By Greg O’Brien
ALL ACROSS THE COUNTRY, millions of Canadians are working from home, or sadly just staying home after their job was placed on indefinite hold. Students don’t know when they will go back to class and seniors are being told going for groceries is dangerous because of the deadly Covid-19.
Politicians of all stripe are telling us to stay home – a call which most of us are thankfully heeding – and one which we will need to obey for some weeks to come to try and slow the spread of the virus.
We’ve hunkered down at home with our…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Long time Canadian cable executive – and the first CEO of what is now Rogers Wireless – George Fierheller, died last week. He was 86.
While still chair of Rogers Cable-owned Canadian Cablesystems in 1983, Fierheller led a team backed by investors Philippe de Gaspe Beaubien, Sam Belzberg, and Ted Rogers to win cellular spectrum from the federal government – the first made available for mobile wireless voice services for consumers.
Fierheller then became the first president and CEO of Cantel after gaining the spectrum licences, staying from the beginning (it officially launched service in 1985) until 1993. During…
Continue Reading
TORONTO — Corus Entertainment has provided an update regarding its response to the Covid-19 outbreak, while also trying to address rumours circulating regarding the company’s liquidity and compliance with its loan covenants.
In the company’s Covid-19 update, Corus president and CEO Doug Murphy says the company remains committed to delivering high-quality news and entertainment programming across multiple platforms to audiences across the country.
“The health, safety and well-being of our people is our utmost priority. We’ve focused the support efforts of our internal technology team to enable as many people as possible to work from home. For those job functions…
Continue Reading
TORONTO — Rogers Communications is donating one million meals and launching a national awareness campaign to help Food Banks Canada (FBC) in its efforts to raise $150 million to fund the public’s need for food for the next 90 days.
FBC directly supports 650 food banks, helping thousands of programs across the country, and some are experiencing up to a 50% decrease in donations with just over two weeks supply left, says the news release. The economic impact of Covid-19 has resulted in funding shortages and an unprecedented surge in demand at food banks, says the release.
Rogers says it…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – In a wholesale TV rates battle between Bragg Communications (Eastlink) and Rogers Media, the CRTC today gave both sides a win with a final offer arbitration decision.
The two companies have not been able to settle on wholesale rates for Sportsnet and Sportsnet One for some time and approached the CRTC for an FOA process in October 2019.
With Sportsnet (which has five regional feeds), the Commission said Thursday it has selected Rogers’ offer, while for Sportsnet One, it chose the Eastlink offer.
Eastlink fought for its offered rates (none of which were made public) by telling the Commission it…
Continue Reading
TORONTO — With people practicing social distancing, businesses cutting hours and services, Canadians staying home to work or self-isolate while the stock markets slide in unprecedented fashion due to the effects of COVID-19, Scotiabank this week released an analysis of where it sees both negative and positive effects when it comes to the telecom and media spaces.
“Over the past week, the initial COVID-19 concerns have expanded dramatically from global device supply chain issues to an unprecedented level of domestic consumer and business disruptions. The equity sell-off in the sector has been indiscriminate,” reads the research note to investors from…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – The Federal Court of Appeal has denied Bell’s application against a decision by the CRTC that said the company had unduly disadvantaged Quebecor’s TVA Sports in favour of its own, RDS.
The March 12 decision came after Bell requested a judicial review in January of a CRTC decision that said the company had packaged its own RDS channel differently than Quebecor’s TVA Sports, its competitor, thus muting the reach of its rival and causing a “material adverse impact on TVA Group,” the CRTC said in the December ruling.
Quebecor filed the original complaint in February…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA — Through a partnership with several of Canada’s telecom providers, the federal government is reaching out to Canadians living or travelling abroad via text messages containing contact information for Global Affairs Canada consular support in response to the global COVID-19 outbreak. A sample of one is pictured below.
Beginning Wednesday, Rogers, Bell, Telus, Videotron, Freedom Mobile, Eastlink and SaskTel will be sending their subscribers currently living or travelling abroad text messages containing consular support information and key contact information.
“I am pleased that Canada’s telecommunications service providers have acted quickly to help Canadians as they take steps to answer the…
Continue Reading
THE LATEST IMPACT of COVID-19 is the closure of retail outlets by Canada’s biggest telecom and cable companies, including Rogers, Bell and Telus. Smaller carriers are doing the same.
Starting March 18, Rogers is closing most of its retail locations until March 31. However, it’s keeping 93 store locations open across the country to deliver critical services only, including: phone repair and loaner phones, critical device activation, SIM card swap and replacements, modem and cable box swaps, and remote controls for Ignite TV. A full list of available stores can be found here for Rogers, Fido and Continue Reading
TORONTO – It appears Corus Entertainment and a number of other Canadian broadcasters have made their Canadian specialty channels free to the customers of broadcast distribution undertakings (BDUs) in Canada until April 30th.
The companies have not put out a press release or made an announcement saying so, but carriers such as Rogers Communications, Cogeco, Eastlink, SaskTel, Access Communications, Westman Communications and Quadro Communications have announced every one of Corus’ 28-plus channels (from Adult Swim to Food Network to History to YTV) are now free to all customers to watch while they hunker…
Continue Reading
