OTTAWA – The Canada Media Fund celebrated its six month birthday with an event in Ottawa that saw stars of Canada’s television industry rub shoulders with senior government officials.
"Six months into the Canada Media Fund, we have come an incredibly long way and it’s gone incredibly well," Heritage Minister James Moore told the crowd, which also included representatives from the creative, broadcasting, and distribution industries. "We want to make sure there’s a broad diversity of Canadian content and Canadian culture available on the platforms that Canadians choose to consume it on."
Created by Canada’s cable and satellite distributors and the federal government, the CMF champions…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – CTAM Canada is launching a new professional management program called the Canadian CTAM University Program.
Offered through the Schulich School of Business (Executive Education Centre), part of Toronto’s York University, the program will focus on the key skills required by the cable and programming industry’s marketing professionals. Each course will run a full day and cover a single topic using industry-based case studies and professional instruction from Schulich’s professors and instructors.
“CTAM Canada has a mandate to provide education to the cable and programming marketing professionals, and this series of courses will provide a more formal approach to satisfying…
Continue Reading
NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE – Absorption and agility are two qualities imbued in most Canadian Cable Systems Alliance members.
In order to compete with the ISP and video distribution behemoths, independent cable and telecom companies have to be able to respond quickly to the needs of their communities – and take a few punches from those behemoths (and even sometimes, the Regulator).
Agility plus absorption was the theme of the Monday afternoon presentation to CCSA Connect delegates from Dr. Donald Sull, professor and author of “The Upside of Turbulence”.
Dr. Sull showed attendees at the CCSA’s annual conference and trade show how our economic times…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – The wireless industry’s Recycle My Cell initiative has been named the official, national sponsor of Waste Reduction Week 2010.
Waste Reduction Week (WRW) is scheduled for October 18 – 24. Developed in 2001 by a coalition of 13 recycling councils and sister organizations from across Canada, the program’s goal is to inform Canadians about the environmental and social ramifications of wasteful practices. WRW uses its “take action” messaging to provide Canadians with information and ideas to reduce waste in all facets of daily living, creating solutions to the many environmental challenges we face.
“Recycle My Cell is extremely proud to…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Mobilicity has bulked up its sales team as it gears up to expand into new markets like Ottawa and Western Canada.
The wireless provider said Tuesday that it has named Matthew Gould as GM for Western Canada, Tim Velichka as market manager for Calgary, and Janet Holt as its market manager for Ottawa.
Gould, who joins Mobilicity after more than a decade at Telus Communications in a variety of sales and distribution roles, will oversee all sales operations, distribution and retail channel initiatives in Western Canada.
Velichka will establish the regional sales and distribution team. He spent the last 11 years in…
Continue Reading
CALGARY – While it’s still falls below the norm, Shaw Communications today dramatically increased the amount of money it plans to spend on tangible benefits once its acquisition of Canwest Global is approved.
Company executives appeared before the CRTC Thursday morning in Calgary in their final oral reply to the week’s interveners and announced $72 million had been added to the company’s original package of benefits proposed coming into the hearing.
When broadcasting companies change hands, the Commission normally requires that 10% of the purchase value (in this case $2.047 billion) be set aside to spend on projects that are deemed…
Continue Reading
SO, IS THE TELUS Canadian Football League mobile application exclusive to Telus customers or not? On Wednesday during the CRTC’s hearing into the purchase of Canwest Television by Shaw Communications, that caused some confusion among commissioners – and yours truly.
The day before, Shaw Communications EVP Brad Shaw said he thought it pretty rich that a company with a mobile app that is exclusive to its own customers would want to make sure other carriers aren’t allowed to offer such content only to its own customers. It’s a point Telus has made before and did again Wednesday.
So yesterday, commissioners…
Continue Reading
CALGARY – Like everyone else, the Writers Guild of Canada says it’s pretty happy Shaw Communications decided to buy Canwest Global.
But also like a lot of others, the WGC wants the tangible benefits package improved.
The WGC insisted the Shaw benefits package should be worth no less than 10% of the $2.047 billion transaction as valued by the Commission, or at least $204.7 million of clear and incremental benefit to the industry.
Shaw has asked for less, given the intangible benefits of saving the company, keeping it intact and the costs already incurred to go through the CCAA process with…
Continue Reading
CALGARY – If the Shaw-Canwest $200-million tangible benefits package has to be altered or improved – as many, including the CRTC chair on Tuesday morning, have suggested – the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance tabled an idea to take advantage of that potentially rebuilt benefits package it says will help its members survive.
The CCSA represents more than a hundred independent, mostly rural, cable operators across Canada, many of whom must rely on one of the two Canadian satellite relay distribution undertakings (Shaw Direct and Bell TV) for their Canadian specialty channels. They are just too far away to be able…
Continue Reading
WE’RE NOT USED TO what we saw Tuesday. When Shaw Communications appears before the CRTC, we more often than not witness quarrelsome company executives facing off against sometimes testy commissioners.
We just have to point to a couple of pieces of evidence. There’s more, but these will give you a sense of what we mean (we’re partial to the one where Shaw said last fall they weren’t going to buy broadcasters…)
But today? Compared to past Shaw-involved hearings, “this was super-fun-time-happy-hour,” is how wish-I-hadn’t-but-did put it to Global TV reporter David Boushy.
Tuesday morning we had a panel of…
Continue Reading
