WINNIPEG – Canwest Global let go 560 employees today as part of an effort to cut the broadcast and newspaper company’s annualized operating costs by approximately $61 million. Of that number 210 are being cut from the broadcasting side.
The job cuts amount to 5% of the company’s total workforce and will happen through voluntary buyouts, attrition and reductions. These reductions are in addition to several hundred jobs that have already been eliminated over the last two years.
“These actions are a result of the current economic environment as well as the structural challenges in the conventional television model,”…
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BOSTON – The four services of the so-called "quad-play" don’t go together quite as easily as some tend to assume, delegates to the 2008 CTAM Summit in Boston were told Monday afternoon.
There are such differences inherent with video, wireline voice, high speed Internet and wireless (especially wireless) that just selling a bundle of four – while it sounds nice and lucrative – certainly takes a lot more thought and creativity to do right.
Here in the States, cable operators haven’t yet made full leaps into wireless like some other companies around the world (“All of us in cable have…
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TORONTO – The CBC and Al Gore’s Current Media are getting together to launch Current Canada, a new "cross-platform media company" aimed at young adults, the two companies announced today.
Retracing the history a little shows the new channel is a completion of a circle – of sorts anyway – as Current comes home to its ownership roots with this launch.
An American news/information/opinion channel and online presence aimed at young Americans – Current was in its past life Newsworld International – a cable news channel launched by the CBC and Power Corporation in the 1990s in the U.S….
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GATINEAU – Shaw Cable must change the way it treats and markets Canada’s gay and lesbian category one digital specialty service Outtv, the CRTC ruled today.
The specialty service and Shaw have had a long and rocky history, dating to its launch in 2001 as Pridevision, back when it was owned by Score Media. Ownership of the channel has changed a couple of times since and the most recent owners, extremely frustrated at how the big western cableco has treated the channel, went to the Commission earlier this year for help.
Tuesday’s decision found that Shaw has subjected the…
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VANCOUVER – Shore 104, Vancouver’s next radio station, will soon hit the airwaves, the independent broadcaster announced today.
“The offices are open and studio construction is underway,” says a press release. In June the company won the last available FM frequency in Vancouver from the CRTC, beating out 15 other applicants for the 104.1 FM slot.
The new station, “will be Canada’s first true Triple A format with strong 25-54 appeal and will serve Greater Vancouver and the Lower Mainland,” says the release.
The playlist will feature a blend of artists such as Joni Mitchell, Feist, Dave Matthews Band,…
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OTTAWA – Perhaps a little lost in the explanation of the CRTC’s policy release on BDUs, specialties and fee-for-carriage was a warning from the chairman that the Commission’s pace may have to slow a little, due to a shortage or resources.
While introducing Konrad von Finckenstein Monday morning, Canwest’s head of regulatory, Charlotte Bell, noted the CRTC was “tackling many issues at a breathtaking pace,” and that he has “called as many hearings as any chair that I can remember.”
However, when he took the stage Monday morning for his highly anticipated explanation of how the Commission came to…
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OTTAWA – You could tell that Thursday’s CRTC policy release was still a pretty fresh wound for those whose jobs are rather directly affected by the Commission’s new directives.
The policy folks heading the panel entitled: The Buzz Around the BDU Regulatory Framework Monday morning at the Canadian Association of Broadcasters annual convention were still digesting the new framework and maybe just a little touchy about what it will mean to them and their companies.
Before she heard CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein make his speech at breakfast, where he touted conventional broadcasters as “the cornerstone of the system,”…
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MONTREAL – Quebecor Media says that for the most part, they’re “pleased” with the CRTC decision from last week, saying in a company press release that the new regulatory framework “seems to point Canadian broadcasting policy toward less regulation and greater competition in the area of telecommunications to the benefit of Canadians.”
The release also said that the company will consider launching new networks and may submit applications for new licenses in light of the loosening of genre protection in the areas of general interest news and sports.
However, the release said that the company “regrets” that the many…
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TORONTO – GlassBox Television is set to launch a new multi-platform channel dedicated to emerging Canadian music later this month, the company said today.
Called Aux, the channel will focus on Canadian artists through videos, live performance, artist interviews, in-depth profiles, behind-the-scenes docs, news, and insider reports on top industry events, the release continues.
Aux will premiere with a weekly two hour programming block on Bite TV, the company’s specialty channel, beginning November 24th at 9 p.m. ET. GlassBox currently has an application before the CRTC for a category 2 specialty television license for the service, and one supposes…
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GATINEAU – The Canadian conventional broadcasters who in April, while facing the Regulator, insisted a new subscription fee was a must for them in this new media age, just didn’t make a good enough argument, the man leading the panel six months ago told Cartt.ca on Thursday.
(Click here for our comprehensive summary of the new regulatory frameworks for BDUs and specialty & pay channels.)
Saying the Commission certainly isn’t blind to the negative turn in the overall economy since the hearing into the policies governing broadcast distribution undertakings and specialty & pay channels, it can’t make policy…
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