OTTAWA – The CRTC has added NASA Television to the list of foreign TV channels eligible for carriage in digital in Canada, despite objections from CTV’s Discovery Channel.
The CRTC noted in Broadcasting Decision 2007-43 that it found “the overlap between NASA TV and The Discovery Channel or Discovery HD is minimal and that NASA TV is sufficiently different in terms of target audience, service orientation, programming genres and programming to be considered neither partially or totally competitive with The Discovery Channel or Discovery HD.”
The request to bring the U.S. channel featuring documentaries, archival programming and coverage of…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Rogers Cable has added ATV Home (Hong Kong), NTV Bangla (Bangladesh) and Dandana TV (Middle East) to its list of multicultural programming, which includes more than 60 multicultural channels offered in 24 languages.
ATV Home is a Hong Kong-based Cantonese network offering entertainment programming, including movies, dramas and children’s shows, along with news and current affairs to North American Chinese communities. A free preview is available to May 10th.
NTV Bangla offers news, entertainment, top drama serials such as “Sporsher Baire” and “Tin Purush”, musical programs, movies, documentaries, children’s programs, and cultural programs for Bangladeshis in North…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Rogers Communications` director and counsel – copyright and broadband law, David Laliberte, will be leaving the company at the end of next month.
He has accepted a job offer as general counsel and head of licensing and compliance at the Information and Communications Technology Authority (ICTA) in the Cayman Islands.
The ICTA performs a similar role in the Caymans as the CRTC in Canada, plus a few other functions such as spectrum allocation and domain name registration.
Based in the capital, Georgetown, the country`s regulatory framework is modelled after the Canadian one and “as a result, there…
Continue Reading
WHILE SITTING IN TUESDAY morning’s IPTV session at NAB 2007 in Las Vegas I was reminded of the Sesame Street song: “One of these things is not like the other.”
You know how the rest of it goes, asking kids to pick out the thing in a group of objects that doesn’t belong. Unlike Sesame Street, during this morning’s session kids wouldn’t have been able to tell by looking, but once everyone started talking, it would have been easy.
The panel this morning, led by Carmel Group’s Jimmy Schaeffler, consisted of executives from Verizon, SES Americom, OpenTV, and Qualcomm….
Continue Reading
ALEXANDRIA, VA – Two new corporate patrons are providing their support to the Educational Foundation of the Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM).
Rogers Cable has signed-on as a gold level patron and Suddenlink Communications as a bronze level patron, the CTAM announced Wednesday. They join the 34 companies who are Corporate Patrons of this prestigious program.
As a gold level patron, Rogers will be able to send three of its rising star executives to the Executive Management Program (CTAM U) at Harvard Business School each year.
Suddenlink Communications, as a bronze level patron, will send one executive…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Canadian Satellite Radio Holdings reported a second quarter loss of $15.8 million Monday, an improvement over the same quarter of 2006.
In releasing its financial results, based on hitting 237,500 subscribers, the company reported revenue for the three-month period ending Feb. 28, 2007 of $4.9 million, also an improvement over the same quarter in 2006.
“We are pleased with our performance this quarter and are confirming our position as Canada’s premium digital audio entertainment and information company,” said John Bitove, CSR’s Chairman and CEO.
“We will continue to build our subscriber base through innovative partnerships such as…
Continue Reading
TORONTO and MONTREAL – Look Communications and its parent company Unique Broadband Systems said Thursday that the actions of Rogers Communications and Bell Canada Enterprises are interfering with the planned sale of Look.
In a release, Look claimed "the two partners of Inukshuk Wireless Partnership LLP ("Inukshuk Wireless") – Rogers Inukshuk Telecommunications Inc., a subsidiary of Rogers Communications Inc ("Rogers") and NR Communications Limited, a subsidiary of BCE ("Bell") – have continued this week to apply pressure to Look and its parent company UBS," reads the press release.
"On Monday, April 9th, 2007, Look was informed that Rogers’ legal…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Rogers Sportsnet and Rogers Wireless have announced a three-year agreement with the National Hockey League for the distribution of game highlights both on sportsnet.ca and on Rogers Wireless devices.
“Sportsnet is committed to delivering news, information and highlights on multiple platforms – on-air, on-line and wireless,” said Dave Akande, vice-president, content, Rogers Sportsnet. “This partnership with the NHL offers fans, especially those with allegiances to Canadian teams, an additional source to access the latest information.”
Rogers Sportsnet will provide much of the wireless content, including highlights from games involving the three Canadian clubs – Ottawa Senators, Calgary…
Continue Reading
VANCOUVER – John Munro, who retired as Rogers Cable’s chief marketing officer in 2006, died of a heart attack at his home in the Vancouver area on April 4th. He was 59.
In his last position at Rogers, Munro (pictured) was responsible for the day-to-day product management and the national marketing communications function, including advertising of all Rogers Cable products, all support marketing material and customer communications.
He also represented the cable side of the company on several inter-company initiatives including development and execution of the corporate master brand strategy, CRM and sponsorship development.
"John was…
Continue Reading
OVER 100,000 FOLKS from the global broadcast industry (including Cartt.ca) will descend on Las Vegas next week for the National Association of Broadcasters annual convention.
The five-plus-day event will feature what’s new in the electronic media world, including HDTV, IPTV, mobile TV, telco TV, digital radio, broadband video and audio – not to mention the thousands of new hardware and software developments that can be found among the exhibitors. These are the widgets that are the engine of any radio or TV station, of course.
Headliners at NAB 2007 include Google CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt, Microsoft TV’s Peter…
Continue Reading