TORONTO – Astral’s Family Channel unveiled a new look on Tuesday, neatly timed to coincide with the launch of the high definition version of the channel.
"As part of the new look, the Family logo bounces, floats and pops. It never sits quietly on a shelf but bursts with life and energy," said Heather Senst, VP of creative services, in the announcement. "Through our new look our viewers are instinctively reminded of the fun, surprising and relatable nature of their favourite Family shows."
New on air station IDs include animation featuring the channel’s logo “as the instigator of all on-screen action”. A new…
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WHILE MASSIVE SPENDING cuts at one bankrupt broadcaster led it back into the black in 2010, another that was home to the Olympics saw the Games both boost – and drag down – results.
According to the aggregate financial data submitted to the CRTC by all English and French language OTA broadcasters and posted to the Commission web site recently, all lost money, save two.
• Those two are Quebecor Media’s TVA (which recorded a PBIT of $49 million in the 2010 broadcast year (ended August 31, 2010) and the former Canwest Global stations (now part of Shaw Media) which…
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TORONTO – This week, Rogers Television (the community channel arm of Rogers Cable) announced the cancellation of its local news and information show, First Local, effective immediately.
Local versions of the show had been produced in York Region, Durham Region, Mississauga, Barrie, Brantford, Stratford, Guelph and a provincial edition in New Brunswick. The program never existed in Ottawa or Toronto and had already been axed in Collingwood, London and Kitchener.
“The decision was made as a result of the CRTC’s new community television policy issued in August,” said Colette Watson, vice-president of Rogers TV. The policy imposed increased requirements for…
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TORONTO – Rogers can move forward with its $425 million purchase of Atria Networks after receiving approval of the deal from the Competition Bureau.
Kitchener-based Atria owns one of Ontario’s largest fibre-optic networks including 5,600 fibre route kilometers and over 3,800 on-net buildings in “high-growth territories” like Ottawa, Hamilton and Markham. Its customer base of over 1,100 customers spans the public sector, enterprise and carrier providers. Atria Networks was previously privately held by Birch Hill Equity Partners.
Rogers says that the deal, originally announced last October, augments its business solutions offering “by enhancing its ability to deliver on-net data centric services…
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WE JOURNALISTS JUST love our year-end lists, don’t we? They are everywhere. However, we don’t do predictions here. They only thing I have found to be certain when trying to predict the future is that nearly all the time, the predictions are wrong.
So instead, here’s our list of 10 open questions heading into 2011.
1. How much market share will the Telus and Bell Canada IPTV services take from incumbent cable companies? The user experience of the Microsoft Mediaroom-driven Optik TV and Fibe TV is just so darn good and so darn integrated (I’d switch just for the whole-home PVR…
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OTTAWA – The death of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters appears to have been greatly exaggerated.
Months after the 84-year-old private broadcasters’ lobbying group announced plans to close up shop, it decided instead upon a major restructuring which resulted in a smaller board with a fresh mandate to focus solely on matters of collective importance for the entire broadcasting industry.
“The CAB never closed its doors," newly appointed chair Sylvie Courtemanche, who is also the VP of government relations at Corus, told Cartt.ca. “There was a thought that we were going to proceed towards a wind up, but when we started looking at the activities of…
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OTTAWA – Not only is the NDP taking the credit for Rogers’ decision to begin unlocking its customer’s mobile phones, it’s now calling on Bell and Telus to keep up with both its competitor “and the rest of the world”.
NDP MP Bruce Hyer (Thunder Bay-Superior North) called Rogers’ decision a “major reversal of policy” and credited the move to public pressure created from his private member’s bill known as the Cellphone Freedom Act introduced in June. The bill calls for telecom companies to ‘unlock’ fully purchased phones free of charge at a customer’s request, and unlock subsidized phones…
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KEITH PELLEY DOESN’T DO caffeine. He’s already wired.
“Can’t drink caffeine,” he says. “I don’t need the energy.”
Late this past summer, the unfailingly exuberant Pelley made the surprising leap from CTV to Rogers Media, jumping from the country’s biggest TV company, the highest rated national TV network and owner of TSN, the top-rated sports channel where Pelley began his TV career, to a far smaller TV business.
At the time, many considered Pelley the odds-on favourite to replace CTV CEO Ivan Fecan. Now, whether Pelley knew for sure the Bell folks were coming in and unlikely to give him the…
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OTTAWA – Despite the availability of new ways to acquire video content, there is not yet any sign of co-called “cord-cutting” among Canadians who continue to subscribe to Canadian television service providers such as cable, satellite, and telephone companies, according to new research.
In fact, the new study from Ottawa’s Boon Dog Professional Services shows that Canadian BDUs are actually continuing to add subscribers.
The number of Canadian households subscribing to a traditional TV service such as cable or satellite increased by about 29,000 (less than 1%) in the second quarter of 2010 to top an estimated 11.3 million, according to…
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TORONTO – The Movie Network has signed a multi-year, multi-platform deal for Showtime’s acclaimed lineup of original dramas, comedies and documentaries.
The long-term deal (terms of which were not disclosed) allows the pay television service to offer popular series like Californication, Dexter and United States of Tara on-demand and on-line, in addition to on-air, exclusively, while the content is in the pay-TV window.
"Showtime’s original programming is among the most cutting-edge and acclaimed content out there and is exactly the sort of premium experience that makes The Movie Network such a unique entertainment and value proposition," said Kevin Wright, SVP of…
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