TORONTO – As Canadian broadcasters pitch linear TV as a safer space for brands than toxic social media platforms during their upfront presentations, it was some surprise to see on stage Thursday at Twitter's TwitterFront event in Toronto top execs and talent from Corus Entertainment, CBC, Rogers Media and Bell Media.
"Everyone is working with us," Paul Burns, a former digital exec at Shaw Communications and now Twitter Canada’s managing director, told Cartt.ca about Canadian media players who are increasingly making the most of a social media platform often derided by critics for being a land…
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TORONTO – Canadian media circles have long been gripped by a dramatic industry narrative that Netflix and other U.S. tech giants will kill their pay TV business as audiences shift online.
The quieter truth is traditional Canadian distributors are still in business as (cord cutting aside) TV viewers mostly still refuse to part with the cable bundle while also embracing Netflix, Amazon and other digital alternatives.
"Year over year, it's always a bit of doom and gloom. Is TV in decline, is it going away? We believe TV has lots of runway," a bullish Rogers Media president Rick Brace said Thursday…
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TORONTO – As streaming video grows and younger viewers move online, traditional Canadian TV networks in recent years have been keen to tell advertisers they were following audiences online as multiplatform players amid fast-changing viewer habits.
But the CBC, underpinned by new leadership, had a stark selling point at its upfront presentation in Toronto on Wednesday beyond excitement over their new and returning TV shows – brand safety and transparency.
"The last year illustrated some of the dangers the digital world represents. There are traps," Jean Mongeau, general manager and chief revenue officer at CBC Media Solutions, told Cartt.ca, as U.S….
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OTTAWA – Canada’s creative community applauded the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage for hitting the right notes in calling for better pay for Canadian artists in its Shifting Paradigms report presented to Parliament on May 15.
Now, however, groups representing artists want the federal government to produce a symphony of legislative change from the committee’s 22 recommendations, which include a call to both support creators and creative industries adapt to new digital markets, and review safe-harbour exceptions and laws to ensure that Internet service providers (ISPs) are “accountable for their role in the distribution of content.”
“As technology…
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TORONTO – While there are no Canadian carrier CEOs on the speakers’ schedule this year, those executives not in attendance will certainly be paying attention to next week’s Canadian Telecom Summit when it opens Monday morning.
(Ed note: For long-time CTS attendees, this year it is being held at the International Centre, which is just up Airport Road a ways from its former Congress Centre home.)
The event kicks off with an interview on stage with Rola Dagher, president of Cisco Canada (the questions, however, are coming from another Cisco-ite, Ian Campbell, the company’s CTO, service provider mobility and automation, so…
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TORONTO – While a wide range of hopeful competitors have backed a mandated MVNO, or some sort of variant on it, regime from the CRTC, CFOs from two of Canada’s Big Three Telecoms – Glen LeBlanc (Bell) and Telus’ Doug French – insisted last week such a move would be irresponsible of the Commission to implement.
Speaking at TD Securities Telecom and Media Forum in Toronto last week, the executives, in separate presentations, touted their respective company investments in having built the infrastructure that now serves Canadians from coast to coast. (MVNO =…
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OTTAWA – Wireless carriers will have to provide more granular data to the CRTC, after all.
As part of its submission to the CRTC’s review of mobile wireless services, the Competition Bureau wants to, among other things, do a detailed study on what happened locally (not just in provinces and nationally) when new wireless competitors to the Big Three (Rogers, Bell and Telus) were introduced. To do that, the Bureau needs far more detailed data than the CRTC has asked for in its original requests for information upon the proceeding’s call.
The wireless carriers and…
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GATINEAU – So much work and hope was dashed yesterday for those hoping to replace Rogers Media’s OMNI on the TV dial.
The CRTC has decided Rogers will continue to operate its must-carry national ethnic language TV channel after renewing its license for OMNI Regional for three more years until August 2023. Its current license expires next summer.
This means the Commission has denied all of the other hopefuls, each of whom had rather interesting proposals for a new channel to serve the ethnic market.
“The new service, which will succeed Rogers’ existing OMNI Regional service, will be available on all digital…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC has decided Rogers will continue to operate its must-carry national ethnic language TV channel after renewing its license for OMNI Regional for three years until August 2023. Its current license expires next summer.
This means the Commission has denied all of the other hopefuls, each of whom had rather interesting proposals for a new channel to serve the ethnic market (see links below).
“The new service, which will succeed Rogers’ existing OMNI Regional service, will be available on all digital basic television packages throughout Canada,” reads the CRTC press release. “The new OMNI…
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Bell also asks for return of long-term contracts
GATINEAU – Competition in the Canadian wireless market is already heated and getting hotter, resulting in an overall and ongoing decline in wireless prices while new competitors continue build out new facilities and take customers from them, so why upset that momentum now, and just at the dawn of 5G, Rogers, Bell and Telus have asked in their submissions to the CRTC’s review of mobile wireless services.
It will surprise no one that the submissions largely hit many of the same themes, especially in their stance against mandating mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs),…
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