NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, ON – With the Summit for Independent Communications (Connect 2009) just around the corner, the CCSA has confirmed its list of speakers and topics.
Christopher Lammers from CableLabs will provide an overview of DOCSIS 3.0, IP video, video-on-demand and network PVRs. He will be followed by Rahaf Harfoush, an expert on new media and a member of Obama’s social media team, and Max Valiquette, a youth culture and marketing expert.
The CTAM topic, called ‘The Digital Transition – It’s Happening’, will examine what Canada can learn from the recently completed US over-the-air transition to digital. Moderated by CCSA consultant…
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TORONTO – Rogers Sportsnet has inked a three-year agreement with the National Football League to be the exclusive Canadian broadcaster of the NFL Network’s eight-game schedule this Fall.
RSN’s first game broadcast kicks off on November 12, and its schedule will include the Buffalo Bills and New York Jets matchup played at the Rogers Centre in Toronto on Thursday December 3, 2009.
www.sportsnet.ca
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TORONTO – CBC digital channels bold and documentary will be available in free preview for Rogers digital customers as of Friday.
Bold can be seen on Rogers’ channel 277 from September 11 – 13, 2009, and on its digital barker channel 1 from September 12 -13. In addition, documentary will be in freeview from September 18 – 20 on digital channel 325, and on digital barker channel 1 on September 19 – 20, 2009.
www.boldtv.cawww.documentarychannel.cawww.rogers.com
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has denied a request by Rogers Broadcasting to amend the broadcasting licence for the Outdoor Life Network (OLN).
Rogers had proposed to add categories to the list of program categories that may be broadcast by the service. Specifically, it asked to increase the percentage of programming that may be broadcast from category 7 drama and comedy from 5% to 25%, to remove requirements that programming drawn from that category be Canadian, and that programming drawn from category 6(a) professional sports not include stick and/or ball sports.
In its decision, the Commission expressed concern that the proposed amendments…
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TORONTO – An eight-year-old agreement personally put together by Ted Rogers and Jim Shaw explicitly prevents Shaw Communications from buying any cable company east of the Manitoba/Ontario border, says a lawsuit launched by Rogers Communications.
Shaw agreed to buy Mountain Cablevision of Hamilton, Ont., in July for what’s been reported as $300 million. Rogers wants the courts to stop the deal.
Back in 2000, the two companies worked out a swap of cable systems where in exchange for Rogers’ British Columbia systems (about 625,000 subs in and around Vancouver), Shaw gave up the CATV it owned in New Brunswick (almost…
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TORONTO – Last week, Rogers Cable customers received an e-mail from their big red TV provider urging them to make their voices heard in its fight against fee-for-carriage.
Or, if you want to buy into the new vernacular, “value for signal.”
Rogers customers are already a little tender about their bills, having just had under a dollar a month added thanks to the recently established Local Programming Improvement Fund (LPIF), a subsidy for smaller market television stations.
“I am now writing to inform you of yet another broadcasting policy proposal that is under consideration by the CRTC,” reads the e-mail message signed…
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TORONTO – Last week we published a story touting how new wireless company Globalive (to be branded as Wind) wants its primary Canadian banker to remain not only secret, but super-secret, if and when it meets the CRTC.
They would like to bring a representative from the bank in to its September 23rd hearing to tell the Commission how challenging it is for such a start-up to raise the money needed to launch in a competitive wireless marketplace dominated by three huge players, among other financial matters.
(The Regulator, due to concerns voiced by a number of people and companies,…
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TORONTO – Bloomberg News is reporting that Rogers Communications has launched a lawsuit against Shaw Communications seeking to prevent the latter from purchasing Mountain Cablevision.
According to the story, which is available here, Rogers contended in a hearing yesterday that it has a pre-existing arrangement with the Calgary-based Shaw that neither would infringe on the others’ territories when it comes to expansion in cable.
It wants the $300-million deal stopped so a trial over the Roger-Shaw non compete agreement can happen and lawyers in court yesterday suggested that this is just a first step for Shaw back into Eastern Canada.
More…
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GATINEAU – While a CRTC hearing into the levels of foreign ownership in new wireless entrant Globalive is set to begin on the 23rd of this month, Rogers Communications this week sent a letter to the Regulator asking for the same treatment of two other newcomers, Public Mobile and Dave Wireless.
“Since the 2008 AWS auction, many questions have arisen regarding the ownership and control of several of the successful bidders,” reads the Rogers letter to CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein. “Many of the auction’s participants included foreign partners in order to raise the necessary capital. These concerns were directed…
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EVERY YEAR AT THIS TIME, both because it’s fun and because we want the weekend off… we re-publish the top 25 stories from the last 12 months.
The other reason why we do it now and not in January is that September, just after Labour Day, is the “new year” for broadcasters. The new fall shows are coming out and speaking from a regulatory perspective, too, the 2009 broadcast year ended August 31st and we are into a new year.
After spending hours pouring over our analytics to identify the top stories, I can say it has been a very busy…
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