Cable giant watching AI shopping
By Ahmad Hathout
Rogers executives said Friday that the cable giant felt the full impact of the CRTC’s fees elimination decision in the third quarter, as it continues to seek ways to offset the loss of revenue that it says was used to recoup costs.
On a year-over-year basis, wireless service revenue decreased one per cent to just north of $2 billion and mobile phone ARPU fell 2.6 per cent, or $1.48, to $55.22 in the third quarter, which encompasses the months of July, August and September.
“The full run rate for the decision was felt in the…
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Corus Entertainment announced Tuesday the launch of its new StackTV app across select devices, with additional platforms to be supported soon.
Currently available on Roku, iOS (iPhone and iPad) and the web, the new StackTV app’s rolling launch will continue this fall with Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Android phones and tablets, Apple TV, LG Smart TVs and Samsung Tizen Smart TVs, according to a Corus press release.
The app offers a free account option, allowing viewers to stream thousands of hours of TV shows and movies, 24/7 Global News channels, and select episodes of Global’s…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Rogers and Corus have agreed to a new distribution deal that ends a long-running carriage dispute that involved several regulatory and court decisions.
Corus wrote a letter to the CRTC last month stating it wished to withdraw two 2024 undue preference applications, including one that targeted Rogers’s intention of removing or repackaging its Home and Flavour channels, which replaced HGTV and Food Network, respectively, after the cable giant scooped up the rights to those trademarks and content that summer.
In a reply on Tuesday, CRTC staff acknowledged that Corus and…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Rogers is claiming in a Part 1 made public Monday that Concord Pacific Development Corp. is forcing it to pay a $300 per-unit fee to access two properties under construction in Burnaby, British Columbia.
The cable giant claims, since July 2024, it has been seeking access to the properties at 5889 Barker Avenue and 4750-4754 Kingsway, but Concord “has consistently refused to discuss access by Rogers to the Properties unless Rogers agrees to pay an upfront per unit entry fee of $300 to obtain Concord’s permission to access the multi-dwelling units after construction is complete.
“Concord has also stated…
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The CRTC sent a letter to the national and regional telecoms this week requesting an update on the progress of the MVNO regime that is four years out from sunsetting.
From Rogers, Bell, Telus and Sasktel, the regulator is asking for a list of MVNO agreements entered into with regional carriers. It is asking the same from Quebecor, Cogeco, Eastlink and Iristel, as well as the areas where these regionals are using the wireless capacity to deliver services, where new radio access networks (RAN) have been deployed, the total capital investment to expand into these new areas, the number of…
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Canada’s big banks and the three largest telecoms will be able to share information through a single platform to protect Canadians against fraud.
The Cross-Sector Anti-Fraud Exchange (CSAFE), launched this week, aims to help identify and prevent repeat fraud through the shared platform. Its goal, according to a press release, is to disrupt fraudsters, identify repeat fraud at critical decision points across account opening, authentication and transaction, reduce fraud risks with aggregated insights drawn from a broader set of confirmed events across participating institutions, and facilitate timely sharing of confirmed fraud intelligence so participants can respond.
CSAFE was developed by EnStream,…
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Rogers Sports and Media’s Citytv announced Wednesday the launch of Dateline Canada, the first global expansion of NBC’s Dateline newsmagazine franchise.
Set to debut Thursday, Nov. 26 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Citytv and Citytv+ in a two-hour special, Dateline Canada will be led by award-winning journalist Diana Swain, known for her decades of work as a CBC investigative correspondent, host and producer.
The inaugural episode of Dateline Canada will revisit the disappearance of Elizabeth Bain, a University of Toronto student who disappeared from Scarborough in 1990. The special explores previously unreported evidence that brings renewed attention to the unsolved mystery…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC made final Wednesday Rogers’s new high-speed internet offerings to wholesale competitors.
For the eastern part of the country, Rogers sought last July to introduce speeds of 300 Mbps download and 30 Mbps upload and 300 Mbps/200 Mbps. For the west, it proposed those same speeds plus an option for 75 Mbps/50 Mbps. Because the speeds fell within the existing speed bands with approved interim rates, the cable giant did not propose new costs.
The speeds, introduced to comply with speed-matching requirements, had been in the market since September 2025 after the CRTC approved them…
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Telus and AST SpaceMobile announced Monday they have successfully completed their first integration test between Telus’s wireless network and AST SpaceMobile’s satellite-based network, marking a milestone in their partnership to enable direct satellite-to-smartphone connectivity.
By combining AST SpaceMobile’s low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation and Telus’s wireless network, this space-based technology will allow Canadian customers to use eligible smartphones beyond the reach of traditional cell towers, helping to close existing coverage gaps and to enhance access to critical emergency services, Telus said in a press release.
“Connecting smartphones directly to satellites…
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Comes after TVA Sports secured NHL rights deal from Rogers
By Ahmad Hathout
Quebecor’s Groupe TVA is stonewalling hotel television service provider Coopérative de câblodistribution Hill Valley over access to TVA Sports, a Part 1 application claims.
Hill Valley claims in the application, made public Friday, that Groupe TVA is still refusing to negotiate for the sports signal, four years after the Federal Court found Hill Valley had, for a time, violated copyright law by projecting a single signal to multiple hotel rooms without authorization.
Still, Groupe TVA allegedly wants nothing to do with Hill Valley, which…
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