TORONTO – International news channel Al Jazeera English has launched on Shaw Cable and officially opened its Canadian news bureau.
Available to Shaw’s digital TV subscribers on channel 175, the network will be available on a free preview through August 31, 2010. It also available on Bell TV, Rogers and Videotron.
"We are pleased to continue our expansion throughout Canada and bring AJE’s groundbreaking news and programming to Shaw customers”, said Tony Burman, the managing director of AJE, in a statement. “Since launching in Canada in May, AJE has provided a much-needed alternative perspective to global events. There…
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OTTAWA – CTV’s ‘Save Local TV’ spots relating to the contentious fee-for-carriage issue did not violate any code provisions, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) ruled Wednesday.
As Cartt.ca readers will no doubt recall, in the lead-up to the CRTC hearing on value-for-signal (or fee-for-carriage, as the Panels refer to it), Canadian conventional broadcasters launched a public awareness campaign entitled ‘Save Local TV’, while the BDUs (cable and satellite television companies), launched a corresponding campaign entitled ‘Stop the TV Tax’.
A consortium of BDUs complained to the CRTC that CTV-owned stations were using their programming to promote their view. The…
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FREDERICTON – Rogers has lost its appeal against an injunction that prevented it from making claims about the speed and reliability of its high speed Internet product in its advertising.
Tuesday’s decision in the court of appeal in Fredericton denied Rogers’ attempt to appeal an earlier decision that granted Bell Aliant an injunction that stopped Rogers from claiming to have the ‘fastest and most reliable’ high speed Internet product.
"We are very pleased that the judge has refused to overturn this injunction," said Bell Aliant president and CEO, Karen Sheriff, in a statement. "It reinforces our strong belief that our competitors should…
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SEATTLE, WA – CanWest Global and the CBC have signed on with Comcast subsidiary thePlatform to manage their on-line video efforts.
In a recent blog post, thePlatform said that it will provide CanWest with a scalable on-line video solution for its television and newspaper assets, including 18 specialty channels and the GlobalTV network, and CBC with an on-demand video and audio portal for broadcast TV, film clips, and webisodes from numerous Canadian and global content producers.
Other Canadian clients include Rogers for its Rogers On Demand Online initiative, and Corus Entertainment for its Treehouse TV, YTV and W Network entertainment portals.
White-label video management and…
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BANFF – All TV programming, including news and sports, will be in 3D within five to 25 years, Geneva Film Co. founder James Stewart told Cartt.ca after his keynote speech on Sunday at the Banff World Television Festival.
“Everything will be in 3D because it can,” he stated. "Besides, 3D sports programming is absolutely interesting. Just take a look at the Masters on a 3DTV.”
During the presentation, it was noted ESPN in the United States was producing 25 games in 3D from soccer’s World Cup in South Africa and some of them will be available on Rogers, Telus and…
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TORONTO – From regulations to new technology, the Olympics to his hopes that cutting the cord won’t be quite so prevalent in Canada, Bell Canada’s president of residential services Kevin Crull covered a number of topics in his closing keynote at the Canadian Telecom Summit on Tuesday and in an interview with Cartt.ca and Bloomberg afterwards.
On last week’s CRTC hearing into mandated wholesale broadband access for third party ISPs:
“What if the people who run the Olympic hockey tournament had said to our guys: ‘everyone knows your team is the favourite to win gold, plus you have home ice advantage…
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TORONTO – It was easy to see Wednesday that Tony Lacavera was really stung by the critics who decried the level of Canadian-ness of his company.
No less than seven times in his speech to the Canadian Telecom Summit did the Globalive/Wind CEO feel the need to insist upon the new wireless carrier’s Canuck bona fides.
“I won’t shy away from saying that Globalive is a Canadian company… truly a brainchild of Canadians… created by and for Canadians,” he said during his speech.
Lacavera rehashed the 2009 regulatory battles, lashing out at the incumbent operators which used every tactic in their arsenal…
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TORONTO – New players in the Canadian wireless space say they’re happy with how things are going so far, but they admit it’s still very early days yet.
Two of the newest entrants spoke during a panel discussion at the Canadian Telecom Summit here on Wednesday afternoon. Both Wind Mobile Canada CEO Ken Campbell and Mobilicity president and CEO Dave Dobbin said their wireless service launches have been going as planned. Wind Mobile recently announced service availability in its fifth urban market – Vancouver – while Mobilicity launched service in its very first market – Toronto – only three weeks ago….
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CARTT.CA RECENTLY RAN a piece on the soon to be launched Pelmorex early alert service. In this report, Cartt.ca editor Greg O’Brien stated that “the broadcast and distribution industry ignored repeated deadlines set by the CRTC to come up with its own EAS.”
This assertion is not true. Since 2007, and at the CRTC’s urging, Rogers, Bell and other industry reps worked diligently with Public Safety Canada and its partners to implement a comprehensive national public alerting system. Public Service Canada wanted a holistic multi-platform national public alerting service.
In fact, during the hearing on Pelmorex’s third application in four…
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TORONTO – Since we live in an age of convergence, where more and more lines are blurring in telecom and media, it doesn’t make much sense to open one sector to foreign investment while keeping that same door closed to the other.
That was part of the message CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein carried to delegates of the Canadian Telecom Summit on Tuesday morning. “I don’t think you can meaningfully separate broadcast and telecom in the age of convergence,” he told conference co-chair Mark Goldberg in the “fireside chat” format.
Foreign investment has been the hot issue at this year’s CTS,…
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