TORONTO – Canadians have taken up the habit of binge-viewing multiple sessions of their favourite TV episodes like a duck takes to water, according to the findings of the latest Rogers Innovation Report, released Monday.
The report found eight out of 10 Canadians have watched three or more TV episodes or two or more movies back-to-back this year, and would willingly sacrifice some of their sleep to spend a few more minutes watching TV. The longest consecutive viewing session averages more than five hours on a weekday and almost seven hours on a weekend. “Canadians have…
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WASHINGTON, D.C.- Eager to prove to the cable industry it means business, LG Electronics made a splashy debut at the Cable Show here Monday with a wide array of new set-top boxes and smart TV applications.
LG’s portfolio of new products includes IP set-tops, an MPEG-4 QAM set-top, small TV dongles, and an Ultra HD gateway server. In addition, the company is running several demonstrations featuring the integration of its smart TVs with cable-specific applications. The Korean CE manufacturer’s massive presence at the show – including its designation as the show's "official smart TV partner" – indicates just how much…
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EDMONTON and BEVERLY HILLS – Super Channel announced today it has expanded its exclusive licensing and programming distribution deal with Starz Worldwide Distribution.
The agreement makes Super Channel the exclusive English pay television home in Canada for several Starz original series including David S. Goyer’s Da Vinci’s Demons, and the second season of Magic City, starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Olga Kurylenko, and James Caan. Each program will have a Canadian premiere on June 14, 2013 during a special two-hour programming block at 9pm ET.
Other TV series as part of the agreement include the widely…
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TORONTO – The idea of “TV anywhere” has not yet been realized in Canada, but it’s what consumers will demand very soon, according to industry experts who spoke during a special panel titled “The Revolution of TV: Content Anywhere and Anyhow” at the Canadian Telecom Summit on Tuesday afternoon.
“There are a lot of indications that we’re about to go through a major change,” said David Purdy, senior vice-president of content for Rogers Communications. “Today, we’re in the middle of a revolution, but it’s nascent.”
The panel discussion’s moderator, Peter Miller, chair of Interactive Ontario, quoted some statistics from CBC’s Spring…
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TORONTO – Wind Mobile CEO Tony Lacavera told folks at the Canadian Telecom Summit this week that sure, with the federal government denying the bid from Telus to take over Mobilicity he’d be interested in talking about buying the struggling wireless firm, but there was another thing he said that caught our attention.
Namely, while Lacavera said thank you to the federal government for its announcements on spectrum transfers Tuesday, he also had some advice for the feds as well: Lift all foreign ownership restrictions in telecom, then let Bell and Telus merge and go international.
“We…
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TORONTO – Astral’s The Movie Network announced a partnership Tuesday with three integration service providers to provide television distributors easier access to provide its The Movie Network GO, TMN’s video-streaming, service to subscribers.
Astral is offering the centralized TV everywhere integration option in conjunction with Great Lakes Data Systems (GLDS), watchTVeverywhere (WTVE) and Synacor, which allows television distributors to partner with an intermediary service that handles the back-office integration, including billing systems assimilation, authentication and entitlement services. The company says the service is aimed at smaller, independent distributors who may not have the ability to invest…
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TORONTO – Cell tower sharing remains a white hot topic for wireless competitors and the issue raised its head Tuesday morning during the Canadian Telecom Summit’s annual regulatory blockbuster panel, moderated again this year by Cartt.ca editor and publisher Greg O’Brien.
Although mandated tower sharing was included in the 2008 AWS spectrum auction rules – as it will be for next year’s 700MHz spectrum auction – the problems for new wireless entrants are the growing costs to share tower space and that access rules are not adhered to by the three incumbents, said Ed Antecol, vice-president of regulatory affairs and…
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TORONTO – Rogers-owned Citytv unveiled its plans to keep building its viewership in the 25-to-54 demographic with the addition of 16 new series, seven original Canadian series and the Grammys awards broadcast to its fall and mid-season schedule.
The new schedule, announced by Rogers president of broadcast Scott Moore during Rogers Media’s ‘upfront’ presentation Tuesday in Toronto, includes eight new comedies, six new dramas, two new reality series, as well as a roster of returning series.
Comedy shows continue to figure prominently in City’s programming mix, with five of the network’s shows among the top…
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TORONTO – Rogers announced today its recently acquired station The Score will be rebranded as Sportsnet 360, providing breaking news, scores, stats, highlights, analysis and live events.
Targeted to the hard core sports fans, Sportsnet 360 will launch on July 1 with a new logo, sets, animation package, and enhanced ticker that combines the look and feel of Sportsnet with familiar elements of The Score brand.
Rogers president of broadcast Scott Moore announced the launch today as…
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OTTAWA – The federal government said Tuesday that Telus can not buy Mobilicity right now and also pushed out the date of the auction of 700 MHz wireless spectrum to January of 2014.
Mobilicity’s network is built with AWS spectrum that was set aside for new competitors in 2008 and part of the rules of that set aside meant the spectrum could not be transferred to an incumbent for five years, a period which does not expire until February 2014. "Our government has been clear that spectrum set aside for new entrants was not intended to…
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