GATINEAU – The CRTC wants to know more about account stacking before it renders a ruling in a dispute between cable, broadcasters and satellite companies and has called for comments on the issue.
Account stacking is where a BDU treats two (or more, as the complaint mentioned below contends) residences as a single subscription. So, for example, if a Star Choice customer has a dish at his home and cottage, he pays just one monthly fee.
In a complaint filed with the Commission in December and reported on only by cartt.ca here. Videotron has asked the CRTC to…
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TORONTO – CanoeLive will be different, that’s for sure.
If the three minutes of the news program that Quebecor CEO Pierre Peladeau revealed to ad agency types and media buyers at Tuesday’s Canadian Media Directors’ Council annual conference is what comes to air, SUN TV’s CanoeLive will be a dizzying hour for TV viewers.
The clip featured a young 20-something female visible minority anchor fronting the show with an urban music track humming in the background non-stop (at about the same sound level of TSN’s background noise of local play-by-play), lightning quick cuts from one screen to the next,…
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TORONTO – SUN TV’s daily entertainment news program, Inside Jam, has been cancelled.
The seven-month old half hour show, which was a very late entry into an enormous sea of such shows, will be turned into a once a week hour long program, to air on weekends. The station says a new daily program will be announced in May.
According to the Canadian Media Guild, which has organized the Quebecor Media owned station (which was formerly Toronto 1) and is currently negotiating the first collective agreement for the broadcaster, 13 people were let go last week.
The channel’s other…
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TORONTO – Quebecor Media cable operator Videotron has added The Fight Network to its channel lineup.
Launching today, Videotron customers will get a free preview of the service until June 1, 2006.
The Fight Network, as reported here, is the first and only all combatant sports and entertainment channel that delivers boxing, wrestling, mixed martial arts, and other combatant styles along with top-notch "fight theme" movies, documentaries, and news coverage.
"Quebec has a long and storied history of not only supporting the fight game but also producing some remarkable athletes over the years that have completed worldwide in the…
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MONTREAL – "Quebecor Media posted a very strong performance in 2005, spearheaded by surging results at Videotron, driven by positive consumer response to its products, particularly the residential telephone service, market acceptance of which has exceeded all our expectations," Pierre Karl Peladeau, president and CEO of Quebecor Inc., said today in announcing the company’s fourth quarter and year-end financial results.
Quebecor Media Inc’s revenues were up $240.5 million on the year while, operating income rose $36.4 million in 2005. Videotron’s annual revenues break through the $1 billion mark for the first time. Besides Videotron, QMI also includes TVA…
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DESPITE THE IMMINENT SHUTDOWN of the Canadian Cable Telecommunications Association, a move which will cost 26 jobs, Canada’s smaller independent operators have already decided they must have a continuing presence in Ottawa.
As reported first by www.cartt.ca early Friday afternoon, Rogers Cable, the largest remaining member of the CCTA, decided to rescind its support of the association, effectively killing it – even though no other member wanted to pull the plug. Even Rogers didn’t really want to do it.
However, no CCTA member is blaming Rogers for the demise of the 50-plus year-old association. Indeed, the CCTA’s board of…
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TORONTO – The Canadian Media Directors’ council has lined up a large, interesting, diverse slate of senior executives to speak at its upcoming conference.
The CMDC’s March 28 conference is called "Mining Growth – Discovering Potential in Media Mayhem" and will likely attract more than 800. The annual get-together is the Canadian marketing industry’s largest single-day event.
The keynote speakers include: Michael Grimaldi, president, General Motors Canada; Maurice Lévy, Paris-based CEO of Publicis Groupe SA; and Pierre Karl Péladeau, president and CEO, Quebecor Inc.
The outlook for growth from media outlets will be presented by five Canadian media leaders:…
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TORONTO – Chairman and CEO of Publicis Groupe SA, Paris-based Maurice Lévy, will be one of the keynote speakers at the Canadian Media Directors’ Council (CMDC) annual conference, scheduled for March 28.
Called Mining Growth: Discovering Potential in Media Mayhem, the conference “will extract hidden wealth for all advertising and communications sectors and examine how a rapidly evolving media environment can be harnessed for growth,” says the press release.
Lévy, who heads up one of the largest communications groups worldwide – and last year ranked number one in profitability, will be the morning keynote speaker. He will be discussing…
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MONTREAL – Quebecor Media today announced a long-term debt refinancing that will trim the company’s annual financial expenses by close to $80 million.
The refinancing, consisting primarily of the issuance of new senior notes and the entering into of new senior secured bank credit facilities, has enabled the company (which owns Videotron and TVA, among other assets) to repurchase its existing notes and will provide increased financial flexibility.
For the full details, click here.
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MONTREAL – Videotron’s total customer base broke through the 1.5 million mark in 2005, rising to 1,506,000, compared with 1,452,500 in 2004 and 1,424,000 at the end of 2003.
“It was by far the largest increase in the last five years,” rightly crows the press release. “The breakdown indicates a substantial increase in subscriptions to multi-product packages and an ongoing migration from analog to digital TV.”
The startling number is the 163,000 telephony customers the company ended 2005 with – and must be jarring for Bell Canada, especially since it has not yet matched the Videotron’s $15.95 a month…
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