OTTAWA — Consumers who want to sign up for CraveTV or shomi without first being Bell or Rogers/Shaw customers could be the potential beneficiaries of applications filed with the CRTC on Friday by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and the Consumers’ Association of Canada (CAC).
PIAC-CAC submitted two applications to the CRTC, challenging the tied selling of the two online streaming services linked to the consumption of the service providers’ other telecom or broadcasting services.
In the application regarding CraveTV, PIAC-CAC are challenging whether Bell can restrict access to its subscription video-on-demand service to customers who already have a TV…
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OTTAWA — The list of applicants for the upcoming AWS-3 and 2500 MHz wireless spectrum auctions, revealed yesterday by Industry Canada, is comprised mostly of national and regional incumbents, with a couple of smaller players thrown into the mix.
In total, 13 Canadian companies have submitted applications to compete in the AWS-3 and 2500 MHz spectrum auctions, expected to begin this spring.
Bell, Rogers, Telus, MTS, Vidéotron, Wind, Eastlink and TBayTel have all applied to take part in both the AWS-3 and 2500 MHz spectrum auctions. Mobilicity and SaskTel plan to bid on AWS-3 spectrum only, while Xplornet, Calgary-based CCI Wireless…
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THERE WAS TOO MUCH symbolism to ignore with the choice of London, Ont., as the place where CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais chose to begin dismantling simultaneous substitution and to shift the ground under Canadian TV companies, forcing the vertically integrated behemoths to ask themselves this question: “Why do we need to own media companies?”
Blais spoke in London a week ago to make three announcements, two of which were decisions from the Commission’s Let’s Talk TV hearing held in September 2014.
London is generally acknowledged as the first city in Canada to get cable over 60 years…
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TORONTO – While the number of Canadians tuning into NHL hockey on television in Canada is down (despite Rogers public complaints about how ratings service Numeris is filling its viewership panels), Rogers Communications’ CEO and CFO say they’re pleased with the overall performance of the first half of the first season of the company’s 12-year, $5.2 billion rights deal.
“Actually, NHL’s doing very well for us, we’re very pleased with the execution of it thus far, and excited as we go through the rest of the reason. In fact, I spent yesterday in a…
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ACCORDING TO A Globe and Mail article published this weekend, “the ratings for NHL games in the first year of the broadcast contract for Rogers continue to slide,” based on information from Numeris, the company that provides all broadcast ratings in Canada. Solution Research Group’s independent tracking research conducted in December 2014 suggests a similar trend line for NHL audiences on TV.
Early that month, we asked a national sample of 1,500 Canadians aged 12 or older whether they followed NHL and a number of other professional leagues – and…
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OTTAWA – The participant list for Industry Canada’s upcoming AWS-3 and 2500 MHz auctions this spring is beginning to take shape. Among those who have confirmed to Cartt.ca that they have submitted applications to participate in the two aforementioned auctions are Rogers Communications and Telus Corp.
SaskTel says it applied for the AWS-3, but noted it is ineligible for the 2500 MHz sale. Bell Canada and Eastlink wouldn’t confirm or deny that they filed applications. Vidéotron and MTS hadn’t replied to Cartt.ca by deadline.
Wind Mobile, which recently completed a restructuring, had previously announced its…
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TORONTO – Rogers is gearing up to deliver live pay-per-view coverage of the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup and will extend access to that coverage to Bell, MTS, SaskTel, Shaw/Shaw Direct and Telus subscribers.
The 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup kicks off on February 13 at 5:00 PM ET/2:00 PM PT with Sri Lanka vs. New Zealand, and continues through to the final match on March 28. Canadian fans without a pay-per-view subscription can catch Pakistan as it meets defending champion India on February 14 at 10:30 PM ET/7:30 PM PT on OMNI.2.
As the exclusive national distributor, Rogers will offer all 49 matches…
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TORONTO – Rogers’ fourth quarter profits fell 7% despite gains in its Wireless and Media divisions, the company announced Thursday.
For the quarter ended December 31, 2014, Rogers posted net income of $297 million, down from $320 million in the fourth quarter of 2013, on operating revenue of $3.37 billion, which increased 4% from $3.24 billion year-over-year. Adjusted net income was $355 million which dipped 1% from $357 million last year.
Rogers said that the lift in consolidated revenue reflected 3% revenue growth in Wireless and 20% in Media, flat revenue in Cable, and a decline of 1% in Business Solutions. …
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TORONTO – The topic of simultaneous substitution always comes up a lot at this time of year, in the same breath as the Super Bowl and its nifty new ads.
While the average Canadian sports fan may be celebrating the CRTC’s decision Thursday to prohibit the controversial requirement in Super Bowl games starting in 2017, Bell Media, the Canadian rightsholder of the big game that airs nationally on its CTV network, told Cartt.ca that it was “extremely disappointed” with the ruling.
“The government is damaging the future of local television in Canada while rewarding U.S. corporations over home-grown companies”, said…
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TORONTO – Netflix subscriptions look to have peaked a little in Canada, while Canadians are taking a peek at shomi, according to new research released today by Toronto’s Solutions Research Group.
As part of its ongoing Digital Life Canada syndicated study, the company found that:
Netflix use is steady at 35% of Canadian online households (see below), which means it’s being used in about 4 million of the 11.5million Internet households in Canada. The penetration number stayed relatively flat through the latter half of 2014.
Netflix continues to garner exceptional satisfaction scores with an impressive 55% of paying subscribers saying it’s ‘excellent’…
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