IN 2003, WHEN THE HOUSE of Commons Heritage Committee issued the “Our Cultural Sovereignty” report (better known as the Lincoln Report) it recommended that “the existing foreign ownership limits for broadcasting and telecommunications be maintained a current levels.”
At that time, the then Canadian Alliance Party, whose leader was Stephen Harper, put out the following dissenting opinion: “The Canadian Alliance disagrees with (this recommendation). The Canadian Alliance supports relaxing foreign ownership rules on Canadian industry, including telecommunications and broadcast distribution. We suggest conducting an immediate review to determine whether to reduce or completely remove these rules.” Those very same…
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TORONTO – Programming from CTV and its specialty channels The Comedy Network and MTV are now available for sale on the iTunes Store in Canada (www.itunes.ca).
The addition of Canadian TV shows to the iTunes Canada lineup comes two years after such programming has been available in the U.S. and U.K. It’s been on so long Stateside, that NBC has decided making its shows available on iTunes is not for them and they have pulled their programming from the Apple service.
iTunes becomes the latest digital platform for CTV’s Canadian series, in addition to The CTV Broadband Network and…
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TORONTO – Just a few weeks after a contract kerfuffle saw popular sportscaster Kathryn Humphreys leave her post at Citytv Toronto, Rogers Media, the new owners of the station, announced late Monday that she is joining the company in a newly expanded role.
Beginning Monday, viewers can enjoy Humphreys unique reporting style on everything from little league heroes to the pros on both the 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. Citytv’s CityNews, where she had previously been. But the old job won’t be the limit for Humphreys (pictured), who will now be contributing to a number of…
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TORONTO – If you’re a hockey fan with a high definition television set, you want to see as many games as possible in crisp, clear HD.
And if your favorite regional National Hockey League team is playing on Rogers Sportsnet, you don’t want to hear the technical and league reasons why there is poker on Sportsnet HD (shot in standard definition) while the game (shot in HD) appears in fuzzier analog on the SD Sportsnet channel.
The reasons why that was, was confusing enough for those of us in the industry, let alone a regular hockey fan.
Years ago,…
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HEADLINES IN NEWSPAPERS this week say it all: “Rainbow City” wrote the editors of The Toronto Star as their headline and Vancouver Sun noted that their city “is now more multicultural than Miami, Los Angeles or New York City.”
The Statistics Canada census release this week highlighted the extent of change in the Canadian population – including the fact that Canada is now home to its highest proportion of immigrants since 1931 – a 75-year high. So how does this impact the broadcasting business? Without question, there are significant opportunities for ethnic media as a result of this new…
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TORONTO – Two entrepreneurs have launched a new company and are looking to turn the cable industry green.
CTAR Corp, which stands for Canadian Telecommunications Asset Recovery, diverts telecom equipment deemed “obsolete” or “excess” from landfills by reselling, donating, or recycling it. If the equipment can’t be reused by a Canadian or international company, CTAR approaches educational and training institutions, which offer a charitable tax receipt to companies. Then, the equipment is recycled – which generates a small amount of money for the harvested materials and diverts the electronics from landfills.
“The telecommunications industry has been expanding at such…
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NEW YORK – As the only GSM wireless operator in Canada, Rogers Wireless will face a dilemma – and opportunity – when new wireless companies launch in this country – likely in 2009.
While Bell Canada and Telus and a few other large North American wireless companies use CDMA-driven networks and handsets, GSM has become the de facto worldwide wireless standard technology, so it is highly probable that any new wireless company that comes to market here will choose to be a GSM player, too.
That means such newbies will use the new mandated roaming rules we reported on…
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TORONTO – David Strickland has been hired as senior vice-president of sales and Adam Ashton as vice-president of marketing for the CTV-Rogers’ coverage of the 2010/2012 Olympic Games.
Reporting to Keith Pelley, president of CTV-Rogers Olympic consortium, and effective immediately, Strickland and Ashton are the latest additions to the CTV-Rogers Olympic team, following announcements last month appointing Rick Chisholm as Executive Vice-President, Broadcasting, and Alon Marcovici as Vice-President, Digital Media and Research, as reported by Cartt.ca.
Strickland (right) is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the revenue streams (conventional, specialty, radio, mobile and online), including sponsorships,…
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MONTREAL – Bell Canada today announced the creation of a new coalition aimed at the development of a future generation of information technology experts able to meet the needs of Canadian companies.
The news was disclosed during a business luncheon of the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal by guest speaker Stéphane Boisvert, President – Enterprise for Bell.
The Canadian Coalition for IT Succession will strive to consolidate and ensure the long-term sustainability of IT know-how in Canada, given the rapidly emerging shortage of professional workers in this sector. This major national coalition will be comprised of prominent Canadian…
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TORONTO – Those bets placed on telecom and wireless by certain Canadians have paid off in spades, reports Canadian Business Magazine this month.
This year’s “Rich 100,” the magazine’s annual ranking of the wealthiest Canadians, is populated by a bumper crop of billionaires, with three of the top 10 placed there thanks to their sizable bets (and an enormous amount of work) done on telecom.
And for the first time ever, more than half of the magazine’s list is made up of people who have hit the billionaire mark: 54 of them, in fact, up from 46 in last…
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