OTTAWA – Support for community TV and media has been on the agenda in the House of Commons, with nearly a dozen MPs presenting a petition calling for the creation and ongoing support of community media centres in Canada.
According to Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS), the petition says that community media centres will ensure that Canadians have access to adequate news and information that reflects their communities, as well as offer skill development for Canadians' participation in the digital economy.
Liberal MP Will Amos, who represents the riding of Pontiac, north of Ottawa, said in a CACTUS statement that he supported…
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TORONTO – The rumour mill in the TV business was spinning overtime on this one lately, but today Rogers Communications made it official – it is killing its long-awaited IPTV solution in favour of Comcast’s X1 platform.
The move means the company will take a pre-tax non-cash asset impairment charge in the range of C$475-$525 million in its fourth quarter.
Friday morning’s press saw Rogers tout a new “long-term strategic partnership” with Comcast to bring Rogers customers Comcast's X1 IP-based video platform. However, it will not launch until 2018.
As we have reported, Rogers was hoping to have its IPTV solution (built…
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TORONTO – Bell Media has promoted Rob Farina to the role of head of iHeartRadio, syndication, and strategic initiatives, Bell Media Radio.
Farina (pictured), joined the company in March as senior advisor for the launch of iHeartRadio Canada. His expanded role now includes responsibility for growing radio content syndication group Orbyt Media and implementing new strategic radio initiatives in coordination with radio programming VP David Corey. Farina will also continue to lead iHeartRadio Canada.
"Rob has played a vital role in the successful launch of iHeartRadio in Canada, a truly game-changing digital listening and experiential service," said Randy Lennox, Bell…
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MONCTON – Rogers extended its tech tracking tool, known as Rogers EnRoute, to customers in New Brunswick Thursday.
The service, which debuted in Ontario last month, allows customers to use their phone to track exactly when a technician will arrive for an installation or service call. Rogers EnRoute will roll out to the company's entire residential footprint this year and into early 2017.
"With Rogers EnRoute, we're taking another step to overhaul and simplify our customers' experience and save them time which is a precious resource," said chief customer officer Deepak Khandelwal, in the news release. "We've got more work to…
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TORONTO — Bloomberg TV Canada’s first year of operation has been one of growth and expansion, with distribution and advertising levels increasing monthly, the first of several news bureaus across the country coming online, and an “A-list” of newsmakers having appeared on the channel.
Despite not having carriage on Bell TV nor Bell Fibe, Bloomberg TV Canada executives say it has achieved distribution parity with its main business channel competitor, Bell-owned Business News Network (BNN). “We’re very happy, 12 months in, with the progress that we’ve made and the expansion that we’ve seen,” said Chris Fuoco, vice-president of sales and…
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TORONTO – Well known radio personality and comedian Maureen Holloway is joining the popular morning show on Toronto’s 98.1 CHFI FM.
Holloway (pictured), will join co-host Darren B. Lamb beginning January 9 on a revamped show aptly named Darren and Mo. She replaces long-time Rogers radio personality Erin Davis who announced her retirement last month.
Born in Montreal, Holloway began her broadcasting career when she was hired out of Ryerson’s Radio and Television Arts program to be a traffic reporter on CKFM in Toronto, now Bell Media’s 99.9 Virgin Radio. In 2000, she left that station to spend the next 15…
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MARKHAM, ON – Iristel has not only denied Rogers’ allegations of traffic pumping, it says that the claims are “at best a result of recklessly poor due diligence and at worst, a vexatious fiction intended to injure Iristel’s business reputation”.
Rogers’ November 18 application accused Iristel of “being unjustly enriched by gaming the regulatory framework for local competition” by profiting from the higher local termination charges applicable in the Northwest Territories. In its December 2 response, Iristel said that excessive calling by a group of customers leading to correspondingly high call termination charges stem from Rogers’ own business decision…
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REGINA – SaskTel on Monday offered its official response to the risk assessment report of BCE’s proposed $3.9 billion acquisition of MTS.
That report, commissioned in May and released June 20, was conducted by independent third party Mark H. Goldberg & Associates Inc. and grouped the risks under the major categories of regulatory, competitive and financial.
SaskTel said in its response that it agreed with the report’s assessment that potential regulatory changes resulting from the deal “represent the most fundamental set of risks”.
“SaskTel has been materially impacted (often negatively but on occasion positively) by regulatory changes and policy…
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TORONTO – Amazon Web Services (AWS) has been setting up data centres around the world offering a wide range of compute and analytics services in competition and partnership with local service providers and on Thursday it announced it has come to Canada, opening two data centres here – as promised earlier in the year .
Now it’s looking to partner with telecommunications firms to resell its services.
“If you look around the world there are many telco partners who work with us closely to take our services to market and offer complimentary services to the AWS platform,” AWS Canada director Eric…
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TORONTO – Despite last year’s big 4K investment spend under now ousted president and CEO Guy Laurence, Rogers will offer fewer 4K NHL games this season than it did last year.
The communications giant said Wednesday that all 81 regular season Blue Jays home games will be produced and broadcast by Sportsnet in 4K, as will 14 Toronto Raptors games between January and April, 2017. But it committed to only seven Toronto Maple Leafs matchups in the latter half of the 2016-17 NHL season, in addition to the eight between October and December, which is at least five…
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