Receives $52M in federal, provincial funding
MONTREAL – The governments of Canada and Quebec are throwing their support behind the development of NorthStar, a new global environment information platform that aims to help humanity track our impact on Earth and its natural resources.
The NorthStar platform is being developed by Montreal-based satellite technology start-up NorthStar Earth & Space, which has now received C$52 million in additional financing from strategic partners.
Based on a 40-satellite constellation with sophisticated sensors and information delivery capability, NorthStar will enable new advances in continuous environmental management including pollution detection, charting the health of the world's oceans and…
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And it needs to be much better
TORONTO – Getting your latest TV show discovered and viewed in a fast-changing media landscape may be as easy as asking Alexa or an X1-powered voice remote.
"Voice search is now revolutionizing how content is being discovered," Michael Gray, senior manager of on demand and SVODs at Rogers Communications, told the CTAM Broadcasters’ Forum in Toronto on Tuesday.
The days of just scrolling through channel guides may be numbered, agreed Erik Ramberg, vice president of global business development at MediaKind, formerly Ericsson Media Solutions. "Alexa: watch The Handmaid's Tale," is all you need to…
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TORONTO – Length matters.
That's one of the findings of a poll of Canadian TV viewers and the video content they consume which was conducted by Charlton Strategic Research, and unveiled Tuesday at the CTAM Broadcaster’s Forum in Toronto on Tuesday.
Charlton's Gord Hendren told conference attendees that an online survey of 3,168 Canadians over 18 years of age revealed the total time spent watching long-form video content, or over five minutes in length, is up among total Canadian TV viewers.
Millennials, though, are bucking the trend.
Hendren said his poll revealed younger Canadian TV viewers from 18-34 years of age spend less…
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TORONTO – Radio is killing the radio star and needs a rebuilt system focused on creating local content if it’s ever to bring audiences back from listening to music on the Internet. That was the consensus from an industry panel (pictured) on the state of radio held last week at the Ontario Association of Broadcasters 2018 Conference at the Toronto Airport Marriott.
“Music has become commoditized,” argued Geoff Poulton, president of Vista Radio, which owns 41 smaller market radio stations in B.C, Alberta, Ontario and the Northwest Territories.
“You used to compete on music in the good old days. We have…
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My friend Mark took his own life this past summer.
There should be a stronger word than shocked to describe how it felt when I found out. I was at work, got up from my desk and just left to walk for a long while. My brain couldn’t and still can’t process it.
Mark Freedman was always so bright and cheery with me. He was smart, incisive, fun to talk to and knew this industry inside and out. He knew why things are the way they are better than most others I know. I counted Mark as a friend but he…
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PIAC reiterates FairPlay opposition
OTTAWA – A representative of Canada’s Business Coalition for Balanced Copyright – an alliance of Canadian telecommunications providers including Bell, Rogers, Vidéotron and others – says while its members support a regime that rewards and protects creators, facilitates access to creative content, makes investment in technology and supports educational research, the removal of exceptions added to Canada’s Copyright Act in 2012 would put hundreds of millions of dollars at risk.
“ exceptions added to the Copyright Act in 2012 were necessary to eliminate uncertainty that would restrict or inhibit the development of new products and services,” Jay…
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TORONTO – The explosion of connected devices and streaming services in the home that rely on Wi-Fi connectivity has resulted in the need for smarter Wi-Fi networks that can provide extended, uniform coverage and can serve as the foundation for Internet of Things in the home.
Wi-Fi mesh will not only “blanket a home with a strong Wi-Fi signal,” says Peter Vandenengel, president of Wi-Fi equipment tester Netperian, but such systems can also be set to automatically fix connectivity issues as they arise, centralize the control of data, media, and smart devices, as well as provide network analytics. Vandenengel provided…
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TORONTO – The Canadian Network Operators Consortium (CNOC) is asking the CRTC to take another look at its three year old wholesale wireline services decision, saying that “key corrections” are necessary to truly provide greater competition for high-speed Internet services.
CNOC, which represents 35 independent telecommunications services providers that own or operate wireline and/or wireless networks, filed an application with the Commission on Wednesday that seeks a review and variance of TRP 2015-326 and TD 2016-379 to “address aspects of the Commission’s regulatory framework for wholesale high-speed access services that will inadvertently and substantially lessen and prevent competition in…
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Leslie Sole, a Canadian broadcast veteran who left Rogers Media in 2011 after 25 years at the radio and TV broadcaster, has died.
Sole and his wife, Terri Michael, a veteran radio DJ, TV host and voice talent, were killed Monday after being involved in a vehicle crash near their home in Cabos San Lucas on Mexico's Baja peninsula. (He is pictured at right in an undated screen shot from CityNews.)
No other details on the accident, or what led up to the crash, are available.
Sole's death was confirmed to Cartt.ca on Tuesday by Tony Viner, who retired as head of…
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OTTAWA – After recently challenging the aggressive sales practices of telecom companies at a CRTC hearing in Gatineau the prior week, John Lawford was across the river in Ottawa taking another swipe at telcos at the annual conference of the International Institute of Communications Canadian chapter.
Lawford, executive director and general counsel of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, was given 15 minutes on Thursday to make his case in a presentation called “Lust, Lies and Stupidity: Thirty Years of Canadian Telecom Policy.” This time his message was specifically aimed for members of the federal government’s Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review…
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