TORONTO – Rogers Communications is buying Atria Networks LP, owner and operator of one of Ontario’s largest fibre-optic networks. The deal, announced Tuesday, is for a cash consideration of $425 million.
Atria Networks is privately owned by Birch Hill Equity Partners and based in Kitchener, ON. Rogers said in the announcement that the acquisition will augment its business solutions offering by enhancing its ability to deliver on-net data centric services within and adjacent to the company’s cable footprint.
"The business-to-business market represents a significant opportunity for Rogers. The acquisition of Atria strategically fits with our enterprise strategy to offer on-net, high growth…
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TORONTO – Add Wind Mobile to the list of new wireless providers rankled by Rogers’ new low cost-brand Chatr.
After Mobilicty filed a lawsuit against Rogers over Chatr earlier this month, Wind chairman Anthony Lacavera said Thursday that his company has also filed a complaint with the Competition Bureau. Wind’s grievance is about Rogers’ advertising campaign for its Chatr’s network which it claims is "more reliable” and has “fewer dropped calls than all the new entrants”.
“There is absolutely no solid or objective technical basis for Chatr’s claim to have more network reliability and fewer dropped calls than Wind”, Lacavera said in a…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC has asked CTV, Corus, Rogers and Canwest to explain how MTV Canada, Viva, G4 and TVTropolis do not violate their nature of service conditions of license.
Letters sent to the broadcasters in July (except in the case of Viva, which has been in a regulatory back-and-forth with the Commission on this issue dating back to its 2008 rebrand from Canadian Learning Television) by the CRTC’s executive director of broadcasting, Scott Hutton, ask each of them basically the same question.
To paraphrase, the CRTC wants to know how – given the programming on the channels and the way…
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TORONTO – Astral’s children’s channel Playhouse Disney launched Thursday on Rogers as part of its ‘Digital VIP’ cable package.
Playhouse Disney programming will also be available to Rogers’ subscribers as part of Family On Demand, which launches October 12, and on Rogers On Demand Online. The move is part of a larger content deal between Astral and Rogers announced earlier this month.
“We are thrilled to bring Playhouse Disney to Rogers subscribers on all platforms and to expand our Family Channel linear offering to the on demand and on-line environment,” said Joe Tedesco, VP and GM of Family Channel and…
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TORONTO – Rogers Communications announced plans to purchase for cancellation 2,880,000 of its outstanding Class B non-voting shares for an aggregate purchase price of $103,165,344 which is at a discount to their current market price.
The company said Wednesday that the transaction represents approximately 0.62% of the Class B shares outstanding at August 31, 2010.
The private purchase was made under an issuer bid exemption order issued by the Ontario Securities Commission.
www.rogers.com
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GATINEAU – Three previously announced radio transactions will face the Commission in a non-appearing hearing in November, but their CRTC applications for permission show that there’s still a lot of value in Canadian radio.
Together, the three purchases total $65 million. Rogers is making two of them, buying London’s BOB-FM from CTV for $16 million and Edmonton’s The Bounce FM from a CTV and Milestone Media partnership for $22 million.
Click here and here for the hearing notice and to see the proposed benefits packages.
The most expensive station being acquired is in Toronto, of course. As Continue Reading
GATINEAU – Despite the fact that when compared to the likes of Rogers, Shaw, Bell, Telus, Videotron and Cogeco, Bragg Communications (EastLink) is pretty small, the CRTC told the company in a letter this week that it won’t be exempted from the CRTC’s requirement to file a public version of its aggregated annual return.
“In Broadcasting Regulatory Policy 2009-560 the Commission determined that the disclosure of the public version of the aggregated annual return filed by the large ownership groups, including Bragg, was in the public interest, and that any harm that would result from such disclosure did…
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TORONTO – Mobilicity has bulked up its sales team as it gears up to expand into new markets like Ottawa and Western Canada.
The wireless provider said Tuesday that it has named Matthew Gould as GM for Western Canada, Tim Velichka as market manager for Calgary, and Janet Holt as its market manager for Ottawa.
Gould, who joins Mobilicity after more than a decade at Telus Communications in a variety of sales and distribution roles, will oversee all sales operations, distribution and retail channel initiatives in Western Canada.
Velichka will establish the regional sales and distribution team. He spent the last 11 years in…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC made public today 10 new specialty service applications made by Rogers Communications.
The company has asked for cat 2 licenses for:
Ampersand, “devoted to romance, love and relationships and would include series based on relationships, feature films, mini-series, made-for-television movies and occasional magazine-style shows focusing on this genre and its stars," reads the application.
Contessa, “devoted to programming related to relationships, lifestyle, beauty, trends and style, and would focus on the interests and needs of working women aged between 25 and 54 years.”
GGBG, “would feature entertainment programming about police, law, the courts, emergency and medical response teams,…
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TORONTO – Citytv has launched an iPad video application that will feature shows from its prime time broadcast schedule, along with favourites like CityLine and Breakfast Television Toronto.
The free, ad-supported app allows viewers the ability to catch up on full-length television programs and clips on their Apple iPad. It also includes features such as a TV schedule and a notification service that allows users to be reminded of when their favourite shows are available on the app and on TV, as well as viewing history and favourites. Other features include the ability to share video links on Facebook, Twitter…
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