OTTAWA – Shaw Communications has sold its interests in digital specialty services Biography Channel and G4TechTV to Rogers Communications.
The CRTC approved both transactions on Monday. Rogers Broadcasting is already the operator of both Canadian channels.
Rogers paid Shaw $1 million for its 33.3% stake in G4 and now owns two-thirds of the channel along with Comcast, the parent company of the U.S. channel.
Rogers paid $5 million combined for Shaw’s 40% stake in Biography and A&E Television Networks’ 20% ownership, to take 100% of the service. AETN owns Biography Channel, Stateside.
Rogers has agreed to pay out 10%…
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SIGNIFICANT. MARKET. POWER.
Those three words appear all through the Telecom Policy Review Report, which Cartt.ca has covered at length. According to my search of that document, the three words appear together 62 times, and a further 65 as its SMP acronym.
When reading that huge report, it’s easy to see how SMP was and is a very big deal to its authors. The Telecom Policy Review Panel was very conscious of the concept and how the companies with SMP might still have to be watched. It’s a key concept of the report.
But you wouldn’t know it from…
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OTTAWA – Scott Hutton has accepted to fill the position of associate executive director broadcasting effective 6 September 2006 until 31 March 2007, the CRTC announced today.
"Scott brings many years of experience at the CRTC to this key position, having assumed increasing levels of management responsibility. Although he has worked most recently in the Telecommunications sector, Scott began his career at the CRTC as a Broadcasting analyst," said Len Katz, executive director of broadcasting and telecommunications.
Hutton is acting executive director, policy and consumer affairs on the telecommunications side of the Commission.
"I am confident that his background…
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OTTAWA – With its recent round of layoffs and programming cutbacks, CHUM Ltd. is offside when it comes to its conditions of license at its local stations, says one of the unions representing its employees.
"(T)he CRTC should call an inquiry into the issue and require that the broadcaster fulfill its licence obligations and commitments," says a release from the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada.
The union has filed a complaint with the CRTC asking it to declare CHUM Limited in violation of its TV station licenses as a result of recent program cancellations at various stations…
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THE FOOD INDUSTRY WAS never this exciting, says Videotron president and CEO Robert Dépatie.
In the 1990s, he was in charge of the Planters brand in Quebec and prior to that, held positions with Heinz. The sheer volume of food processing technology was nothing then as compared to what his cable company faces today. The acronyms are endless: VOIP, VOD, HDTV, iTV, IPTV, DOCSIS and so on.
Last week, the MSO launched its own branded wireless service, riding on the Rogers Wireless backbone, giving it a fourth valuable service option and allowing a family’s entire telecom bill, beginning to…
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QUEBEC CITY – Infamous radio talk show host Jeff Fillion, who made his reputation with insult and ridicule on the airwaves of top-rated CHOI-FM, has signed an enriching five-year deal to do his weekday morning show on XM Satellite Radio.
The contract, for a reported $1 million-plus, is not quite in the same stratosphere as the $500 million, five-year deal bestowed on the controversial Howard Stern by competitor Sirius Satellite Radio. Nonetheless, for the much smaller French-language market, the agreement is considered lucrative.
The deal allows Fillion to keep broadcasting on his own Internet pay-radio site, www.radiopirate.com, launched March…
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OTTAWA – Saying it would be "revenue neutral", Bell Aliant and Bell Canada have asked the CRTC for permission to take its $55 service connection charge and have all their customers pay 80-cents a month more instead.
On Friday, the CRTC called for comments in a public proceeding on the matter.
"The companies submitted that this would align their pricing practices with those of their competitors, and thus to better position their residential services in the competitive marketplace," says the Commission’s release.
"The companies argued that they were the only provider of residential local telephone services in their respective…
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OTTAWA – After looking quickly at an appeal filed with the governor-in-council, the Federal Government backed the CRTC’s decision to grant a pay-TV license to Allarco Entertainment.
A disabled advocate by the name of Joe Clark (not the former PM) had appealed the decision, saying it was illegal because the license did not require 100% closed captioning.
"It is a matter of settled legal fact that a failure to proved accessible programming is a violation of the Canadian Human Rights Act," reads Clark’s appeal, which was filed on July 2.
The CRTC granted a new pay television license to the western-based…
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DARTMOUTH, N.S. – Thanks to its growing operations (acquisitions and new license launches), Newfoundland Capital Corporation reported a very strong second quarter of 2006.
Revenue growth was 17% in the second quarter, ended June 30th, climbing to $24.5 million in the quarter and 18% to $43.1 million year-to-date; a result of the incremental growth from acquisitions and new station launches, said the company.
Assets acquired in 2005 that are now contributing to the bottom line in 2006 include the company’s acquisition of three radio stations and two TV outlets in Lloydminster, Alberta, an FM radio licence in Thunder Bay,…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC approved 12 new ethnic channel licenses for Toronto’s Ethnic Channels Group Ltd. today.
The licenses are for: Portuguese/Brazil TV, Sri Lanka TV, Russian TV 4, Russian TV 3, Chinese Movie Channel, Chinese News Channel, Hindi/Urdu/Punjabi Movie Channel, Hindi TV, Chinese/Taiwanese TV, Greek TV 1, Greek TV 2, and Chinese/Cantonese Home TV Channel
Click here to see the releases.
www.ethnicchannels.com
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