OTTAWA – The CRTC has approved the transfer of Persona Communications Corp., and its subsidiary Northern Cablevision, to Bragg Communications, the parent company of EastLink, effectively doubling Bragg’s size and allowing it to extend its cable and telephony interests from the East Coast to the West.
The Commission said it did not receive any interventions against the proposed sale, and so concluded the deal “would be in the public interest”.
In its application, Persona said the sale would enable Bragg to provide broadcasting distribution services on a national basis, and thus would be able to compete effectively against larger…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – New technologies. New platforms. The new consumer. New business models.
Delegates to the annual Canadian Association of Broadcasters convention will have some meaty issues to tackle when they gather in Ottawa November 4th – 6th.
The theme is “Broadcasting, Redefined”, and CAB President and CEO Glenn O’Farrell says the two-plus days of workshops and informal discussions will focus on issues of fundamental importance to Canada’s private broadcasting sector.
On the agenda: • The impact of new technologies and platforms, including broadband, the Internet, high-definition television, and digital radio; • The new consumer, whose needs and expectations are…
Continue Reading
CALGARY – Shaw Communications Inc. says it’s “extremely disappointed” with the CRTC’s decision last week to deny its application to add USA Network to the list of eligible foreign satellite services for digital distribution, as Cartt.ca reported last week.
“The CRTC is continuing on a path of protectionism for the benefit of certain Canadian programmers at the expense of Canadian television customers,” said Peter Bissonnette, President of Shaw Communications.
“Shaw strongly believes that Canadians deserve access to the best national and international sources of programming – that is what the Broadcasting Act promises,” he said in a statement.
In…
Continue Reading
MONT TREMBLANT – When Cogeco Cable began rolling out video on demand about five years ago, “we thought we were building a virtual video store,” says the company’s director of affiliate relations JP Caveen.
Not any more, of course. VOD has moved leaps and bounds away from that.
Caveen was part of a video on demand panel organized by CTAM Canada held Monday afternoon during the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance 14th annual general meeting that included a programmer, an aggregator and three operators.
They were there to share their success stories and challenges with the independent cable companies who…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – If it can’t buy ’em, it looks like Rogers might overbuild ’em.
Rogers Cable has applied to the CRTC to extend its cable territories in Ontario to include a chunk of Cogeco Cable’s Ontario wheelhouse: Oakville, Burlington, Milton and Halton Hills, as well as into tiny Aurora Cable’s market in Aurora, just north of Toronto.
A move like this may signal a stark departure from the historically collegial cable industry where each company kept to its own territory and expanded by purchasing other cable companies. (Aurora and Cogeco are both known not to be for sale, however.)
In…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC today denied Shaw Communications’ request to add USA Network to the list of eligible foreign satellite services for digital distribution.
Shaw asked for the new addition in January, saying the general interest cable channel available to 90 million in the States, would be attractive to customers.
Shaw also wanted Commission to alter its approach to adding non-Canadian services to the digital lists. The company wants the Commission to automatically approve the addition of all general interest non-Canadian services, and that it permit broadcasting distribution undertakings (BDUs) to distribute services on the eligible lists on…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The rising number of media outlets, many of which are controlled by the same conglomerates, isn’t evidence of a diversity of voices on radio and television, the CRTC was told Wednesday.
Several media unions on Wednesday stated the pooling of media resources from different cities across a chain of stations under the same ownership didn’t equate to more perspectives in the news. Also, requiring a reporter to produce a story for multiple platforms – TV, radio and the web – is contributing to lower quality reports as journalists aren’t left with enough time to research background documents and…
Continue Reading
By Ken Murphy, John Panikkar and David Patterson
HIGH FIDELITY HDTV IS AN independent Canadian broadcaster. In the context of the current broadcast landscape, we carry the descriptor, some might say scarlet letter, “Category 2”.
High Fidelity HDTV has a unique perspective which combines our past experience building some of Canada’s most successful specialty services with our more recent experience as independent Canadian broadcast entrepreneurs and HDTV innovators.
We think the Dunbar Leblanc report is refreshing and brave. We understand why some may find it uncomfortable, but the report surfaces many questions which should be explored honestly and…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Broadcast distributors took a bashing as Canada’s main independent broadcasters complained Tuesday that difficulties gaining access to viewers was hindering the diversity of media voices in the country.
Pelmorex (The Weather Network/Meteomedia), Evanov Communications (five radio stations), Stornoway Communications (three digi-nets), XM Canada owner John Bitove and the Independent Programming Services (made up of Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, Channel Zero, Ethnic Channels Group, Fairchild Television/Talentvision, S-Vox Trust, Stornoway and TV5 Quebec Canada) all said distributor gatekeeping powers could result in a decline in the number of broadcast voices if the CRTC didn’t adopt appropriate safeguards.
Stornoway president…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC Friday granted the request of Quebecor Media’s Sun TV for rebroadcast transmitters in London and Ottawa, Ont.
Right now, Sun TV is available only to viewers in the Toronto-Hamilton corridor and the station suffers from such limited exposure when compared to its competitors, all of whom have stations (or multiple stations) in all of the above mentioned markets.
While there were the usual protestations from cable companies objecting to yet another channel that has to be squeezed into basic cable, jostling customers yet again, and rival broadcasters worried about losing ad dollars, the Commission approved…
Continue Reading
