GATINEAU – While Shaw Communications continues to evaluate technologies for its plan to launch a wireless service in Western Canada, Scotia Capital Equity Research re-entered the debate by suggesting in a report published last week Shaw should not restrict its wireless solution to 4G/LTE but also consider cable Wi-Fi.
Scotia Capital (among others) had earlier speculated that Shaw team up with Rogers Communications to build a national LTE network.
“We think negotiations may still be ongoing, but we would like to point out another potential option for Shaw, one which we believe could turn out to be just as effective as…
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TORONTO – The Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television has unveiled the nominations for the 26th annual Gemini Awards, with Canadian premium pay channels HBO Canada, The Movie Network and Movie Central dominating the annual prizes for the best in Canadian television.
The HBO Canada series Call Me Fitz was the most-nominated show in the comedy category followed by TMN/Movie Central’s Living in Your Car which grabbed 10 nominations. The CTV/CBS series Flashpoint, whose future in the U.S. remains uncertain, lead the drama nominations. Flashpoint faces off against The Borgias, Endgame, Skins and The Tudors. Call Me Fitz was…
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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Canada, U.S., and Mexico have reached a major spectrum-sharing arrangement that will enable wireless broadband service and emergency communications in border areas.
Industry Canada, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Mexico’s Secretariat of Communications and Transportation (SCT) have agreed to share commercial wireless broadband spectrum in the 700 MHz band along the U.S.-Canadian and U.S.-Mexican border areas. The FCC also reached an arrangement with Industry Canada for sharing spectrum in the 800 MHz band. The agreement will alleviate cellular interference helping support commercial broadband services and public safety mission-critical voice communications.
"These arrangements will unleash investment and…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – More and more Canadians are subscribing to broadband Internet and wireless services, while TV and radio are still the most popular devices for accessing content, according to the CRTC’s latest Communications Monitoring Report.
The report, released Thursday, provides an annual overview of the Canadian telecommunications and broadcasting industries. By the end of 2010, approximately 9 million Canadian households subscribed to broadband Internet services, an increase of 9.2% over 2009, and the number of Canadians subscribing to wireless services grew by 8.5% to 25.8 million.
“It is encouraging to see Canadians taking up broadband Internet and wireless services…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Canada’s largest broadcast companies will inject billions of dollars into original Canadian programming over the next five years after the CRTC renewed the English-language TV licences for Bell Media, Corus Entertainment, Shaw Media and Rogers Media on Wednesday.
The widely anticipated group-based licencing decision saw the broadcasting licences for services owned by Bell Media, Corus Entertainment and Shaw Media renewed until 2016. Citing the smaller number of specialty services owned by Rogers Media, the Commission renewed its licences through 2014.
Over the next five years, Bell Media, Corus Entertainment and Shaw Media must allocate at least…
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CANCON’S RULES AND regulations are much like a series of bandages slapped onto the television industry – one here to cover a scrape, another there as salve on a slash. It’s almost impossible to rip any away from this complex patchwork without damaging a broadcast arm or independent production limb.
The tales of woe – accompanied by an orchestra of tiny violins – come from both the broadcast and the creative side of the industry, and the TV doctors have differing opinions on which medicine is the cure for our ailing Cancon system. So what’s the spoonful of sugar…
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HALIFAX – EastLink is throwing its hat into the competitive world of wireless starting next year.
Vice-president of marketing Dan MacDonald told Cartt.ca on Monday that after buying up spectrum in “a lot of different areas where our current wireline footprint is” almost two years ago, the Halifax-based company is busy building its own network in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island where it will launch wireless by mid-2012.
While Macdonald says the company has already decided which devices and what types of plans that it will offer at launch, it’s keeping those details under wraps until early next year.
“We do know…
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MONTREAL – Former federal cabinet minister Jim Prentice is joining the board of directors at BCE and Bell Canada.
First elected to the House of Commons for Calgary Centre North in 2004, Prentice held a variety of Cabinet posts from 2006 through November 2010, including Minister of Industry, Chair of the Operations Committee of Cabinet, and Minister of the Environment. He is currently senior executive vice-president and vice chairman of CIBC.
"Jim Prentice has a well-established reputation for insight and integrity built on his many years of strategic experience in Canadian business and government that will serve BCE shareholders very well," said…
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THE YEAR 1972 saw the beginning of the Watergate scandal and the M.A.S.H. television series. It was also the year that the balm of simultaneous substitution (simsub) was handed to Canadian broadcasters.
Simsub, where the Canadian feed including ads is substituted over the American channel’s signal, was designed to soothe broadcasters’ fears over bruised bank accounts caused by advertisers defecting to the U.S. with the advent of cable. Instead, this Band-Aid solution healed one hurt but caused another. Peel it back and there’s a sore festering over Canadian content.
(Ed note: An earlier version of this story contained an inaccurate description of…
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OTTAWA – Canada’s satellite relay distribution undertakings (SRDUs) should be exempt from licensing requirements, say Canada’s only two SRDU operators – Shaw and Bell – in their submissions to the CRTC’s consultation on that market.
SRDUs transport broadcasting signals to broadcasting distribution undertakings (BDUs) that do not have access to fibre interconnections to receive their television signals, and, are often located in rural and remote parts of the country.
Both Shaw and Bell stress in their submissions dated July 11th that other technologies create enough competition in the signal transportation field to negate the need for licensing requirements….
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