MISSISSAUGA – Since launching in January 2007, Greater Toronto’s Most Wanted series on Rogers Television has worked with local police authorities to profile more than 100 unsolved cases and 500 wanted criminals. The show led to the direct capture of a murder suspect.
“I would like to thank Rogers Television’s GTA’s Most Wanted for their role in helping investigators solve a homicide case that was profiled on their show,” said Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair in a statement on Monday. “It was a viewer tip that led to the capture of Jason David Browne, later charged with first degree…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Rogers Wireless announced Monday that its Portable Internet service is now available in 152 urban and rural communities across Canada with the recent addition of 55 communities.
With this expansion, Rogers completes its rollout of the Inukshuk Wireless Broadband network and fulfills the federal government’s requirement for spectrum licence, according to a Rogers Wireless media release.
“Rogers is committed to serving the needs of our customers, as demonstrated by our continued investment in our broadband and wireless networks across Canada,” said Rogers Wireless senior VP and chief marketing officer John Boynton. “With the expansion in coverage of…
Continue Reading
IT’S FUN TO PROGNOSTICATE. To try and read the tea leaves and make educated (or not) guesses about certain things. Sports (pro and amateur) is utterly built around such predicting, thanks to the billions of dollars bet on the games every year.
Similarly enormous amounts of money and the fate of our industry are collectively at stake beginning this week when the cable, satellite, telco and specialty broadcasting community take their turn in front of a panel of CRTC commissioners who will largely determine how the broadcast distribution undertaking and specialty services industries will be run for perhaps the…
Continue Reading
FIRST, THE GENRE PROTECTION rules established by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission consist of two distinct components, with two distinct goals. The first rule is directed at limiting the distribution in Canada of foreign services which are partly or fully competitive with licensed Canadian services.
The second is intended to limit the licensing of a number of Canadian services in one genre of programming, so that the onerous requirements of services licensed to Canadians with regard to the exhibition of, and the expenditures on, Canadian programming can be met, maintained and increased.
Secondly, nowhere do the BDUs mention…
Continue Reading
LEAVE IT TO SHAW to not only demand genre protection go away, but to use a lovely incendiary word that broadcasters have long used against cable: monopoly.
When Shaw Communications’ submission to the CRTC on its upcoming policy review on broadcast distribution undertakings and specialty services addressed the Commission’s policy on genre protection (which means there’s only supposed to be one comedy specialty, one short film channel, one preschool channel, and so on), it refers to the protection as a genre monopoly.
“I’m not going to be lectured to by Jim Shaw about being in the monopoly business,” said…
Continue Reading
WITHOUT A DOUBT, THE highest profile issue CRTC commissioners will tackle beginning next week’s policy hearings on broadcast distribution undertakings and specialty services is fee-for-carriage. That is, paying a new subscription fee for over-the-air broadcast stations.
As the rules now stand the regulatory bargain is such that cable and satellite and telco TV must carry conventional local TV stations low in their channel lineups and must substitute Canadian signals over top of American ones when the programming is the same. We’ve come to know that part as simultaneous substitution. In return, distributors have not ever had to pay the…
Continue Reading
It has been argued in the media that “Cable companies have built profitable businesses based on the exploitation of free programming supplied by local broadcasters without giving any of the proceeds back to the stations.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. Over-the-air television stations receive advertising revenue and they need cable to get to more eyeballs with better pictures. Cable’s capital investment to provide the bandwidth that carries local stations costs literally billions of dollars and the broadcasters do not pay a cent for the use of this network. In addition, cable gives the broadcasters a low…
Continue Reading
PORTLAND, OR – Rogers Cable has inked a deal with Rentrak Corp., which will measure the performance of the cableco’s on-demand services.
“Rogers Cable is a pioneer in the communications business and Rentrak is pleased to include the company among our esteemed existing partners as we expand our measurement reach throughout North America,” said Carol Hinnant, VP of business development for Rentrak’s OnDemand Essentials Suite of Services. “Our commitment to precise, timely and customizable census-level data is what keeps our business growing as the on-demand platform continues to evolve.”
Rentrak provides census level viewership performance information for the on-demand…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Telus Corp. has launched a new low-cost, no-frills mobile service, called Koodo Mobile, that offers talk and text options.
Koodo Mobile’s cheapest plan costs $15 a month for 50 minutes at any time of the day, and 50 text messages. Voicemail, call display, and an unlimited text messaging cost $5 a month or $10 a month for all three.
A media release refers to the service as “fat-free mobility” because it doesn’t feature more bandwidth intensive features such as television, video calling and satellite radio. There is no activation fee and no fixed-term contract. Billing is per…
Continue Reading
INVIDI TECHNOLOGIES CEO DAVID DOWNEY has been long been dining out on John Wanamaker’s now ancient and clichéd quote: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”
It’s been a key portion of Downey’s presentations to investors and industry folks for years. Now Wanamaker, the innovative American department store pioneer (he’s said to have invented the price tag and the “sale”) died in the 1920s, so one would think that we have progressed beyond the late retailer’s ad spend calculations over the century or so since he spoke those words….
Continue Reading
