BOSTON – Fifty Gold and 109 Silver Mark Awards were presented on Day One of the 2006 CTAM Summit here in Boston.
Among the Gold winners was a Canadian company: Astral Television Networks, for its On Demand TV spots for The Movie Network. Astral was the lone Canadian company to take home an award in 2006. For the full list of winners, click here.
The Mark Awards recognize excellence in consumer and industry marketing for the cable and telecommunications industry. MTV Networks received the most honors among the content providers, winning a total 19 Mark Awards, eight gold and…
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IT’S EASY TO FIGURE OUT just what the American cable operators are doing when you travel to conferences Stateside.
The SCTE Cable-Tec show in Denver last month was no different. Network DVR, switched digital, VOIP, analog reclamation and MPEG4 – attendees sure were able to get a handle on what our U.S. neighbours are up to.
But what of Canadian cable plans? Why not ask Rogers Cable senior vice-president network engineering and operations (and the SCTE board’s Canadian rep) Dermot O’Carroll? All new cable concepts and new gear for Rogers passes through his office so if anyone knows where we’re at…
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MONTREAL – Videotron has upped the speed of its fastest Internet service, from maximum download speeds of 16 Mbps to 20 Mbps.
Subscribers to the Extreme Plus high-speed service, currently paying $79.95 a month, will get the extra speed at no extra cost. It’s available in all of Videotron’s service area, a total of 2.4 million homes passed.
Upping the ante for speeds is making competitors want to catch up, says Robert Dépatie, President and CEO of Videotron. “We are pleased to see that our offerings are spurring the entire telecommunications industry to be more competitive and more cutting…
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TORONTO – XM Canada said this morning it plans to bump its rates up by $2 a month (matching rival Sirius Canada) while reporting solid growth through its third quarter, ended May 31st.
Canadian Satellite Radio, which operates as XM Canada, reports 80,000 subscribers since service launch, however, 64,000 are paid while 16,000 are OEM trial subscribers (mostly in-car listeners who are not paying monthly fees during various trial periods, thanks to the deals signed by XM where in order to have the receivers installed in Hondas, Toyotas and others, XM has promised the car companies which install their…
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OTTAWA – The revenues of the conventional television broadcasting industry edged up just 0.6% in 2005, well below the average growth of 2.3% over the past five years, says a report by Statistics Canada released today.
It was a particularly difficult year for public television broadcasters, whose revenues slumped 5.2% to $1.2 billion, mainly because of a 25.2% drop in air time sales. The cancellation of the National Hockey League season accounted for much of the decline in advertising revenue, says the report.
The operating revenues of the television broadcasting sector totaled $5.6 billion in 2005, up 2.8% from…
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"REGULATORY APPROVAL" are the two stock words every media sale announcement made in Canada has attached to it. As in: "Agreement XYZ will close after the required regulatory approval."
Wednesday’s big buy is no different as it will have to pass under the Competition Bureau’s and CRTC’s magnifying glasses, smudged and cracked as they appear to be sometimes. In the official release, Bell Globemedia and CTV CEO Ivan Fecan said: "With regulatory approval, we intend to serve Canadian audiences with both CTV and Citytv stations."
This time, though, that particular sentence means regulatory approval will only be able to come…
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TORONTO – All-HD broadcaster High Fidelity HDTV, Toronto, and U.S.-based media company Rainbow Media, have announced a major expansion of their programming agreement.
Hi Fi has signed an agreement with company division Rainbow Media HD Holdings to bring VOOM HD brands Rush HD and Equator HD. The deal involves licensing of Rainbow’s extensive HD programming and solidifies High Fidelity as Canada’s leading HD provider while strengthening Rainbow’s global reach.
VOOM HD is the all-high definition satellite service available in the U.S.
The agreement significantly expands on a deal signed in the first quarter of 2006 between the two companies…
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OTTAWA – Registration is now open for the 2006 Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ annual convention, the 80th anniversary of the broadcasters’ yearly gathering.
With the theme of "New Realities. New Rules." this year’s conference will take place November 5 to 7 in Vancouver at the Westin Bayshore Hotel.
Speakers have yet to be finalized but topics already on the agenda include: copyright; Internet radio; the latest in local TV sales and marketing and local radio sales and marketing; broadband opportunities; the connected consumer; gearing up for the 2007 specialty and pay CRTC policy review; personalized programming; mobile television; digital…
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OTTAWA – After consulting with the space players over the past eight months, Industry Canada today called for applications to fill satellite slots over Canada.
The launch of this licensing initiative to authorize the development of Canadian satellites says that up to 29 satellite licences may be assigned. It will be the largest spectrum licensing initiative ever undertaken in Canada. A comparative competitive licensing process will be used in which applicants will be required to submit proposals to Industry Canada but license winners will be expected to have birds operational in the 2008-10 time frame.
"We need to increase…
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ONE UNINTENDED HAZARD of deregulation is that all other news outlets will be under-reporting the size of the Canadian cable industry this morning.
On Wednesday, the CRTC released the Canadian broadcast distribution industry’s statistical and financial summaries. But the report doesn’t include all distributors.
From 2004 to 2005, revenues, as well as number of subscribers, remained more or less constant for Class 1 cable carriers. However, with growing investments in voice over IP, for example – as evidenced in Shaw Communications’ third quarter report that said capex will rise at a good clip for the next 24 months…
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