TORONTO – Rogers Communications says it has increased its cash prize for the best Canadian film in 2012 to $100,000 to the director chosen by members of the Toronto Film Critics Association (TFCA).
Rogers became the founding sponsor of the TFCA Awards Gala five years ago. "We are pleased to support content creators in this country through this prize," said Phil Lind, Vice Chairman, Rogers Communications. "Canadian film is competing on the world stage and with this extraordinary prize we hope to inspire this community to reach even higher."
"We are enormously grateful to…
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TORONTO – Rogers Communications said Wednesday it has signed an agreement with SamKnows Ltd., a well-trusted independent broadband performance testing company, to conduct ongoing measurement of broadband internet speed, based on customer data collected in the home.
SamKnows measures broadband performance around the globe, including measuring for the FCC in the United States, for example. The U.S.-based company also recently completed a small pilot project with the CRTC which used SamKnows to test rural broadband speeds.
"With Internet usage exploding, speed is more important than ever to the customer experience," said John Boynton, Rogers’ EVP and chief marketing officer, in the press…
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WHILE VOICE IS COMMODITIZED and data is monetized as we increasingly move into a smartphone world, wireless pricing plans are undergoing radical changes in lock-step with burgeoning technology and changing consumer habits, according to a new report from BMO Capital Markets.
On November 7th, the Canadian big three national wireless carriers each unveiled new pricing plans within hours of each other. The new, simplified plans boast unlimited talk and text as well as data buckets that can be shared by family members and their varied devices that are all on the same household account. The BMO report says the shift,…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC told Rogers Communications on Tuesday that it won’t have to appear at a hearing in December to explain the apparent non-compliance with the conditions of license of its specialty channel G4TechTV.
Last month, as reported by Cartt.ca, the Regulator called both it and Corus Entertainment’s Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) to a December 11th hearing to explain why the channels are still not complying with their conditions of license.
Thanks to recent action taken by Rogers, however, the Commission has decided G4 can avoid the hearing. In its release Tuesday the Continue Reading
GATINEAU – The small incumbent local telephone companies (SILECs) are urging the CRTC to reject proposals calling for changes to the local subsidy regime for lost telephony customers (lost NAS). They also say a regime that will force them to raise local rates to make up for a shortfall in toll interconnection revenue won’t work.
The large incumbents, as well as Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications, want the Commission to only allow the 50% subsidy rule to apply to lost customers who port their number to a competing carrier. The SILECs counter that this is not what the CRTC had…
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“EVERYBODY’S STARTING TO realize that this market isn’t what we thought it was going to be,” said Alek Krstajic, president and CEO of upstart Canadian wireless company Public Mobile.
The wireless business is a very tough game. It’s extremely costly to build out, quite difficult to convince customers to switch service providers, incumbent carriers have been ruthless and access to spectrum, especially the good stuff, looks to be a problem. Those reasons and a few others make it appear like a round of consolidation among the three new independent wireless providers is close at hand, likely before the 700 MHz…
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by Steve Faguy
GATINEAU – With the recent, unexpected and much-publicized denial of Bell Canada’s purchase of Astral Media (because the players didn't prove the transaction to be a net benefit to Canadians) as a backdrop, the CRTC made it clear to Rogers Media Wednesday that its tough line isn't limited to Canada's largest media company.
At a hearing in Gatineau on Wednesday, the commission grilled Rogers, Channel Zero and a Montreal-based start-up on their multi-part plan to essentially convert ethnic television station CJNT Montreal (branded Metro 14) into two television stations, allowing Citytv to enter Canada's second-largest…
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TORONTO – With the Ontario chapter of SCTE growing to more than 500 members since its inception in mid-2003 making it the second-largest chapter membership in North America, it is now calling for board nominations to maintain the chapter’s strong leadership.
Bylaws require six board members, elected for two-year terms, with three board members replaced each year in order to provide continuity. James Myles, Joe Ciccone and Mario Massi will reach the end of their two-year terms on Dec 31, 2012.
D'Arcy Brown, Scott McPhail and Joe Caruso will remain on the Board until…
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TORONTO – The Connection 2012 conference attracted a record number of attendees reports the Ontario Association of Broadcasters (OAB).
“ OAB Connection 2012 hit a new high level for our annual conference. Our six speakers presented a diverse set of perspectives on current trends affecting our industry through the eyes of marketers, programmes, an investment analyst, a sales professional, and a market researcher,” remarked OAB President, Doug Kirk.
The conference, at the Westin Bristol Place Hotel, featured an extensive line-up of industry speakers including Scott Cuthbertson, Sean Ross, Donald Cooper, Paul Weyland, and Alastair…
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MONTREAL – Henri Audet, the elder statesman of the Canadian cable and broadcast pioneers who built Cogeco from a single broadcast TV station, died November 3. He was 94.
With an electrical engineering degree from MIT, Audet joined the CBC in 1949 when it was just a radio broadcaster beginning to explore television. He and a few others led the public broadcaster’s push into the new medium, which saw the first station go live in Toronto in 1952 – and two years later the first French-language CBC TV station in Montreal.
However, the CBC’s television coverage was very limited then and…
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