OTTAWA and VANCOUVER – The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and citizen-engagement group OpenMedia.ca are behind a new coalition known as ‘Stop the Takeover’ formed to fight Bell’s proposed acquisition of Astral Media.
The coalition, which also includes groups Canada Without Poverty, Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, Canadian Media Guild, Consumers' Association of Canada, Council of Canadians, Council of Senior Citizens' Organizations of British Columbia, CWP Advocacy Network, Option Consommateurs, and Union des consommateurs, has kicked off a campaign encouraging Canadians to block the deal by completing a preset form on its website and sending it to…
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TORONTO – AMC president and CEO Josh Sapan will lead a discussion next month on the value of original programming and how to create entertainment brands of distinction in an increasingly competitive world.
Presented by CTAM Canada, the event will take place on September 5 from 5:30 to 8 pm at the Velma Rogers Theatre, located within Rogers Communications, at 333 Bloor Street East in downtown Toronto. It will be followed by a reception on the 10th floor patio.
One of entertainment's premier innovators and a pioneer in the cable industry, Sapan leads AMC Networks Inc., which owns and operates AMC,…
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WHILE WE HAVE NO inside information to give you, we have covered enough CRTC hearings featuring the current crop of Bell executives and regulatory folks to guess at what the thrust of their presentation will be when they face the panel of CRTC commissioners in Montreal come September 10th.
They are probably going to ask what all the fuss is about. The media industry has consolidated at a rapid pace with the likes of Bell, Rogers, Shaw, and Quebecor owning significant carrier as well as media assets. With one more company, Astral Media, assimilated into Bell…
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SO IT?S NOT JUST Quebecor, Cogeco and EastLink demanding the CRTC say no to Bell Canada'?s $3.38 billion purchase of Astral Media after all. Telus, Rogers, MTS Allstream, the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre and others want this latest edition of the ongoing vertical integration story erased.
(An earlier version of this story said Friends of Canadian Broadcasting were also opposed to the merger. That us not the case and Cartt.ca regrets the error.)
Still, other groups such as ACTRA, the Writers Guild, the CMPA and Directors Guild, while not ultimately opposing the…
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OTTAWA – Three of the country’s largest media companies – Cogeco, Quebecor, and Eastlink – are banding together in their opposition of Bell Canada’s proposed acquisition of Astral Media.
The trio staged a press conference Tuesday morning in Ottawa calling the $3.38 billion deal an “unprecedented concentration of media ownership” and unveiled a website called SayNotoBell.ca that it says lays out “the risks” and “potential harm” to consumers and the Canadian TV industry should the transaction be approved. It also encourages Canadians to voice their concerns by submitting a letter through the website to Canada's Ministers of Heritage and Industry,…
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MONTREAL – Bell Canada was quick to respond to what it described as a “public misinformation campaign” launched by Cogeco, Eastlink, Quebecor earlier in the day around its acquisition of Astral Media.
The communications giant issued a statement acknowledging that the proposed transaction will change the competitive landscape, and said that “new reality has competitors worried”.
"With Astral, we're actually leveling the playing field with the long-dominant media/cable company in Québec, Québecor, and bringing new investment and increased competition to the media marketplace," said Martine Turcotte, Bell's vice chair for Quebec, in the statement. "Coupled with the fast growth of…
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TORONTO – Rogers Media will offer Canadians exclusive access to season two of The Booth at the End, thanks to its partnership with Michael Eisner's digital media studio Vuguru.
The edgy, five-part, 22-minute series will be available in Canada every Monday for five consecutive weeks starting August 6 on Citytv.com, Rogers Anyplace TV, and on mobile through the Citytv Video App. Fans can also relive the first season on FX Canada beginning August 9 at 11:30 pm ET/PT for five consecutive weeks.
The Booth at the End centres on a mysterious Man (Xander Berkeley) who sits in a…
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OTTAWA – Industry stakeholders are lamenting the anticipated shutdown of 623 CBC and Radio-Canada analog transmitters on Tuesday, a move that ends free access to the national broadcaster over the air in hundreds of small Canadian cities, towns and rural areas.
Despite the protests of more than 2,000 Canadians and a proposal by the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS) on how the equipment could be repurposed, the CRTC approved CBC/Radio-Canada’s plan to mothball the transmitters and repeaters with no conditions and no requirement to reach out to the affected communities.
"The CBC-TV and Radio-Canada analog transmitter shutdown…
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OTTAWA – Content that aired on French sports network RDS and a newscast on CTV British Columbia violated the country’s broadcast codes, according to two decisions issued by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC).
In the first decision, the CBSC examined the November 15, 2011 episode of RDS’s sports magazine program 5 à 7 which contained a segment entitled ‘Laprise branché!’. Commentator Michel Laprise showed a videoclip, which a viewer had sent to him, of a man with dwarfism being used as a bowling ball by people of regular size. Laprise joked that this bowling activity requires only “a…
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YELLOWKNIFE – Broadband provider SSi is urging Canadians to take a close look at incumbent Northwestel’s proposed ‘modernization plan’ which it says may just be too good to be true.
That plan, announced earlier this month, centres around a $273 million Internet and wireless upgrade over five years to the 96 communities that it serves. But according to Yellowknife-based SSi, the “modernization” focuses on one-time capital expenditures to develop infrastructure, but does not include a plan for ongoing sustainability to ensure that the system will be affordable.
The company also took issue with Northwestel’s use of CRTC subsidies to fund its own fibre…
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