GATINEAU – Some 66,000 Canadians, or just 0.5% of Canadian television households, have signed up for the new slimmed down basic TV programming packages five weeks after they debuted, the CRTC said Friday.
The Commission asked ten of the country’s biggest TV service providers – Access Communications, Bell, Cogeco, Eastlink, MTS, Rogers, SaskTel, Shaw, Telus and Vidéotron, to add up subscribers to their new basic television packages. These ‘skinny basic’ packages, priced at $25 or less, debuted March 1st amidst great fanfare touting choice and affordability.
TV service providers also began offering either pick-and-pay for individual channels or small packages of…
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TORONTO – Rogers Media has parted ways with top original programming production executive Carol Commisso, whose resume includes This Hour Has 22 Minutes and Young Drunk Punk, the broadcaster confirmed Friday to Cartt.ca.
A company spokesperson said Commisso is no longer with Rogers Media. Her departure is part of the wider company restructuring unveiled at the end of January. At the time, the TV, radio, digital and magazine publishing company talked about trimming around 200 jobs, or 4% of its workforce.
The cost-cutting at Rogers Media, thought…
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TORONTO – Canada's wireless tower owners are putting too much pressure on tower consulting and construction companies to cut their costs, the inaugural conference of a new industry safety association was told today.
Tom Vardy, president of Fredericton-based Varcon Inc., a tower consulting engineering firm, complained Monday that tower owners are "bashing" suppliers so much he’s concerned worker safety will be affected. "Pressure for unrealistic service provider pricing is getting ridiculous," he said. "That's what got the United States (communications tower industry) in the (safety) hole they were in 10-15 years ago. As a Canadian group…
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OTTAWA – Rogers Communications won't earn much from its program offering low-cost Internet to low-income households, but it’s worth the investment, says Deepak Khandelwal, Rogers’ chief customer officer.
“This is truly an investment that we are making in Canada and our economy,” Khandelwal told Cartt.ca Thursday at an Ottawa event announcing the expansion of its Connected for Success program to everywhere it provides wireline Internet service. “There are some people that are in financial hardship and lower income and we want to make sure that they can get access to it.”
Khandelwal said Rogers signed up 11,000 households during the program’s…
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Sharespace aiming to make Rogers workers, customers, happier
“WE WANT TO WIN!” Guy Laurence says unreservedly, when asked why he and his leadership team have undertaken what must be one of the largest corporate culture makeovers ever seen in Canada.
As employees of Rogers Communications are already well aware, there is massive change going on within the walls (and to the walls, some of which are now gone) of the wireless, cable, television, radio and publishing giant – and Cartt.ca recently got a first hand look at how and why the company is not only blowing up the old way of…
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Connected for Success to expand across entire cable internet footprint
OTTAWA – Rogers Communications will announce today in Ottawa that it will expand its Connected for Success program to everywhere it provides wired Internet service.
This means families and individuals living in rent-geared-to-income non-profit housing in Ontario, New Brunswick and Newfoundland & Labrador will now have the opportunity to benefit from very low-cost ($9.99/month) Internet access to help them fully participate in the digital economy.
“We’ve had a tremendous response to our pilot project with Toronto Community Housing and are thrilled to expand Connected for Success to our whole cable internet footprint,”…
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NEW YORK and TORONTO – The National Football League is teaming up with Twitter to livestream Thursday Night Football games online, but that content will most likely be tackled at the border.
The NFL said Tuesday that Twitter will stream 10 regular season Thursday Night Football games broadcast by NBC and CBS free and without authentication to the over 800 million registered and non-registered users worldwide on the Twitter platform on mobile phones, tablets, PCs and connected TVs.
But those games will only be available to Canadian viewers via Sportsnet, while Rogers holds the Canadian rights to Thursday Night Football for one more…
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TORONTO – Rogers Communications is offering Internet of Things (IoT) 'as a service' in an effort to help Canadian businesses simplify the process of managing IoT solutions.
In partnership with Canadian-based provider blueRover, the first two solutions being offered as a service include Farm & Food Monitoring and Level Monitoring. Additional services include End-to-End Incident Management plus Cold Chain Management and Food Safety Monitoring for restaurants and food kitchens.
(Ed note: while Rogers’ news release claims that it is the first Canadian carrier to offer IoT on an as a service basis, that title actually belongs to Telus which Continue Reading
Canadians are receiving the broadband speeds they're paying for
OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The majority of broadband Internet services in Canada are as fast or faster than their advertised download and upload speeds, says a CRTC report on Internet services.
The preliminary report, released Thursday, found that most services from the country's major Internet service providers delivered between 109% and 122% of the advertised download speed, and that performance was largely consistent across all geographic regions of Canada in a mix of urban and rural settings.
Services using fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) technologies delivered 119% of advertised download speed on average, while cable/hybrid-fibre co-axial (HFC) delivered 103%,…
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TORONTO – Cord-cutters or -nevers missing their live sports now have the option to buy Sportsnet Now, a direct-to-consumer service, without a pay-television subscription.
Launching nationally on Friday, the live streaming service (including the regular TV ad load) of the six Sportsnet linear channels promises select NHL, MLB, NBA, soccer and tennis events, as well as original programming like Tim & Sid and Sportsnet Central. Sportsnet Now will be available on tablet, mobile and online for a monthly subscription of $24.99 with no contract and a 7-day trial period. It remains included for existing Sportsnet TV distributors such as Shaw, Telus, Bell,…
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