile wireless service providers, including resellers, whether or not they are parties to this proceeding.
Interveners must indicate on the first page any special…
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TORONTO – The website for Canadian Broadcast Sales (CBS), Radiocbs.com, has been redesigned to produce “Canada’s most comprehensive source for information on radio” and is now available for use by the advertising industry.
“In the absence of the Radio Marketing Bureau, we saw the need to significantly enhance our website and make it the “go to” source for radio information in Canada,” said Patrick Grierson, president of CBS. “After consultation with agencies, advertisers and stations, our in-house Research and IT departments collaborated with Imagination Plus, a leading website design and development firm, to produce a…
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