Bell and Corus announced Wednesday an expansion of a multi-year agreement that will see Corus’s networks be distributed on Bell Fibe TV and Bell Satellite TV.
The agreement includes Corus’s new channels Flavour and Home through the media company’s StackTV streaming service, which had previously launched on the Bell Fibe TV app.
“Bell is a firm supporter of independent content providers, like Corus, that deliver compelling content that audiences want,” Payal Gabrani-Bahl, Bell’s senior vice president of consumer and small business, said in a press release. “We’re pleased to offer our Bell Fibe and Satellite TV customers the premier lifestyle networks…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Bell Media has filed a complaint to the CRTC alleging Rogers wants to give itself an undue preference by replacing two of its newly rebranded channels with the cable company’s newly acquired programming — Discovery and Investigation Discovery (I.D.).
Bell previously had the rights to the Discovery and the I.D. brands, but lost them to Rogers when rights owner Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) signed a multi-year licensing deal with the cable giant this past summer. To make up for that, Bell announced in October that it acquired the rights to bring USA…
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Rogers and rSIM (which stands for resilient SIM) are collaborating to deliver innovative, high-resiliency connectivity solutions tailored specifically for IoT applications, according to a Tuesday press release.
Developed by UK-based CSL Group, rSIM is a patented, dual-core SIM designed to ensure reliable, always-on connectivity for critical IoT use cases.
“Built on GSMA standards, rSIM tests the data connection directly from the SIM and autonomously switches seamlessly to a backup profile when connectivity is lost,” the press release explains. “Designed to be device-agnostic, rSIM integrates this resilience directly into the SIM itself, ensuring uninterrupted…
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Indigenous broadcaster APTN announced Monday it is teaming up again with Rogers’s Sportsnet to bring a third season of Hockey Night in Canada in Cree to its viewers as well as three NHL games broadcast in Inuktitut for the first time.
Available on the APTN and APTN Languages channels, Hockey Night in Canada in Cree features play-by-play commentary from Clarence Iron, joined by analysts Earl Wood, John Chabot and Jason Chamakese. Hockey Night in Canada in Inuktitut will be hosted by Pujjuut Kusugak and David Ningeongan.
The games to be broadcast in Plains Cree will feature the Winnipeg Jets vs. the…
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Rogers announced in late December it has turned on five new cellular towers along B.C.’s Highway 16, known as the Highway of Tears, providing additional 911 access for all travellers and 5G wireless coverage for Rogers customers.
This marks the substantial completion of the project, announced in April 2021, with nine out of 11 towers now in service, according to a Rogers press release.
“With nine towers in-service, we are proud to provide 166 kilometres of 5G cellular coverage on Highway 16, closing most of the wireless gap between Prince Rupert and Prince George,” Mark Kennedy, Rogers’s…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The Competition Bureau is suing Rogers at the Competition Tribunal for allegedly misleading customers by marketing its mobile wireless data as “unlimited” when speeds are throttled after the data cap has been exceeded.
“Rogers has made, and continues to make, representations to the public that convey the materially false or misleading general impression that Rogers Infinite Unlimited Plans offer unlimited and infinite data, allowing consumers to use as much data as they want, free from data limits,” the bureau claims in its tribunal application, filed Monday. “In fact, Rogers is providing plans whose high-speed data is limited to…
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Application comes after CRTC also said Rogers can’t change Corus channel numbers
By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC ruled in a confidential decision last month that Rogers must continue carrying certain Corus channels and refrain from altering their channel numbers, even after the cable giant obtained an Ontario court opinion allowing it to make unilateral changes under its carriage agreements, according to new documents filed by Rogers at the Federal Court of Appeal Thursday.
The CRTC’s rulings on November 18 and 29 resulted from a confidential application filed by Rogers earlier this year that sought to have the CRTC lift a standstill and…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The House committee on Industry is calling on the CRTC to launch a “full review of the matter of price certainty and the issue of surprise fees increasing during fixed term contracts” and to take regulatory action on it, according to a report that was delivered to the House floor last week.
The report also urges Industry Minister Francois Philippe-Champagne to “use his available powers in the interim to correct these unfair practices,” expresses “disappointment in Rogers Communications Inc. for not proactively disclosing the true costs of their products and services to consumers,” and “notes the detrimental impact…
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Rogers Communications last week announced it has received clearance from the Competition Bureau to proceed with its acquisition of Bell’s 37.5-per-cent stake in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE).
Rogers said the two telecom giants received a “no-action letter” on Dec. 12 from the Bureau, indicating the Commissioner of Competition will not challenge Rogers’s acquisition of Bell’s interest in MLSE, a deal announced in September and valued at $4.7 billion. The acquisition is still subject to league approvals and approval from the CRTC.
MLSE owns the Toronto Maple Leafs, Toronto Raptors, Toronto FC and Toronto…
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Bell Media announced Monday the official rebranding and programming slate for its suite of currently branded Discovery channels and Animal Planet, which will sport their new channel names as of Jan. 1.
Bell Media’s Discovery is rebranding as USA Network in Canada, while Bell Media’s Investigation Discovery rebrands as Oxygen True Crime. Both channel rebrandings are a result of a major content and licensing agreement Bell Media recently secured with NBCUniversal Global TV Distribution, giving them the rights to those channel brands in Canada.
In addition, Bell Media’s Animal Planet,…
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