VANCOUVER – Canadian fibre optic provider Dixon Networks is celebrating 50 years of helping Canadians connect and communicate.
The Vancouver-based company started in 1966 by connecting families in rural B.C. with basic telephone service. It now has offices in British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario, and counts Telus, Rogers, Shaw, Delta Cable, the Province of Ontario, Alberta SuperNet and the City of Burnaby among its customers.
“Dixon has been a quiet leader in Canada’s tech industry for fifty years,” said CEO Brian Harris. “We laid the fibre that allowed people across British Columbia to first surf the Web. Now, we’re building…
Continue Reading
TORONTO and NEW YORK – The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) has acquired digital rights organization Audiam, a deal that it says will enable it to better collect performing rights royalties on digital rights platforms like YouTube. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Founded in 2013 by former TuneCore execs Jeff Price and David Willen, Audiam uses innovative technology and business processes to identify the use of music and correct data on digital services including Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Google Play in order to accurately compensate rights-holders.
The performing rights…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The CRTC’s new policy framework for local and community television is a “crippling blow” to Canada’s community TV industry, says the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS).
The new policy framework, released June 15, sets new minimum thresholds for local news on the country’s private TV broadcasters plus seeks to establish a new fund for independent stations. But CACTUS, which appeared at the CRTC’s hearings in to local and community TV, was critical of the new Independent Local News Fund which it says “redirects money for community TV to private news production in a…
Continue Reading
VANCOUVER – Telus customers in British Columbia and Alberta may now watch ultra-high-definition television with the launch of 4K on Optik TV.
Customers will require a 4K TV, a 4K PVR, as well as a minimum of Internet 50 to support 4K streaming. Telus said that its new 4K PVRs will store up to 400 hours of HD content, or up to 100 hours of 4K content, double the capacity of its current HD PVR. The 4K PVRs are available at no additional cost with a two-year commitment.
At launch, the 4K lineup will include TSN 4K, "adrenaline sports" (e.g., snowboarding, surfing…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – Five Canadian ethnic broadcasters have written a letter to the CRTC saying Rogers Media’s application to make OMNI-TV a national, must-carry specialty service is off-side.
Last month, when the CRTC made public the license renewal applications for the major Canadian broadcasters (which it will hear in November), Rogers had filed an application that caught the industry by surprise: It has asked the CRTC for a new license for a must-carry, multilingual and multicultural specialty channel to be known as OMNI Regional.
The proposed national channel would be comprised of four feeds:…
Continue Reading
Canadian TV industry doesn’t reflect that our values are unique
IN 1983, DORIS ROBERTS and James Coco appeared in an episode of the freshman season of the ground breaking medical drama St. Elsewhere. The episode, “Coco and Arnie,” would eventually net both actors Emmy Awards for their portrayals of an aging homeless couple. But the impact went far beyond the red carpet. Coco and Arnie caused shockwaves, sparked conversations, and helped to launch a shift in how people thought about the problem of homelessness.
It’s no surprise that TV influences social policy. It comes into our homes, and is watched –…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – The audiovisual industry has entered an age where the user experience has become the leading factor in content creation and distribution, according to a new report from the Canada Media Fund (CMF).
The Keytrends Report 2016 Mid-Year Update says that how individuals perceive, respond to and interact with the content they consume is what’s driving the ever-growing connection and interdependence between content and technology.
The report also analyses the trends that it predicts will impact the Canadian television and digital media industry through the lens of the following overarching themes:
– Always on: Bots as new…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Canada’s television service providers saw their overall revenues dip 0.1% in 2015 amidst a continuing erosion of subscribers, according to the CRTC’s statistical and financial results for the industry released Tuesday.
Broadcasting Distribution Undertakings – Statistical and Financial Summaries 2011-2015 said that combined revenues remained steady at $8.9 billion, while subscribers fell from 11.4 million in 2014 to 11.2 million for the year ended August 31, 2015. Total expenses increased by 1.3% to $7.2 billion, and as a result, the sector's operating margin decreased to its lowest level in five years, but remained healthy at 19%.
Despite these…
Continue Reading
a.k.a. net neutrality…
GATINEAU – There is pretty broad consensus among many of the interveners in the CRTC’s differential pricing consultation that the practice can have a positive impact on the ISP business, content providers and consumers.
First round comments to the Commission’s Examination of differential pricing practices related to Internet data plans (2016-192) revealed though that it’s not a cut and dried issue. For instance, Bell Canada argued that zero-rating and sponsored data pricing mechanisms – two differential pricing practices or DPPs – are common in the communications world.
The company pointed to toll free calling and time of use…
Continue Reading
Growing in small market Quebec
MONTREAL – It only started in 2012, but Quebec’s Attraction Radio has already grown, entirely through acquisitions, to become one of the top radio broadcast owners in Quebec, based on a business model of small-market stations each maintaining their own identity and local management.
On Tuesday, the CRTC published the latest acquisition by this group, of CIPC-FM Port-Cartier (Radioactive 99.1) and CKCN-FM (PUR FM 94.1) in nearby Sept-Îles, on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River, 500 kilometres northeast of Quebec City.
Both stations were owned by four shareholders, Yvan Beaulieu, Jean Laverdière, Luc Hovington and…
Continue Reading
