VANCOUVER – Over 1,000 Canadians have clicked through to the CRTC asking that Canadian media companies get no bigger or become more concentrated says the group behind the letter clicking campaign.
"Our campaign to stop the big media takeover is striking a chord with Canadians from coast to coast," says Steve Anderson, co-ordinator of Canadians for Democratic Media. "It’s clear that there’s a lot of dissatisfaction, especially about news coverage. The situation in Vancouver-Victoria, where CanWest Global owns three daily newspapers and two TV stations, is a particular source of anger."
Canadians for Democratic Media are hoping Canadians…
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WINNIPEG – Consolidated revenues at CanWest Global communications increased by 7% to $738 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2007, ended May 31st, consolidated EBITDA rose 13% to $122 million but consolidated net earnings were $8 million or 38% lower than last year’s same quarter, the company announced this afternoon after the close of trading.
CanWest, of course, owns Global TV as well as other electronic media assets in Canada and abroad as well as the largest number of Canadian newspapers in the country.
"Results for the third quarter were positive, led by continued growth in publishing revenue…
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TORONTO – A couple of longstanding CHUM executives have decided to leave their new company, Cartt.ca has learned.
Just weeks after it was officially brought into the CTVglobemedia fold, CHUM’s chief financial officer Alan Mayne has told his new bosses he won’t be staying.
This follows the departure of CHUM CEO Jay Switzer who, as expected, left the company once the new owners were given approval by the CRTC to take over the company.
And this week, Maria Hale, vice-president, content business development, who has been the driving force behind the CHUM properties push into integrated multiplatform content, also…
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TORONTO – The only all-HDTV broadcaster in the country, High Fidelity HDTV, has added a new partner in merchant bank C.A. Bancorp.
Four-year-old Hi Fi HDTV has offers four channels, Rush HD, Equator HD, Oasis HD and Treasure HD, which are carried on Bell ExpressVu and certain other carriers like Source Cable and SaskTel’s MAX. The company has had some trouble gaining carriage on large cable operators as they are instead holding back slices of bandwidth for existing analog specialty channels that haven’t yet but may soon make the switch to high definition.
The $4 million dollar investment by…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Earlier this year, after having been told by the federal government to rely on market forces and deregulate as much as possible, the Commission asked the telecom industry to help it prioritize.
After receiving submissions from cable companies and telcos and a few others, the Commission said Wednesday that a review of general tariff bundling rules and requirements for market trials was the consensus top priority and it issued a public notice on the matter, intending to make a decision as soon as possible.
"The Commission is of the view that the onus is on parties who…
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NEW YORK – We might see a cable petition to the CRTC soon to add what will be the newest business channel to the eligible satellite services list here in Canada.
According to a report in Multichannel News, News Corp. will launch the Fox Business Network, a spin-off of Fox News, on October 15th. The story says the company has already reached carriage deals with Comcast, Time Warner Cable, DirecTV and Charter Communications and will launch to 30 million subscribers.
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MONTREAL – "Looking at the performance of our divisions, the television group recorded very strong growth for the quarter with subscriber-related revenues up 9% and advertising revenues increasing by 13% over the same period last year," said Astral Media president and CEO Ian Greenberg in today’s press release on the company’s third quarter financial peformance.
Consolidated net earnings for the first nine months of fiscal 2007, ended May 31st, increased by 9% over last year, rising to $93.1 million ($1.76 per basic share). Consolidated net earnings for the third quarter increased by 8% over the same quarter last year,…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – John Traversy and Paul Godin have been promoted at the CRTC.
Traversy is the new director general, consumer affairs, policy and telemarketing while Godin is now director general, competition, costing and tariffs, telecommunications. Both appointments are the result of a competitive process and are effective immediately and both men had been serving in those roles but only as acting directors.
Traversy and Godin have spent many years at the Commission. Traversy came to the telecom side after years in the Commission’s broadcasting sector and had been director, strategic research and economic analysis in the industry analysis, economics…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Offering local telephone service just might be working out for Canadian cable operators.
For anyone paying attention to the increasingly positive results for Canadian cable operators of late, the CRTC’s figures on the industry, released today, will come as no surprise.
Total revenues for cable companies passed $6 billion in 2006, a 12% increase over 2005. Subscribers also grew and profits before interest and taxes (PBIT) for cable companies totalled $1.4 billion in 2006, and the PBIT margin was 22.92%.
However, within the report itself on the Commission’s site, comparisons from year to year are not…
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TORONTO – As long as it doesn’t mean opening up the border to American cable channels, Corus Entertainment president and CEO John Cassaday says he’s okay with the CRTC dumping its policy of one specialty channel per genre.
In a conference call this afternoon with financial analysts discussing the company’s strong third quarter results, Cassaday touched on the company’s positioning with several regulatory proceedings under way.
"Our view is Canadian competition is fine and will improve the system," said Cassaday. He added he is opposed to allowing American channels in because they will not be subject to the same…
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