TORONTO – Unable to come to a new wholesale carriage agreement, Rogers Cable dropped Speed from its channel lineup March 1st.
The channel originally came to Canada in 1997 as Speedvision as a part of the third tier of analog specialty channels launched that fall and has been a cars-and-motorsports channel ever since – a place where gearheads and race junkies could watch shows on how to fix cars and race cars – as well as to see a huge number of live car, truck and motorbike races. It was acquired by Fox in 2001 and renamed Speed Channel, and…
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TORONTO – Many folks love to tell Canadian TV executives what they should – or should not – be doing. Really, anyone with a TV set does that regularly.
But when it comes to those with a keyboard and a national platform, or with a famous name or job, their gripes often offend and are taken to heart. At Thursday’s Content Industry Connect day put on by the Banff Media Festival, broadcast executive, investor and producer Peter Sussman kicked off the industry leaders panel by quoting noted thorn-in-the-Canadian-TV-industry’s-side, Globe and Mail TV critic John Doyle. In a fall 2013 column…
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TORONTO – Canadian broadcaster George Stroumboulopoulos will lead Rogers’ “dream team of broadcasters” anchoring its NHL national coverage across all Rogers properties, as well as Hockey Night in Canada beginning this fall, Rogers announced Monday.
Together with hockey talent Don Cherry, Ron MacLean, Daren Millard and Jeff Marek, the team will deliver more than 500 regular season games across 13 networks and seven platforms, including up to seven games every Saturday night, plus Hometown Hockey every Sunday hosted from communities across Canada, and every game of the NHL Playoffs and Stanley Cup Final. The announcement comes as Rogers gears up…
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TORONTO – Astral Media co-founder Ian Greenberg is being inducted into the Canadian Broadcast Industry Hall of Fame.
The induction ceremony will take place during Canadian Music Week at the Canadian Music & Broadcast Industry Awards gala scheduled for May 8, 2014 at the Kool Haus in Toronto.
One of four brothers who founded Astral, Greenberg played an integral part in the company’s 50-year history by gradually transforming it from a photographic specialty business into one of Canada's leaders in pay and specialty TV, radio, out-of-home advertising, and digital media. As president and CEO of Astral from 1995 until BCE's acquisition…
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PETERBOROUGH, ON – Rogers has chosen Monroe Electronics’ messaging platform to provide emergency public alerts in select markets across Canada, announced its Canadian distributor, Capella Telecommunications.
Monroe’s One-Net platform filters and forwards targeted alerts from Canada’s National Alert Aggregation and Dissemination (NAAD) system with full support for Canada’s unique Common Alerting Protocol messaging profile (CAP-CP). This will allow customers in affected regions to receive emergency alerts in multiple languages and instructions in both visual and audio formats.
“This is an important step in the process of providing emergency public alerts for our customers”, said Eric Bruno, Rogers’ VP of video product…
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MONTREAL – Radio-Canada’s ICI Tou.tv is launching a new premium service called Extra, in collaboration with Rogers and Telus who are offering it free to their wireless customers.
The French-language online video on-demand service currently offers 1,200 titles free as part of its basic entertainment service for Canadians. The soon-to-be-launched Extra will be home to a selection of over 400 new French titles, including series Top of the Lake, known in French as Au bout du lac (2014 Golden Globe nominee for best miniseries, starring Elisabeth Moss, winner for best actress), and Spiral, known in French as Engrenages (International Emmy nominee…
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TORONTO – Rogers Media’s new specialty channel FXX is gearing up for its April 1st launch with a programming slate that will include original FX scripted series, acquired movies and series, and original Canadian programs.
Billed as “the younger-skewing funnier extension of FX Canada”, the channel will mirror its U.S. counterpart with a roster of established hit comedies, such as It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Eastbound & Down, The League, Legit, and Wilfred, as well as new series Ali G: Rezurection, new animated comedy Chozen, and the Canadian-filmed black comedy Fargo, (pictured) based on the Coen brothers' Oscar-winning film.
FXX will…
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TORONTO – Calling 2013 “a pretty good year”, SaskTel president and CEO Ron Styles said this week that the provincial Crown corporation will come close to its financial targets ($1.2 billion in revenue, $93 million in net income) when it announces its annual results in April.
Styles was in Toronto on Monday and sat down with Cartt.ca to discuss the year past, the year ahead and some of the challenges posed by current regulatory uncertainty in Canada’s telecom industry.
The past year saw SaskTel continually add capacity to its wired and wireless network, continue to grow its fibre to the premises…
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WASHINGTON, D.C. – According to Kathleen Ham, vice-president of federal regulatory affairs for number four U.S. wireless provider T-Mobile, the Federal Communications Commission should look to the results of Canada’s 700 MHz wireless auction for instruction.
In a blog-post on February 28, Ham noted that “adopting reasonable spectrum aggregation limits is the best possible approach to maintaining a healthy, competitive wireless industry.” As readers and other industry watchers here will recall, Industry Canada placed limits on the amount of spectrum our established big three, Rogers, Telus and Bell could acquire in the auction which just wrapped…
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TORONTO and BUFFALO – The much-hyped ‘Bills in Toronto’ series may be in jeopardy after an announcement Wednesday postponed the 2014 Buffalo Bills regular season game for at least a year, allowing the communications behemoth and struggling NFL team time to ponder how to “deliver a better fan experience”.
Rogers Media president Keith Pelley and Buffalo Bills president and CEO Russ Brandon issued a joint statement saying that game will return to the Bills’ Ralph Wilson Stadium in Buffalo, and that the two organizations “will use this time to collectively evaluate opportunities to enhance future games”.
“We are committed to continuing our…
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