BANFF – Although the combination of two major regulated TV assets was the talk of the 2007 Banff World Television Festival (Hello, Rogers/Citytv), the focus of the event’s final panel was on the potential impact of unregulated new media vs. the fortunes of old media.
In fact, the first question posed by moderator (and festival CEO) Robert Montgomery during his closing session on the BWTVF green Paper to the diverse collection of opinion leaders was: Will the TV industry collapse in the face of broadband Internet and other unregulated platforms?
The question may sound like a Chicken Little approach…
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LAST WEEK THE Cable Public Affairs Channel celebrated its 15th anniversary of bringing Canadians the nitty gritty of politics.
As the only place where you find federal Parliamentary debates, committee meetings, inquiry hearings, political talk shows, some international flavour and of course, Question Period, it’s also just about the only Paris Hilton-free media outlet in the world, which perhaps explains why it’s often on in our house…
But, just because Canadian cable companies created it, own it, and politicians on the Hill love it, CPAC still, like any other traditional media outlet, has its challenges. While it was a…
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TORONTO – The regulatory experts from competitors Bell Canada, Telus, Rogers Communications and MTS Allstream pulled no punches in their criticism of each other’s positions on the hot-button issue of "essential” facilities yesterday at the Canadian Telecom Summit.
Ken Engelhart, vice-president of regulatory affairs for Rogers Communications, quipped early in the discussion that members on the panel may find themselves out of work sooner than they expected.
“Once local telephone is deregulated, telecom is sort of done,” Engelhart said. “Essential facilities could be an ongoing source of work. But we don’t realize it yet – telecom regulation is 70…
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TORONTO – Putting six fierce competitors – armed with their own facts and relative truths about the current state of the wireless industry in Canada and abroad for a discussion on next year’s advanced wireless spectrum auction – onto a stage together is likely to result in something akin to a wireless “cage match”.
And that’s exactly what happened Wednesday on the last day of the Canadian Telecom Summit.
To kick off a special panel discussion about competition in the mobile wireless services space, moderator Terence Corcoran, Financial Post editor, introduced himself to the audience as Terry Springer, setting…
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TORONTO – Citytv Toronto will leave its long-time home inside the CHUMCity building within three years as part of Rogers Media’s deal to buy the Toronto station and four others across the country.
Announced yesterday, Rogers has signed a deal to acquire Citytvs in Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver for $375 million from CTVglobemedia. The new deal nullifies the Rogers purchase of the A Channels from CTV, which will now hold on to those assets.
The agreement came together rather quickly, since the CRTC only announced its decision on Friday. The two companies were able to move…
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TORONTO – Taking a one-size-fits-all approach to tackling illegal content on the Internet won’t work, says Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa.
Geist made his comments at the conclusion of a panel discussion on illegal content and lawful access, during the Canadian Telecom Summit in Toronto on Monday.
Among the illegal online content discussed were child pornography, hate messages, defamation, copyright infringement, and broader issues of legality ranging from terrorism to spam e-mail. Each of these criminal activities raises different legal issues, Geist said. For example, while it’s illegal to…
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BANFF – The issue of media concentration made another appearance at the 2007 Banff TV festival when Jean Prewitt, CEO of the Independent Film & Television Alliance, spoke at the Canadian Film and Television Production Association lunch Wednesday.
Her remarks come on the heels of the CRTC’s decision to require CTVglobemedia to divest five Citytv stations acquired as part of its takeover of Chum Ltd. With Rogers Communications as the new owner, program distributors merely substitute Rogers for Chum in seeking content buyers.
Prewitt, whose organization represents independent producers – 40% located outside America – says a key IFTA…
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TORONTO – Consumers’ evolving media consumption habits are driving changes in the business models adopted by traditional media players, resulting in once-unlikely partnerships and new branded content opportunities for advertisers.
Today’s media consumers increasingly seek free content, dislike interrupted viewing, want relevant and engaging content, and don’t mind giving up personal information such as their hobbies if it means they can connect to others with similar interests – that’s according to Michael Kelley, partner for advisory services in the entertainment, media, communications and technology sector of PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Kelley was moderating an all-U.S. panel of media players on Monday at…
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THE SLINGBOX IS A cool little device – a neat-o box that lets users place shift their home TV – making their laptop into a second TV in the home, or delivering their cable TV to a conference in Berlin.
Of late, however, the company has gone beyond being a box maker and towards becoming a media company. They’re not making content, however. Instead, the company has created a platform where Sling users can create their own clips of shows and upload them to a secure portal where ads are sold around the clips – letting the content owners…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Rogers Cable has asked the CRTC to change the rules for airing commercials and affiliated programming on its VOD service to grab back revenues from advertisers moving online.
Since October 2005, Rogers has been allowed to show commercials on Rogers on Demand (ROD) where an ad was already included in a program previously shown by a Canadian broadcaster, there is a written agreement with the original broadcaster to air the spot, and the program is offered to subscribers on demand but for free.
Rogers wants its condition of licence amended so that it doesn’t have to offer…
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