OUTSPOKEN CONSUMER GROUP OpenMedia.ca is miffed that it has yet to be invited to meet with new Industry Minister Christian Paradis.
After a report on Bloomberg noted that Minister Paradis held meetings earlier this month with 13 of Canada’s largest telcos – including Bell, Rogers, Telus, and Shaw – the organization issued a statement claiming that “positions the Industry Minister to create key digital policies in the Big Telecom lobby’s narrow commercial interests rather than those of Canadians”.
“Time and again the Big Telecom lobby has shown its neglect, and even disdain, for the Canadian public’s communications interests”, said OpenMedia.ca executive director Steve…
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ANTHONY LACAVERA CARRIES two BlackBerrys with him wherever he goes. One is a Wind Mobile handset, of course. The other, Rogers (with the logo scratched off).
The Globalive chairman and Wind Mobile CEO wants to make sure wherever he goes, he can do a real-time comparison of his own of his company’s network performance versus the Canadian mobile market leader, via his own handset. Just last week he was doing that in Kitchener-Waterloo, Wind’s newest market.
In a couple of years, he hopes to be able to do the same thing in many more places using a more robust bit…
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TORONTO and MONTREAL – Rogers Sportsnet is partnering with Quebecor-owned TVA on the new French-language sports channel TVA Sports that will launch nationally on September 12.
The new channel plans to air more than 60 Toronto Blue Jays baseball games and 25 regional Ottawa Senators hockey games (Rogers owns the English-language broadcast rights to these properties, plus the Blue Jays team). TVA Sports has declared itself the official broadcaster of Major League Soccer’s Montreal Impact, plus has signed a multi-year agreement with Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) for live fights and The Ultimate Fighter series (which also airs on Rogers Sportsnet).
The…
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MONTREAL – Montreal’s Metro 14 will launch in high definition this Saturday.
The Channel Zero-owned station also confirmed that it will be launching in HD on Cogeco systems around the Montréal area later this fall. It is currently available on Videotron, Bell TV, Shaw Direct Rogers, and over-the-air in HD.
New to channel’s fall primetime lineup, which debuts September 12, are series The Insider, Hart of Dixie, and The Secret Circle, plus a new morning show that will premier in early October.
www.metro14.ca
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TELEVISION HAS ALWAYS been served to a household. At first, people had one TV in their homes, then another and then another which received the signals from broadcasters over the air, then via cable, satellite and now telco TV too.
The signals were – and are – the same, sent at the same times to everyone, whole households, which contain any number of people at any age with many tastes. As the TV phenomenon exploded through the 1960s and ’70s, broadcasters began to segment, finding spaces in their schedule to serve, for example, stay at home moms (soaps) or kids…
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TORONTO – As the country readies for the start of another hockey season, Canada’s sports broadcasters have announced their NHL schedules.
CBC’s Hockey Night In Canada announced an 109-game schedule starting with preseason play on September 24th, and regular season play on October 6, 2011, the NHL’s opening day of the 2011-12 season.
Its schedule also includes the 59th NHL All-Star Game on January 28 and 29 from Ottawa; Hockey Day in Canada from Prince Edward Island on February 11; and the 2012 Stanley Cup playoffs and final.
TSN and TSN2 announced its combined 151-game NHL on TSN broadcast schedule. A total…
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TORONTO – Rogers has completed the quintuple play after launching its new home monitoring and automation system Wednesday.
Called Smart Home Monitoring, the security and energy management service allows customers to automate and manage sensors, cameras, thermostats, lights and appliances from their computer or smart phone. Rogers Communications CEO Nadir Mohamed talked about the new service in a speech last fall, as Cartt.ca reported, but it and other large North American MSOs have been developing the service for a number of years. Rogers has been building towards Wednesday’s launch for nearly five years and began testing technology three years ago. Over…
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CHILLIWACK, BC – Rogers Radio took the wraps off a new Top 40 radio station in B.C. Wednesday called SONic.
Despite rumours that the re-branded station would be dominated by sports, Rogers said that SONiC will feature artists such as Katy Perry, LMFAO, David Guetta, Marianas Trench, Lady Gaga, Lil Wayne, Drake, Black Eyed Peas, Pitbull, and Ke$ha, among others. Available at 107.5 Chilliwack, 92.5 Abbotsford, and 104.9 Vancouver, SONic (fomerly CFUN-FM) has pledged to play 10,000 songs in a row without commercial interruption.
“SONiC speaks to a younger audience and represents a commitment to the next generation of listeners who…
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TORONTO – CTAM Canada’s next day-long course, as part of its Canada University Program, is entitled “How Cable Goes to Market.”
The course is designed for the marketing manager who is responsible for product management and strategic marketing, as it will provide insight into the new opportunities enabled by technological advancements. The course is open to and applicable to both cable and programming marketing professionals.
The course will provide participants with a better understanding of:
• The latest cable technologies and new products
• Complex technologies and terms in a non-technical language
• Emerging technologies’ effect on cable business and marketing
• The opportunities and…
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CALGARY – Speculation on just what Shaw Communications will do on the wireless front has been rampant since the winter when the company decided to shelve its HSPA build in the face of high costs and accelerating next generation technology.
Rumours of a pact with Rogers Communications to build a national LTE network were pretty hot for a while and others are guessing the big cable and broadband company just might forget about cellular altogether and go for a wi-fi strategy.
Back in June, Shaw CEO Brad Shaw told Cartt.ca the company would have a decision “over…
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