By Greg O’Brien
AS A YOUNG CANADIAN growing up in Timmins (hometown of NHL legends Frank and Peter Mahovlich, among several others) Saturday night hockey on TV was as regular, or normal, or expected, as church on Sunday. As reliable and loved as our family’s dog.
Hockey Night in Canada wasn’t just a staple. It was as much a part of life as eggs and cereal for breakfast or snow on the ground in the winter. We had a single-dial television in the mid-1970s that caught the few stations we had off-air. I was my dad’s remote control, standing by the…
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TORONTO – Wednesday’s announcement by the federal government to curb domestic wholesale roaming rates was welcomed by at least one new wireless entrant, but panned by an industry analyst who described the move as “too little, too late”.
Wind Mobile chief regulatory officer Simon Lockie said that the decision makes it clear that the government “is taking the realistic and committed actions necessary to create a level playing field for competition in the wireless space”.
“Today's announcement shows that Prime Minister Harper's Government is serious about competition and serious about consumers”, he said in an emailed statement. “Minister Moore has said this…
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TORONTO – An international alliance of mobile operators has unveiled a plan to simplify and promote the adoption of machine-to-machine (M2M) communications worldwide.
The M2M World Alliance, which is comprised of Rogers, Etisalat, KPN, NTT DOCOMO, SingTel, Telefonica, Telstra and VimpelCom, said Tuesday that it will leverage the operators' combined global presence to benefit customers who are looking for regional or global M2M deployments. The solution also enables companies to enjoy connectivity throughout the Alliance coverage area with in-market rates; easier compliance with local market regulations; and the potential for multinationals to provide global technical support from a single market.
M2M communications…
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FOR A YEAR NOW, Sam Norouzi has been working tirelessly toward getting a new conventional television station on the air.
It's not something you see much these days. Unlike specialty channels, where applications come in by the bucketload (but are launched by the thimbleful…), the number of conventional television stations has only shrunk over the past decade. In 2006, there were 101 private commercial stations in Canada, according to the CRTC. By 2012, after the bottom had fallen out of the advertising market, that had dropped to 91.
Even tougher for Norouzi, his station, dubbed ICI, is an ethnic station –…
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TORONTO – Rogers’ recent $5.2 billion deal for Canadian broadcast and digital rights to NHL games over the next 12 years could be penalized by regulators should they perceive content distribution plans as working against the Canadian consumer, through either restricted access or high price, says Moody's Investors Service.
Although the plans for distribution are presently unknown, “commercial logic calls for both wide and proprietary distribution”, reads a new report from Moody’s called ‘Rogers' NHL Deal: Uncharted Territory for Content Distribution and Monetization’.
The report says that if Rogers were either a traditional national over-the-air television broadcaster or an approved specialty…
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MONTREAL – Telefilm Canada celebrated the growing interest in Canadian film, especially on the international scene, at its fifth annual public assembly held this week at the PHI Centre in Montreal.
The organization, which is dedicated to the cultural, commercial and industrial success of Canada's audiovisual industry, presented its 2012-2013 annual report which detailed its $96.9 million investment through various funding programs.
Highlights from the report include:
– Telefilm funding enabled backing for the:
Production of 72 feature films
Marketing of 94 films
Support for 44 Canadian film festivals and 83 industry events
– The Canada Media Fund renewed its services agreement with Telefilm as CMF…
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ROGERS COMMUNUCATIONS' BLOCKBUSTER NHL deal puts a direct focus on the sheer costs of sports programming for distributors and their customers, the Canadian consumer.
Cartt.ca interviewed several executives across the Canadian television industry (including some distributors who spoke to us on the condition they not be identified) to discuss the impact sports is having on broadcasting in Canada and whether or not the business can survive the spiralling costs of this rich content.
Alyson Townsend, president of the independent cable group Canadian Cable System Alliance, said no one should be surprised by the consistent price increases consumers have paid for cable…
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OTTAWA – Leveraging a long line of food and lifestyle programming already under his belt, Chris Knight is taking his next gig, Gusto TV, to the Canadian TV masses this week.
With shows like Cook Like a Chef, Licence to Grill, The Great Canadian Food Show and Road Grill part of Knight’s pedigree Gusto is “a natural extension” to what he was already doing. The concept behind the channel came in 2009, when as he says, he looked at media concentration that was taking place then and realized “I was running out of guys to make TV shows for.”
Thus…
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ONLY A FEW WEEKS after losing its National Hockey League national package to Rogers, Bell Media struck back on Monday by cornering the market on National Football League games.
Bell announced Monday it has secured Canadian broadcast, digital and mobile rights to NFL games in a “multi-year” deal starting next season. Bell would not elaborate on the length of that deal, but if recent contracts are any indication it could be for a much longer a term than the three years the two sides agreed to last time. Financial details were also not released.
“As NFL audiences continue to rise, Bell…
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