TORONTO – Bell Canada has invited media and folks from the industry to the Bell Lightbox (the recently completed permanent home of the Toronto International Film Festival) to lunch on Monday for “an important announcement marking the start of a new era of television in Canada.”
This will be the official launch of the company’s Fibe TV product in the Toronto market – and likely Montreal, too.
While the company has seen success with its satellite TV division, Bell has been playing around with terrestrial-delivered television at least since 1996. This will finally mark a mass launch after years of testing…
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TIANJIN, China – Industry Minister Tony Clement told Cartt.ca late on Friday that one of his priorities this month is to get the wheels rolling on the auction of the 700 MHz wireless spectrum.
While beginning a tour of China on Friday, Minister Clement took to Twitter to note his visit with telecom manufacturer Huawei, writing: “Finished a meeting with telecom provider Huawei. They are set to hire more Cdns. I’ve concluded we must get the 700mHz auction going soon.”
That obviously caught our attention, so we responded to the minister on Twitter asking for clarification. He called us back to…
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EVERY TUESDAY AFTER Labour Day, because it’s a fun analysis of our year and lets us have the weekend off… we re-publish the top stories from the last 12 months.
Why a “Happy New Year” now? Simple. September is the “new year” for broadcasters. The new fall shows are coming out and speaking from a regulatory perspective, the 2010 broadcast year ended August 31st and we are into a new year for them.
(Ed. Note: Not so incidentally, we’re now less than a year away from the analog shut off – which was a popular topic this year – and there’s…
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As the dust begins to settle after Tuesday’s deferral accounts decision, opinions from industry stakeholders run the gamut from “disappointing” to "harmful" to “reasonable”.
Barrett Xplore Inc., Canada’s largest provider of rural broadband services, described the decision as anti-competitive and an ineffective use of monies.
“We’re obviously disappointed that the CRTC chose to proceed as they did, using technology that is not the least-cost solution for rural Canada”, its chief legal officer, C.J. Prudham, told Cartt.ca. “We’re also disappointed that they did not take in to consideration the expansion by other companies, including us, into those areas. Essentially they’re…
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GATINEAU – As the large telephone and cable companies continue to push fibre deeper into their old copper networks to offer increasing broadband speeds and new services to their customers, the CRTC affirmed Monday the incumbents must continue to rent space to third party ISPs under its mandated access policy and the Commission’s speed matching rules.
These regs must be set aside, though, Bell Canada’s regulatory chief, Mirko Bibic, told Cartt.ca late on Monday. “We need to figure out how do we get to a situation where this should not be done at all?” he said in reacting to Monday’s…
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OTTAWA – Tickets are now available for Canada’s 6th annual Telecom Laureate Awards gala dinner and induction ceremony, scheduled for November 10 in Ottawa.
This year’s Telecom Laureates are John L. Bragg (Atlantic Canada’s Communications Entrepreneur), Charles Sirois (Global Communications Visionary), Stephanie MacKendrick (Advocate for Women in Canadian Telecom) and the late Major W. Bruce M. Carruthers (Father of Canadian Military Communications).
In addition, this year’s Special Recognition Award will go to the Telecom Pioneers of Canada, part of a volunteer network of more than 620,000 current and former North American telecom industry employees, the largest industry-related volunteer organization in the…
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OTTAWA – The economic downturn in 2009 pulled down the profitability of the commercial radio industry in Canada two years in a row, the first time since 1993 that revenue has fallen from one year to the next, according to data from Statistics Canada released Tuesday.
Private radio broadcasters’ operating revenue declined 5.2% compared with 2008 to $1.5 billion (current dollars) in 2009, while advertising revenues dropped 5.5%. Private radio broadcasters earned 17.9 cents of profits before interest and taxes per dollar of revenue in 2009, the worst performance since 2002. These results contrast with the industry’s steady increase in profitability…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Most stakeholders agree that the CRTC’s new community TV policy did little to lessen cable’s firm grip on the country’s community channels. But even some of the country’s biggest cable companies appear to have some concerns.
“The closed captioning component is going to be a challenge”, said Colette Watson, VP of Rogers TV, in an interview with Cartt.ca. “As of December 31st, the funding is frozen to the levels we’re at now for four years. That’s fine, we’ll make that work. The issue then becomes, if in that same time frame we have to caption 100%…
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EXTON, PA – Calling all ideas on the impact of integrating new technologies into existing cable infrastructures.
The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) is seeking proposals for technical sessions to that effect to be conducted during SCTE Canadian Summit 2011, set for March 8 – 9 in Toronto.
All sessions should be interactive, where possible, include case studies as application examples, and provide an understanding of the opportunities and the pitfalls of technology deployments – all to maximize customer satisfaction and gain operational efficiencies.
Interested participants should submit a one-page proposal (no more than 200 words) in abstract form and include topic heading,…
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MONTREAL – Telefilm Canada and the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) have selected 13 feature-film projects under the third and final year of the Featuring Aboriginal Stories Program.
The chosen participants will benefit from a combination of training, professional development and personalized mentorship activities, plus receive a development advance. The winners were picked from 21 projects submitted for consideration from all regions of the country. Click here for the 2010 list of participants.
Telefilm said that it will review results of the program this fall to determine how best to support the professional development of aboriginal filmmakers moving forward. Launched in 2008, the Featuring…
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