OTTAWA – The CRTC today approved four new national, English-language Category 2 specialty television channels. The new channels include Baseball TV from Rogers (sports), Northern Peaks (adult), eScapes (nature) and The Rural Channel with a focus on agricultural programming. All four channels are required to begin airing within the next three years.
Baseball’s been very good to Rogers
The CRTC has approved an application from Rogers for a national, English-language Category 2 specialty station devoted to the coverage of baseball called Baseball TV.
Rogers is proposing to broadcast live Major League Baseball (MLB) games comprising a maximum of 10% of its…
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IF THERE’S ONE THING distributors don’t like, it’s being told what to do by the CRTC.
As we saw during the April hearings into broadcast distribution undertaking and specialty service policy, cable companies don’t like linkage rules or must-carries or carriage restrictions or much of anything else they “have” to do.
Cable altogether opposed the licensing of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network as a must-carry, 91(h) channel in 1999, but the Commission still licensed it as a channel which all distributors must carry as a basic service. APTN is one of those channels that furthers the goals of the…
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DARTMOUTH – Radio broadcaster Newfoundland Capital Corp. posted a profit of $6.4 million in the second quarter, a rise of five per cent over the $5.8 million generated last year.
Sales came in at $27.4 million, up from $26.2 million last year, with broadcasting revenue in the quarter coming in at $26.5 million, an increase of $1.3 million over the year before.
"We are making significant efforts to improve results in Edmonton and Calgary, Alberta. We were extremely pleased to see in the July ratings that our overall market share in these two cities has increased. This is a very important…
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OTTAWA – The CAB is urging Industry Canada to take the lead in establishing a government/industry working group to oversee the implementation and transition to digital television. It wants a consumer-focused working group that will contain representatives from private and public broadcasters, broadcasting distribution undertakings, Canadian and U.S. electronic industry representatives and the responsible government departments and agencies.
At stake it says are the estimated 3 million Canadian viewers who operate analog television sets that are not compatible with digital signals and not currently connected to cable or satellite, as well as licensees of more than 750 over-the-air analog…
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TORONTO – The Fight Network has undergone a number of changes behind the scenes this summer, including the departure of founder Mike Garrow, Cartt.ca has learned.
The channel terminated the employment of approximately 12 staffers two weeks ago – about a third of its workers – and this week, Garrow was let go, according to sources.
Garrow and some partners launched the channel in 2005 just as the whole mixed martial arts wave began to take off. The channel is widely carried in Canada by most distributors but has yet to reach 500,000 paid subscribers. CRTC figures show that…
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MONTREAL – Bell Canada’s sassy buck-toothed duo, Frank and Gordon the beavers, may have been euthanized this week, but they sure worked hard the last quarter.
Bell Canada Enterprises (which is still a public company for a bit longer) reported its second quarter results today and had its best wireless quarter in two and a half years. And, it is dumping its beavers in favor of a new marketing campaign which is set to take flight during the Olympics, which begin this weekend.
Bell Mobility’s net adds were up 32%, its best postpaid gain since Q4 2005. Total additions in…
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TORONTO – While revenues for Canada’s private broadcasters increased slightly in 2007, they cut their spending on Canadian programming slightly too, pointed out ACTRA, the actors union, in a press release.
The CRTC released its omnibus communications industry report last week which showed revenues for private conventional broadcasters rose 1.3% to $2.2 billion in the 2007 broadcast year (ended August 31, 2007) while spending on Canadian television dropped 1.2% to $616 million. Spending on American programming rose 5% to $722 million.
“The CRTC’s industry report confirms that Canada’s private broadcasters are overspending on U.S. programming while failing to produce…
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MONTREAL – Quebecor Media’s broadcasting, publishing and movie unit, TVA Group, reported net income of $12.8 million for the second quarter of 2008, 23% lower than the corresponding quarter of 2007.
TVA saw a drop of $1.5 million in the television sector’s operating income against the same quarter of 2007, “resulting essentially from the negative impact of an accrual of $5.7 million related to disputed regulatory fees,” says the release. Those are the Part II fees that had been collected by the CRTC for years, but that broadcasters fought in the courts as an illegal tax. In late 2006,…
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GATINEAU – The new list of people who can’t just ignore a ringing phone during dinner, or who have never heard of call display goes live on September 30th.
Actually, it’s called the National Do Not Call List (DNCL) and the CRTC will launch it in two months, the Regulator said Wednesday.
Consumers will be able to register on the National DNCL for free to reduce the number of telemarketing calls they receive.
“For many Canadian consumers, the National DNCL will come as a relief to the nuisance of telemarketing calls,” says the CRTC release.
The DNCL will, however,…
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GATINEAU – In an attempt to reflect the converging industries it regulates, the CRTC today issued its first ever monitoring report that covers the entire telecom, cable and broadcast industry.
The first Communications Monitoring Report shows that the Canadian communications industry posted revenues of $51.1 billion in 2007, an increase of 5.7% over the $48.3 billion reported in 2006.
"The convergence of technologies and industries has dramatically reshaped the communications landscape in recent years," said Konrad von Finckenstein, Q.C., chairman of the CRTC. "This year’s monitoring report gives us our first comprehensive look at the state of the overall…
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