GATINEAU – Despite the fact that when compared to the likes of Rogers, Shaw, Bell, Telus, Videotron and Cogeco, Bragg Communications (EastLink) is pretty small, the CRTC told the company in a letter this week that it won’t be exempted from the CRTC’s requirement to file a public version of its aggregated annual return.
“In Broadcasting Regulatory Policy 2009-560 the Commission determined that the disclosure of the public version of the aggregated annual return filed by the large ownership groups, including Bragg, was in the public interest, and that any harm that would result from such disclosure did…
Continue Reading
Perry Hoffman
GATINEAU – Canadian cable operators do not believe that a local-into-local signal carriage regime imposed on DTH companies would be disastrous for the operations of Bell TV and Shaw Direct.
Bell TV and Shaw Direct say in their submissions on 2010-488, the review of the direct-to-home satellite distribution policy they don’t have the capacity to carry all local over-the-air (OTA) signals, and despite technological improvements in compression coming online in the future complying with a local-into-local regime will be problematic.
Both say that if forced to carry all over-the-air (OTA) stations, they will have no choice but to remove specialty…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – While more and more Canadians opt for smart phones like BlackBerry’s, iPhones and Android-powered devices, increased competition in the market is going to hurt the incumbent wireless operators’ bottom lines, says a new report.
Toronto’s Convergence Consulting forecasts a Canadian wireless service ARPU decline of 1% for 2010 (ARPU saw a 3% decline in 2009), driven by a 7% drop in voice ARPU (2009 saw a 9% voice ARPU drop). While data service ARPU will grow by 26% in 2010, the company estimates, that will not be enough to counter overall ARPU decline according to its report ‘Canadian Wireless 2008-2014:…
Continue Reading
EVERY TUESDAY AFTER Labour Day, because it’s a fun analysis of our year and lets us have the weekend off… we re-publish the top stories from the last 12 months.
Why a “Happy New Year” now? Simple. September is the “new year” for broadcasters. The new fall shows are coming out and speaking from a regulatory perspective, the 2010 broadcast year ended August 31st and we are into a new year for them.
(Ed. Note: Not so incidentally, we’re now less than a year away from the analog shut off – which was a popular topic this year – and there’s…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Most stakeholders agree that the CRTC’s new community TV policy did little to lessen cable’s firm grip on the country’s community channels. But even some of the country’s biggest cable companies appear to have some concerns.
“The closed captioning component is going to be a challenge”, said Colette Watson, VP of Rogers TV, in an interview with Cartt.ca. “As of December 31st, the funding is frozen to the levels we’re at now for four years. That’s fine, we’ll make that work. The issue then becomes, if in that same time frame we have to caption 100%…
Continue Reading
TORONTO and KINCARDINE – Rogers Communications has purchased Kincardine Cable, Cartt.ca has learned.
The deal closed on July 31st and employees were informed this week, according to a Rogers spokesperson. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Kincardine Cable is based in Kincardine, a town of about 12,000 on the eastern shore of Lake Huron in Ontario, approximately 225 km northwest of Toronto. The company has approximately 6,000 cable customers across 27 systems, ranging in size from 2,800 subscribers in its largest down to seven subscribers, all spread over an area spanning some 1,500 square kilometres.
The company has been an active, progressive independent cable…
Continue Reading
FEW FEEL THE turmoil in our industry like independent communications companies.
They lack the resources of the national cable, satellite and telco carriers and are quite small by comparison, of course – but their customers expect similar options (prices, services, broadband speeds, etc) that they see advertised by those big companies. Those independents also have to deal with the same regulatory and legislative change, negotiate contracts with programmers and others, and keep on top of the latest tech trends and new business opportunities, too.
Which is the reason why the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance exists and thrives. Working collectively, the…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – The World Fishing Network will dedicate an entire day of programming and commercial airtime on June 30th to support recreational anglers affected by the Gulf oil spill disaster.
The on-air campaign, which will air on its Canadian and U.S. channels, aims to raise awareness of the catastrophic impact this spill is having on the entire fishing industry, and to raise money for organizations providing aid and support to those most negatively impacted by the disaster.
In addition to in-depth coverage of the impact of the spill on recreational and commercial fishing in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, the channel…
Continue Reading
HALIFAX – EastLink let go 33 employees across the country last week, a move that it described as “a business decision”.
In an email response to Cartt.ca, an EastLink spokesperson confirmed that the majority of the employees were from EastLink’s community television operations, and that 15 are from Atlantic Canada.
The move “is the result of EastLink’s continuous assessment of the market and evaluation of how we do business in a rapidly changing marketplace”, the email from spokesperson Jill Laing read. “We sometimes must make adjustments where appropriate and necessary to ensure that we deliver our products and services in the most…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Oh, but there’s so much more still to talk about…
Foreign investment, auction rules, a level playing field, government partnerships, rural broadband. Those items and more top the to-do list for Rob Bruce, president of the communications group at Rogers Communications.
During his speech yesterday at the Canadian Telecom Summit, Bruce acknowledged his company’s founder was more fond of finding solutions to problems, developing new technology and building networks than he was talking about setting the rules and regs needed before such things can happen.
However, in an interview with Cartt.ca after his speech, Bruce outlined some of the solutions…
Continue Reading
