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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Internet service provider TekSavvy said in court documents filed on Friday that the big broadcasters which were successful in bringing about the first court-ordered site-blocking decision did not put the effort in to use other methods to squash those it accused of peddling unlicensed content on the internet – making it harder to justify the use of site-blocking for that purpose.
In July, Bell, Rogers and Quebecor’s Groupe TVA Inc. brought a motion to ban alleged pirate IPTV provider GoldTV from operating until the outcome of a trial, which was granted by the court in August….
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By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – On February 20th, the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology “adopted a motion to study the influx of fraud calls in Canada, including robocalls, ghost calls, and spam calls. The Committee will also examine the successes and failures of the National Do-Not-Call List, and the STIR/SHAKEN measures that will be implemented in September 2020.”
The first meeting, held on Tuesday, March 10th, when Parliament was still running and COVID-19 wasn’t all the news, saw committee members hear two panels discuss the issue.
The first had representatives of the CRTC and the RCMP.
In their opening remarks, both…
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TORONTO — Rogers Communications today announced a series of steps to support its customers and communities during the evolving COVID-19 pandemic.
Rogers Ignite TV and Digital TV customers now have free access to a rotating selection of channels until April 30. This includes popular content for the whole family, since we are going to be spending a lot of time together for the foreseeable future, as well as news channels to stay informed.
Disney, Disney Jr., Family Channel, Family Jr., YTV, Treehouse, Teletoon, ABC Spark, FX, CP24, CTV News Channel, CBC News Network, New Tang Dynasty, TV Asia are all available…
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