CANADIAN BROADCASTERS HEADED to the Los Angeles Screenings this week will be buying rookie U.S. shows much as they have in the past: By choosing possible primetime hits via output and multiyear deals with Hollywood studio suppliers.
But in among the horse-trading for new American dramas and comedies this year will be a new battlefield for Canadian networks needing new revenue streams to outrun falling conventional TV ad sales: the fight for digital platform rights.
And even before top players like Bell Media, Shaw Media and Rogers Media do their studio rounds this week to view new pilots on offer, there's…
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EDMONTON – After cancelling its Citytv Breakfast Television show in Edmonton last week, Rogers is inviting viewers in that city to dig in to a new show called Dinner Television.
Billed as a local, entertaining, and interactive prime-time series, Dinner Television will debut May 19 and will air on City Edmonton every day from 5:00 to 7:00 PM MT and live online at Citytv.com/Edmonton It will air in an encore presentation each weekday morning from 5:30 AM to 9:00 AM, with updated local news, traffic, and weather in an L-screen format.
Hosted by NHL veteran Jason Strudwick, Dinner Television…
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MARKHAM, ON – Canadian Broadcast Sales president Patrick Grierson will receive the 2015 Hall of Fame Award from the Ontario Association of Broadcasters at the organization’s fall conference in November.
A Board nominated honour, the OAB Hall of Fame is presented to individuals who have spent most of their careers working for private broadcasters and demonstrated a commitment to the highest standards of broadcast excellence.
Grierson was born in Cape Town, South Africa and completed his education in Great Britain. In London, England, he joined Rediffusion Television and worked in a number of areas in television production, including camera operating and…
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TORONTO – Citing a huge difference between the cost of newsgathering versus the revenue being earned by its multicultural OMNI stations during those programs, Rogers Media today eliminated all of its third-language newscasts on its various OMNI stations.
That decision, which will see the company’s Citytv and OMNI operations combined as well, came at the cost of 110 jobs, spread across the OMNI stations. Most of the losses came from positions such as editor, shooter, field technicians, ENG crews and producers.
As of Monday, May 11, OMNI’s Punjabi, Cantonese and Mandarin newscasts will be replaced by local current affairs shows in…
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MONTREAL – Quebecor CEO Pierre Dion says the company is keeping its options open about the idea of becoming a national wireless player after this week’s CRTC decision on wholesale roaming.
In a press conference after the company’s annual general meeting in Montreal on Thursday, Dion said “we will continue to use a very, very disciplined process” in evaluating whether to make use of its spectrum licenses in English Canada to expand its wireless services to other provinces, or come to agreements with other players.
He said “we think that the CRTC is taking a step in the right direction” with…
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OTTAWA – The Competition Bureau has reached an agreement with BCE and Rogers over the wireless rivals’ plan to jointly own independent mobile retailer Glentel's Canadian retail distribution outlets.
The Bureau had previously expressed concerns that the acquisition, announced in December 2014, would likely result in a substantial lessening of competition in the wireless sector. Glentel sells wireless products and services from Bell Mobility, Chatr, Fido, Rogers Wireless, SaskTel and Virgin Mobile at 359 locations across Canada, though in the vast majority of its locations, it only offers the wireless products and services of BCE and Rogers.
Under the consent agreement filed…
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TORONTO – Conference organisers have made available the final 20 delegate passes after initially selling out a month before the event.
They are on sale now on a first-come-first-served basIs. Over 160 delegates are already confirmed to attend to hear keynotes from the CRTC, GroupM, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, Bell, Rogers, QMI and many more.
Register to attend the May 20-21st event now. www.futuretv-canada.com.
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OTTAWA – Linda Vennard has been appointed as the CRTC’s Regional Commissioner for Alberta and the Northwest Territories, and Christopher MacDonald as Regional Commissioner for the Atlantic Region and Nunavut.
They have been appointed for five-year terms, according to an announcement by CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais on Tuesday.
Vennard, who will begin in her new role on May 11, joins the CRTC from the University of Calgary and has 15 years of experience in research focused mainly on broadband and community engagement, science, technology and society, as well as national security and advanced technologies. She holds PhD from the University of Calgary.
MacDonald…
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GATINEAU – New wireless entrants got their wish. The CRTC has concluded that Bell Mobility, Rogers Communications and Telus Corp. “have the ability and incentive” to impose wholesale roaming terms, conditions and rates that wouldn’t “prevail in a competitive market” and therefore will regulate their wholesale roaming rates.
Telecom Regulatory Policy 2015-177, released on Tuesday, only covers GSM-based networks (which is the tech most run on now).
Even though wholesale roaming caps as established by the federal government in Section 27.1 of the Telecommunications Act last June offered some relief to the new entrants, “the interests of users are not…
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TORONTO – Rogers Communications will announce today that its low-cost, pre-paid wireless brand chatr mobile is now available across Canada, and with new plans for customers.
Plans of $25 and up will now include international calling starting at 1 cent per minute to more than 200 countries, which reflects the target demographic of the chatr mobile brand. The bulk of the brand’s customer base are what Rogers calls “life transitioners,” chief chatr head Raj Doshi told Cartt.ca in an interview.
Many of the customers are new Canadians, or new visitors who need connectivity as soon as they get here in order…
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