TORONTO – Sportsnet has finalized a three-year broadcast rights agreement with the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens, becoming the official English-language regional television rights holder. Bell Media-owned RDS holds the team's French-language TV rights.
The new agreement, which begins this season and runs through 2016/17, includes 42 regional games. Sportsnet East will be home to 39 regional Habs games, with three additional regional games airing on City Montreal. When combined with the national package of 40 Canadiens games, the NHL on Sportsnet will air all 82 regular season games across nine channels including CBC, City, Sportsnet (East, Ontario, West, and Pacific), Sportsnet…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The federal government said that it will force the communication industry to abandon paper bill charges after the country’s biggest companies failed to commit to doing so at Thursday’s CRTC review into the practice.
Industry Minister James Moore said Friday that charging extra fees to customers who receive paper copies of their bills, a practice known as pay-to-pay billing, was “unfair”, and promised that the government would introduce legislation to end it in the telecommunications sector. He did not say when such legislation would be tabled.
"More and more Canadians are finding a new charge appearing on their monthly…
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LONDON – Rogers Radio rebranded its London station from 102.3 BOBfm to the new 102.3 JACKfm on Thursday.
With five established sister stations in cities across Canada, the successful JACK Rogers Radio brand features hit music from such artists as Maroon 5, Adele, and P!nk, mixed with classic favourites from Queen, The Rolling Stones, and AC/DC. The new station will also feature “JACK’s No Repeat Work Day,” offering listeners no repeats between 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM daily.
The new station format is being promoted through an out-of-home external media campaign, and across select Rogers Media properties.
“Appealing to a broad cross-section of…
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TORONTO – The slick-looking user interface of the new shomi service from Rogers and Shaw is purported to be one of the key differentiating features that will allow it to compete against other SVoD players, especially indomitable Netflix.
During its official announcement on Tuesday, Rogers Media president Keith Pelley described shomi’s “really spectacular” user interface as “far superior” to that of any other SVoD service.
“When you actually take a look at the product, it has taken a significant amount of time to actually build the user interface, to have a kind of ‘attitude’ on the user interface and to…
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TORONTO – Finally putting an end to months of speculation over plans to launch a Canadian subscription video-on-demand service, Rogers Media and joint-venture partner Shaw Media announced the highly anticipated SVoD service, dubbed shomi, in Toronto on Tuesday.
Cartt.ca broke the story in January that Rogers was working on an over-the-top video portal, but despite being continually pressed on the subject, until today, Rogers execs wouldn’t comment publically on the service other than Rogers CEO Guy Laurence’s recent cryptic allusion to the “Loch Ness Monster”.
And Cartt.ca doesn’t want to take it personally that Rogers and Shaw decided to officially…
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TORONTO – Asian Television Network International (ATN) launched five new channels on Rogers Cable on Tuesday.
The channels, which are also available on Bell Fibe TV in Ontario and Quebec, include general interest service ATN-DD India, comedy channel ATN-Dhammal, Bollywood Movie channel UTV Movies International, Urdu food and lifestyle channel ARY Zauk, and Urdu 24 hour news channel ARY News.
"We are excited to bring these 5 channels to our huge subscriber base on Rogers Cable" said ATN president and CEO Dr. Shan Chandrasekar, in the news release. "I am sure our subscribers will enjoy a variety of programming available on these…
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MISSISSAUGA – The SCTE Ontario Chapter is seeking papers for presentations at its Fall Meeting and Vendor Show which will take place on October 21, 2014.
The theme of this year’s show is ‘Emerging MSO Technologies and Troubleshooting Techniques’ and the organization has requested papers that address emerging MSO network/in-home technologies, deployment architectures/practices, and troubleshooting techniques.
Proposed topic and presentations abstracts must be submitted to scte-ontario@rogers.com before 5:00 pm ET on September 8. Speakers will be contacted and finalized by September 19.
The show will once again be held at the Mississauga Grand Banquet and Convention Centre in Mississauga, and registration…
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TORONTO and CALGARY – Canada’s new subscription video-on-demand service showmi is coming to tablets, mobile, online, and Xbox 360 in early November for $8.99 per month.
The joint venture, owned equally by Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications, will launch in beta first to Rogers and Shaw Internet or TV customers. The service is being officially unveiled Tuesday in Toronto, and Cartt.ca will be there.
Featuring more than 11,000 hours of prior seasons of TV series like Modern Family, Sons of Anarchy, Sleepy Hollow, Shameless, 2 Broke Girls, Vikings, New Girl, 24: Live Another Day, Chicago Fire, The Strain, and American Horror Story, the service will…
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TORONTO – Rogers and Shaw are set to reveal their new over-the-top video portal, known as Showmi, at an event Tuesday morning in Toronto. According to our sources, the service could be ready to launch as early as November (but announcing it officially now, just prior to the CRTC television policy hearing, is no mistake).
As Cartt.ca was first report early this year, the service was conceived as the Canadian answer to Netflix or Hulu, a one-stop online space where TV and film content whose Canadian rights – owned by Rogers Media, Shaw Media, Bell Media and Cineplex – would…
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GATINEAU – A group of Canadian television viewers and consumer-oriented organizations says that it’s time for the CRTC to change the way it regulates the broadcasting system; this time, by putting Canadians, and not a specific industry, front and centre.
“The broadcasting system – and its business and regulation – must move back towards one that serves Canadians,” reads an intervention by the Groups for the Public Interest to the Commission’s Let’s Talk TV Conversation with Canadians.
The Public Interest Advocacy Centre, Consumers’ Association of Canada, Council of Senior Citizens Organizations of British Columbia, National Pensioners Federation, Option consommateurs and Canadian…
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