ALEXANDRIA, VA – Rogers has picked up four nominations for the 2009 CTAM Mark Awards, to be handed out October 26 at the CTAM Summit in Denver.
The MSO received nominations in the ‘Acquisition and Upgrade Marketing/Campaign’ category for Rogers Cable Q4 TV Superiority: HD; in the ‘Competitive Marketing/Campaign’ category for its Rogers Hi-Speed Internet Superiority campaign; in the ‘Multicultural Marketing/Campaign’ category for The Whole World Plan – New International Long Distance Launch campaign; and in the ‘Traditional Direct Response Marketing/TV Spot/Promo (Non Campaign)’ category for Loading Bar DRTV.
Teams of marketing and agency executives chose the finalists over five days of judging…
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TORONTO – Errol Hinds spent the early part of this summer assuring people that Setanta Canada was doing just fine, thanks.
The reason? The company’s U.K. subsidiary went under, losing English Premier League soccer and other rights on its way to the dustbin.
“I don’t know a huge amount of what happened there,” said Hinds, Setanta Canada’s general manager in a recent interview with Cartt.ca of the British Setanta channel. “The way Setanta is set up though is that it is different entities in different countries… so our rights deals were independent of the English company.”
However, that bit of bad news…
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WHILE WE WAIT for the CRTC to decide whether or not Al Jazeera English can be distributed in Canada by cable, satellite and telco TV companies, I already have it in my office.
Actually, I have both the English and Arabic versions, right now, on my television. (No Canadian BDU offers the Arabic version because even though it’s on the eligible satellite list, the regs around it say that BDUs must employ Arabic language censors to monitor it 24/7, if they want to launch.)
And yet, here they both are, in standard definition, full-screen quality, on my 30-inch LCD television thanks…
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OTTAWA – After renewing the broadcasting licences of Rogers’ OMNI television stations for another six years, the CRTC has denied its request to broadcast ethnic programming during "peak" time, and to remove the conditions of licence relating to the overlap of programming between OMNI and Rogers’ Citytv stations.
The Commission did approve Rogers’ request to “harmonize” its requirement for Canadian programming across all of its multiethnic OMNI stations. It further agreed to amend the requirement of CJMT-TV Toronto (OMNI.2) for the provision of ethnic programming in order to harmonize it with the conditions of licence of the other OMNI stations, and will…
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DAVE LEWIS HAS BEEN at this satellite thing for a long time. Thirty-one years, to be exact.
He’s worked for Telesat, Alphastar, Cancom/Star Choice, Lincsat and Ciel – just about every satellite company in the country. And he says there’s no way existing Canadian BDUs can offer up all channels in high definition without multi-billion-dollar upgrades which would include a massive consumer set top box swap-out program.
He believes the best way to deliver local-into-local TV signals – and his new company would deliver every OTA broadcaster in Canada – in high definition (including 1080p), is to start over with a…
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TORONTO – Rogers Cable launched its new 50 Mbps Internet service Tuesday to select parts of the Greater Toronto Area.
Called the Rogers Ultimate High-Speed Internet, the service is available for $149.99 a month, and offers respective download and upload speeds of up to 50 Mbps and up to 2 Mbps, plus a monthly usage allowance of 175 GB. The service will be rolled out further in the coming months.
"We are excited to once again bring such innovative technology and leading edge speeds to our customers, making it an ideal service for gamers and multimedia enthusiasts alike," said Chris Draper, VP of…
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PARIS – Canadians pay some of the highest prices in the world for their cell phones, says a report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). But do we really?
According to OECD calculations, rates charged by Canadian mobile providers rank behind only the United States and Spain as the highest in the developed world, while Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden have the cheapest rates.
But Canadian telecom consultant Mark Goldberg says that “the OECD service definitions should cause serious researchers to laugh”.
The survey, called the OECD Communications Outlook, compared domestic prices across countries for low, medium…
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TORONTO – In a new message on its “save local” web site, CTVglobemedia says it wants cable and satellite bills to be regulated.
As most Canadian BDU customers are becoming aware, their monthly bills are about to rise due to the launch of the new local programming improvement fund (LPIF) September 1st.
That fund, a levy of 1.5% on revenues (or about $102 million a year) will go directly to small market broadcasters to help them weather the economic storm, changing media markets and buy time until a new ownership group based licensing regime is decided – a process which has…
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MONTREAL – Quebec MSO Videotron showed ongoing growth among cable TV, internet and voice over IP phone customers in the second quarter of 2009, ended June 30th, the company announced Thursday.
“We have now recorded growth for all our products for 16 consecutive quarters,” said Robert Dépatie, president and CEO of Quebecor-owned Videotron, in a press release announcing the company’s Q2 results.
Quebecor Inc.’s release shows telecommunications revenue of $232.7 million in the quarter, 27% higher than Q2 2008.
The customer base for Videotron’s basic cable television service increased by 3,453 during the second quarter to 1,732,621 as of June 30, 2009,…
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ST. JOHN’s – EastLink said today that it has been selected to move into negotiations with the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to build the fibre network portion of the government’s broadband initiative.
"We are pleased to be moving into this next phase with Newfoundland and Labrador," said Dan McKeen, deputy chair, external affairs, EastLink, in a press release.
"Providing this fibre network to the provincial government will enable EastLink to continue the expansion of our broadband network and services to more communities throughout Newfoundland and Labrador," continued McKeen.
While EastLink doesn’t serve St. John’s (that’s an Aliant and Rogers territory right…
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