OTTAWA – As Industry Canada ponders the rules that will surround next year’s advanced wireless spectrum auction, Rogers Communications CEO Ted Rogers was in Ottawa today to reiterate just where he and his company stand, while saying the company might be looking to spend between $500 million and $1 billion.
While potential national newcomers like Quebecor and MTS Allstream are demanding spectrum set asides, or caps on how much the incumbents can buy and other favours like mandated tower sharing/roaming in order to get into the wireless business cheaper than they would in an open auction and open…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Broadcast distributors took a bashing as Canada’s main independent broadcasters complained Tuesday that difficulties gaining access to viewers was hindering the diversity of media voices in the country.
Pelmorex (The Weather Network/Meteomedia), Evanov Communications (five radio stations), Stornoway Communications (three digi-nets), XM Canada owner John Bitove and the Independent Programming Services (made up of Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, Channel Zero, Ethnic Channels Group, Fairchild Television/Talentvision, S-Vox Trust, Stornoway and TV5 Quebec Canada) all said distributor gatekeeping powers could result in a decline in the number of broadcast voices if the CRTC didn’t adopt appropriate safeguards.
Stornoway president…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC Friday granted the request of Quebecor Media’s Sun TV for rebroadcast transmitters in London and Ottawa, Ont.
Right now, Sun TV is available only to viewers in the Toronto-Hamilton corridor and the station suffers from such limited exposure when compared to its competitors, all of whom have stations (or multiple stations) in all of the above mentioned markets.
While there were the usual protestations from cable companies objecting to yet another channel that has to be squeezed into basic cable, jostling customers yet again, and rival broadcasters worried about losing ad dollars, the Commission approved…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Time to revive all the old jokes that CRTC stands for “Can’t Release ‘Til Christmas”.
The Commission today confirmed that the complex issues facing a decision on what to do about the Canadian television fund were too much to consider prior to the previously-set September deadline.
A December decision means it will have been about a year since Shaw Communications tried to blow up the fund by withholding payments and saying it would rather give money claimed from cable and satellite bills for the CTF, back to its customers. Quebecor Media’s Videotron soon followed suit.
This is…
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MONTREAL – Quebecor Media’s cable and telecom division Videotron continues to turn in strong growth numbers, driving the division to across-the-board increases in the second quarter, ended June 30th.
Videotron added 55,000 cable telephony customers, 26,000 high speed Internet subscribers, 10,400 new wireless users, and 1,900 customers for all cable television services combined, including a 26,300 customer increase for illico digital TV, says today’s press release. Videotron’s monthly average revenue per user increased by $9.78 (16.3%) to $69.95 in the second quarter of 2007.
However the rate of growth has remained static in some segments as the company added…
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MONTREAL – Quebecor Media’s cable company Videotron was the first large Canadian MSO to offer voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) service to its customers and it is the first one to count half a million telephone subscribers.
"Thanks to Videotron’s cable telephone service, 500,000 clients can now communicate among themselves for free, from one end of the province to the other," boasts the press release. Videotron offers free long-distance calls between subscribers to its residential telephone service.
"Videotron is aware that the more households it offers services to, the more it stimulates market competition," said company president and CEO…
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TORONTO – Dennis Firby has been promoted to director of technical operations at Quebecor Media’s SUN TV.
"As opportunities for advancement arise it’s terrific when we can promote from within the station and Dennis has enthusiastically earned such an opportunity," said station VP and GM: Jim Nelles in a note to staff.
Firby started in the business at CKNX Wingham, Ontario, and has held increasingly senior positions in the broadcast industry having worked at CFTO, YTV, and Stornoway Communications. In August of 2003 he joined Toronto 1, which later became SUN TV.
In his new role Firby will be…
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TORONTO – The Writers Guild of Canada has come out in opposition to the CRTC Task Force on the Canadian Television Fund.
Oddly, while directing pointed criticism at Shaw Communications and Quebecor/Videotron, the WGC release is really about how it believes that broadcasters don’t properly promote or schedule Canadian shows.
The Task Force report calls for the lowering of Canadian talent CAVCO requirements for CTF-funded prime time programming to 8 out of 10 points, from 10 out of 10. To the Writers Guild, that means the report says "in order to garner an audience, programs need non-Canadian talent," reads…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – There will be a new way of doing things when it comes to funding home-grown television, if the recommendations from the Task Force Report on The Canadian Television Fund are followed.
Upon first read, the recommendations released today by task force chair Michel Arpin, vice-chair, broadcasting at the CRTC, largely address the complaints made by the primary funding organizations – Canadian cable and satellite companies – which were led by Shaw Communications and Quebecor Media.
While most of the BDUs have serious reservations about how the CTF has worked and is working, Shaw and Quebecor took action this…
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FAIR IS FAIR, RIGHT? On Tuesday, Cartt.ca presented one side of the advanced wireless auction debate through an interview with Videotron CEO Robert Dépatie.
On Wednesday, Rogers Wireless president Rob Bruce (pictured below) sat down – along with RCI vice-president, regulatory, Ken Englehart – with Cartt.ca editor and publisher Greg O’Brien to swing back, so to speak, and talk about RCI’s reply comments to Industry Canada on the potential for new rules on this auction and what they hope will happen.
What follows is an edited transcript.
Greg O’Brien: Well, let’s start with today’s filing. What does it say…
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