CALGARY and TORONTO – Alek Krstajic is stepping down as CEO of Shaw-owned Freedom Mobile while Paul McAleese was named Chief Operating Officer.
Shaw made the announcement early Wednesday, in conjunction with the release of its second quarter financial results which saw its Wireless division add over 33,000 new postpaid and prepaid wireless subscribers in the three month period.
“We thank Alek Krstajic for his leadership over this past year," said CEO Brad Shaw, in the announcement. "During that time, Alek was instrumental in activating Freedom's LTE-Advanced network and in providing customers with the best value and an enhanced connectivity…
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THE SUBSCRIPTION TELEVISION industry likes to say that outright cord-cutting (defined as when a consumer abandons a TV subscription altogether) is still a pretty small phenomenon.
So far, overall, that remains technically true. The latest numbers show about two percent of Canadian households with a TV subscription have chosen to cut the cord and stop subscribing to traditional TV. Generally, it’s been a story of “flat is the new up”, while inside of the likes of Rogers, Shaw, Cogeco, Bell and others, hardworking employees are doing their best to swallow hard every day and manage substantial…
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TORONTO – RTDNA Canada has released the 2017 finalists for its annual Network Awards.
The RTDNA Canada Awards honour the best journalists, programs, stations and news gathering organizations in radio, television and digital. Network winners will be announced at the 2017 National Conference & Awards Gala in Toronto on May 27.
The nominees are:
Digital
Adrienne Clarkson Award – Diversity
CBC News Investigates: Behind the Headlines: Syrian Refugees
CBC News: Missing & Murdered: Who Killed Alberta Williams?
Global News: Experiments on Canada's Indigenous Populations
Data Storytelling Award
CBC News: Presidential Poll Tracker
CBC News Manitoba: Transport Canada List of 500 'Highest Risk' Railway Crossings Not Widely Shared
Digital Media Award
CBC News:…
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OTTAWA – While complaints over telecom and Internet services continue to fall, Canadians are still unclear about the terms of their service contracts, says the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services (CCTS).
In its mid-year report released Thursday, CCTS said it accepted 3,955 complaints between August 1, 2016 and January 31, 2017, down by more than 600 from the 4,562 complaints received in the same period a year earlier.
The report says that non-disclosure or misleading information about contract terms was once again the most commonly raised issue (10.7% of all issues), followed by complaints about incorrect charges at 9.4% and…
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Sportsnet can’t get digital rights, doesn’t renew
TORONTO – While we’ve yet to get official confirmation from Amazon, the road seems clear for Canadian Amazon Prime members to be able to watch the NFL’s 10-game Thursday Night Football package online.
As has been widely reported, Amazon has agreed to pay the NFL US$50 million for the rights to stream Thursday Night Football games (which are also available to watch on the NFL Network and CBS).
Last year, Twitter live-streamed the games (paying just US$10 million) but Rogers Media prevented the stream from happening legally in Canada because it…
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VANCOUVER – Rogers today announced it has expanded wireless service by erecting two new towers near Kelowna, B.C.
The towers, near Mount Boucherie and Upper Okanagan Mission, expands the Rogers LTE network to make it easier for Rogers and Fido customers to use maps to navigate the Lakeshore Wine Route, share a photo from the bleachers of Jim Lind Arena, or make a call from West Kelowna City Hall, says the press release.
"We're investing in our wireless network to make sure our customers have access to our world-class LTE service in more places," said Perm Jawanda, vice-president, partner retail…
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TORONTO – Frank Boulben, Rogers Communications’ chief strategy officer, is leaving the company at the end of April.
Boulben was one of the senior executives brought on board by former Rogers CEO Guy Laurence in 2014 when the new chief overhauled the structure and began changing the culture at the big red machine.
Before Rogers, Boulben had been chief marketing officer at Blackberry and prior to that worked with Laurence at Vodafone.
Rogers has now lost three top executives in the months since Laurence was let go with corporate affairs chief Jacob Glick and SVP policy Ken Whyte having already announced…
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TORONTO – Rogers Communications senior vice-president, policy, Ken Whyte has resigned.
He announced the move in a tweet Monday morning saying “Many thanks to my friends at rogers for 12 happy, fruitful years. Resigned this morning! What's next??”
Whyte had been policy SVP for nearly three years, having moved into that position from the company’s publishing division. He had been president of Next Issue Canada, president of Rogers Publishing and prior to that, publisher and editor of Maclean’s magazine.
Whyte has been a journalist and author through his career, with noteworthy editor-in-chief roles at The National Post and…
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OTTAWA – Former Rogers exec Jacob Glick is joining the centre for law, technology and society at the University of Ottawa starting April 1st.
Glick (pictured) will be a distinguished executive fellow in residence, conducting research and undertaking collaborative work with Faculty members and researchers. He was Rogers’ chief corporate affairs officer from November 2014 until March 2017 where he was responsible for regulatory affairs, corporate communications, public policy, government relations, and corporate social responsibility.
Prior to Rogers, Glick ran the central public policy and government relations team for Google Inc. and was also general counsel, director of policy development, and corporate…
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TORONTO – Twenty public schools that risked being left out of the Toronto District School Board’s plans to upgrade broadband connectivity are about to get a leap into the gigabit world thanks to a donation from Rogers Communications.
The cableco said Thursday that it has started a three-year pilot project to bring its Ignite Gigabit Internet service to the schools, which are among 32 now serviced only by Bell Canada’s legacy copper-wire ADSL service. That means all they could hope for was around 18 Mbps – good enough for text research but not for some graphic-intensive projects – and when…
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