MANY TAKE IT AS GOSPEL in this business that without rules to force Canadian broadcasters to make (or at least pay for) and air Canadian content, they just wouldn’t. Instead, they’d more cheaply buy foreign (i.e. U.S.) television shows to fill out their entire schedule.
Go ahead. Ask anyone. We’ve all said it.
The record of regulatory resistance over the years mostly bears that opinion out – as do the prime time schedules of the major private conventional broadcasters. What I’m not sure about is whether that will continue to hold true in the future.
Now, the only prognosticating I’ll allow myself…
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GATINEAU – An annual report commissioned by the CRTC confirms what the telecom industry has been saying for a while about their broadband and wireless plans: It ain’t so bad here…
Prepared for the Commission by Ottawa’s Wall Communications, the annual “Price Comparisons of Wireline, Wireless and Internet Services in Canada and with Foreign Jurisdictions” report combines and averages wireline, wireless, broadband and bundled rates in Canada and compares them with plans with other international jurisdictions. The report found that while Canadian rates aren’t the most expensive, they aren’t the cheapest either, that while Canadian broadband speeds aren’t the fastest,…
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NEW YORK – Increasing handset subsidies by wireless carriers are putting more pressure on those company’s margins, according to a new report released Tuesday by Moody’s Investors Service.
In a special report on the U.S. wireless industry, which reflects trends seen here in Canada, Moody’s said that subsidy costs incurred by wireless carriers have increased 78% on average in the past three years for the seven largest U.S. wireless carriers by revenue.
Historically, carriers offset these expenses through cost improvements in other parts of the business, which has resulted in flat earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) margins of approximately 33% across the…
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OTTAWA – Canada’s wireless customers need better safeguards to protect against expensive premium text messaging services, according to a new report released Wednesday from the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC).
The report, Paying a Premium: Consumers and Mobile Premium Services, includes the results of focus groups with consumers who had experiences with mobile premium services, also known as premium text messaging services, plus a review of industry self-regulation and practices.
PIAC counsel and report co-author Janet Lo said that consumers continue to report numerous problems with mobile premium services, ranging from unauthorized subscriptions to unsuccessful unsubscription, and difficulty disputing charges for these…
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THE QUESTION, “Whose customer is it anyway?” has always been a contentious issue between television distributors and the pay and specialty channels they offer to Canadians.
In short, the BDUs have long been adamant that the customer is absolutely theirs. It’s their network, they do the packaging and marketing and the customer pays them, of course. Simple, right?
Broadcasters have always countered that without their content, BDUs have nothing but a nice store with empty shelves, that the subscriber doesn’t care about the connection and pays the cable company to see their favourite shows. Simple, right?
Notsomuch. The answer is that they…
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CALGARY – Third quarter profits at Shaw Communications were up 28% on revenues that cracked the $1 billion threshold, the company reported Wednesday. But it offered no glimpse into the future of its wireless plans beyond what CEO Brad Shaw told Cartt.ca last week.
Consolidated revenue for the quarter ended May 31, 2011 were $1.28 billion, a 36% increase over $943 million in the same period last year, while net profits grew 28% year-over-year to $202.7 million from $158.2 million. Shaw credited the improvement to its acquisition of Shaw Media, as well as rate increases and growth in its cable and satellite…
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LESS THAN A DECADE AGO, the television landscape was a lucrative landscape of BDUs and broadcasters who understood the terrain. Laws were established. Rules followed. Peace (sort of) reigned.
Then over-the-top video (OTT) with all of its possibilities blew into town, creating a wild west that many believe leaves traditional players without a strong weapon while a new, lawless breed takes over, driving consumers to cut, or trim, their TV subscriptions.
“OTT is more important than we thought,” says Alain Gourd, chair of The Working Group on Online Broadcasting (formerly the Over-the-Top Working Group), a conglomerate of 13 BDUs, broadcasters…
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OKAY, WE’LL ADMIT IT. Sometimes it does get a little difficult in maintaining one’s attention on the fifth day into a CRTC hearing.
The questions, and quite often the answers, grow more similar as minutes turn into hours, turn into days. Those repeated questions and answers, though, do tend to allow followers of the hearing to divine just what the commissioners and the industry are aiming for. If you read between enough lines, maybe you can even predict, a little, what’s coming.
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WE’VE ALREADY EXPLAINED what the primary topics are during our extensive coverage of the CRTC’s…
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MONTREAL – Cogeco Cable has reached a definitive agreement to acquire all of the shares of Quiettouch Inc., the companies announced Monday.
Quiettouch provides outsourced managed IT and infrastructure services including hosting, virtualization, firewall services, data backup with end-to-end monitoring and reporting, plus enhanced and traditional co-location services. Catering to mid-market and larger enterprises in Canada, it operates three data centres in Toronto and Vancouver, as well as a fibre network within specific business areas of downtown Toronto.
Cogeco president and CEO Louis Audet called the move in line with the company’s strategy of developing the business market.
“This acquisition will enable us to…
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GATINEAU – Do consumers really want the ability to pick the Jenny Craig of TV packages, a.k.a. the oft-debated, ultra-lean, skinny basic package?
It has been one of the primary questions coming from CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein and his colleagues over the first three days of the Commission’s hearing into vertical integration.
The idea has been bounced around for a couple of years (especially during the fee-for-carriage battles), however it has really taken hold of the imagination of the panel of commissioners this week.
In a nutshell, a mandated skinny basic package would force cable, satellite and telco TV distributors…
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