CALGARY – Third quarter profits at Shaw Communications were up 28% on revenues that cracked the $1 billion threshold, the company reported Wednesday. But it offered no glimpse into the future of its wireless plans beyond what CEO Brad Shaw told Cartt.ca last week.
Consolidated revenue for the quarter ended May 31, 2011 were $1.28 billion, a 36% increase over $943 million in the same period last year, while net profits grew 28% year-over-year to $202.7 million from $158.2 million. Shaw credited the improvement to its acquisition of Shaw Media, as well as rate increases and growth in its cable and satellite…
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LESS THAN A DECADE AGO, the television landscape was a lucrative landscape of BDUs and broadcasters who understood the terrain. Laws were established. Rules followed. Peace (sort of) reigned.
Then over-the-top video (OTT) with all of its possibilities blew into town, creating a wild west that many believe leaves traditional players without a strong weapon while a new, lawless breed takes over, driving consumers to cut, or trim, their TV subscriptions.
“OTT is more important than we thought,” says Alain Gourd, chair of The Working Group on Online Broadcasting (formerly the Over-the-Top Working Group), a conglomerate of 13 BDUs, broadcasters…
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OTTAWA – Videotron is partnering with the Mobile Giving Foundation Canada (MGFC), a move that will allow its customers to support registered charities through the organization’s text-to-donate initiatives.
Videotron’s wireless customers can now text a specific keyword to an assigned five-digit number to donate either $5 or $10, depending on the charity’s call-to-action and type of campaign. The amount donated by text will be charged to the donor’s wireless phone bill, and is billed as a tax-exempt transaction. Videotron will then remit 100% of the funds collected from mobile donations to the MGFC, who in turn remits the full amount directly…
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OKAY, WE’LL ADMIT IT. Sometimes it does get a little difficult in maintaining one’s attention on the fifth day into a CRTC hearing.
The questions, and quite often the answers, grow more similar as minutes turn into hours, turn into days. Those repeated questions and answers, though, do tend to allow followers of the hearing to divine just what the commissioners and the industry are aiming for. If you read between enough lines, maybe you can even predict, a little, what’s coming.
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WE’VE ALREADY EXPLAINED what the primary topics are during our extensive coverage of the CRTC’s…
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GATINEAU – The clichés and attempted parallels were flying on the final day of the CRTC’s vertical integration hearing on Tuesday.
All of the independents, from V Interactions at the start of Tuesday through to GlassBox and Fight Network at the end of the day, are afraid the big, vertically integrated companies will only act ruthlessly in their own self interests to the severe detriment to their much smaller companies.
Among the elements of its proposal, the Weather Network/Météomédia owner Pelmorex Inc. argued that the Commission should “entrench in regulation” a requirement on broadcast distribution undertakings (BDUs) that they can’t alter…
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OAKVILLE, ON – According to the Weather Network, this summer will be crisp and clear with a strong likelihood of high definition.
The Pelmorex-owned channel is continuing its HD roll out by launching on Rogers’ channel 586 late last week. The move is part of the network’s HD launch that began last month for Ontario and Manitoba viewers (channel 450 for MTS and channel 767 for Cogeco customers, respectively).
“We’re pleased to bring the new look and feel of The Weather Network in HD to Cogeco, MTS and Rogers customers,” said Maureen Rogers, SVP of television services, in the announcement. “With our move…
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TORONTO – On the eve of its annual awards gala, RTNDA Canada: The Association of Electronic Journalists has voted to change its name in order to adapt to the changes in the profession.
In a vote at its national conference this past weekend in Halifax, the membership agreed to change the acronym to include the word ‘Digital’. For the last 49 years, the acronym was short for Radio-Television News Directors Association. That will soon change to RTDNA, or Radio-Television Digital News Association – The Association of Electronic Journalists.
"Flipping those two letters, from ‘News Directors’ to ‘Digital News’ makes us more…
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GATINEAU – A code of conduct for vertically integrated broadcast and distribution groups, content exclusivity on mobile and the need for a skinny basic package were the primary discussion points discussion during the fourth day of the CRTC’s examination of vertical integration.
EastLink noted during its opening remarks that access to content is a “critical driver” of not only its cable distribution service, but for all of its services, and therefore rules need to be established to ensure equitable access to content.
“Programming services dictate contract terms requiring distribution in high penetration packages, packaging requirements and, in some cases, with the…
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GATINEAU – Do consumers really want the ability to pick the Jenny Craig of TV packages, a.k.a. the oft-debated, ultra-lean, skinny basic package?
It has been one of the primary questions coming from CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein and his colleagues over the first three days of the Commission’s hearing into vertical integration.
The idea has been bounced around for a couple of years (especially during the fee-for-carriage battles), however it has really taken hold of the imagination of the panel of commissioners this week.
In a nutshell, a mandated skinny basic package would force cable, satellite and telco TV distributors…
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PARIS – We can likely watch for a renewed wave of stories and blogs about how far behind Canada is when it comes to wireless and broadband as compared to the rest of the world when the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development releases its latest Communications Outlook report, expected some time today.
The wave of negativity has washed over the country several times already due to various such reports, so just make sure you dig deeper than the easy, salacious, headline.
According to a source who has already seen the report, it will make headlines that will make…
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