MISSISSAUGA – Ontario’s SCTE Cable-Tec Games will be held Thursday, April 26 from 2:30 p.m. to approximately 9 p.m. at the Mississauga Grand.
This will be the only Games event in Ontario this year, but the top technicians will again be eligible for prizes and will represent Ontario at the National SCTE Games held at the annual Cable-Tec Expo, June 19 to 22 in Orlando.
"We are planning a big event so get your company’s top techs whipped into shape now. We also have a team event again this year. Participation is open to all cable techs in Ontario,…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – More than eight in 10 Canadians oppose mandatory inclusion on digital basic of the five new channels being considered for the priority carriage, according to a telephone survey of 1,000 Canadians polled March 18-22 by Strategic Counsel on behalf of Rogers Communications.
The survey of Canadians 18 years and older from across the country – 70% of whom were cable subscribers and 30% of whom were satellite TV subscribers – also revealed strong support for pick and pay options.
The CRTC is considering adding the new digital specialty TV channels Metis Michif Television and Canada One along…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – A new age of interactive content created by small independent producers is dawning, now that the broadband “asteroid” which hit the traditional media market some time ago is causing incumbent “dinosaurs” to die off. That was how Canadian science fiction author Robert J. Sawyer characterized the current state of the interactive digital media industry to kick off the recent Interactive Content Exchange (ICE) 2007 conference held in Toronto.
“This is the age of the blurring between consumer and producer,” Sawyer said. “The asteroid has hit. The future is there to claim, the world is there to claim.”…
Continue Reading
MISSISSAUGA, ON – Canada’s digital specialty channel BITE Television has been nominated for an international Emmy in the Interactive Channel category.
BITE Television’s content consists of user-generated, acquired and in-house short-form productions. The three- to five-minute edgy shows target the 18 to 34-year-old male demographic. Last week, the channel finalized an agreement to provide Amp’d Mobile with short-form content.
“While we are still a very young company, it’s great to be internationally recognized,” said company president and CEO Jeffrey Elliott.
Mississauga-based BITE Television, which launched in April 2005, is available on channel 322 on Rogers Cable, channel 123 on…
Continue Reading
DEJA VU IS A CURIOUS THING. It happens sporadically to most of us where we think "hey, I’ve been here before."
It often feels like that time is now in the media/telecom space: That we have been here before, riding a weird, growing technological and services wave. Just like the late 1990s and into 2000-’01 it seems like we have every company (some really big, some really small) going a million miles an hour in every direction all at once.
Back then, AOL bought (snicker…) Time Warner, CanWest bought The National Post and what was the Southam newspaper group…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – CHUM Television and Rogers Home Phone have teamed up on a contest that offers people the chance to reunite with loved ones.
The contest, dubbed Rogers Reunion Wednesdays, will pay for the winners to meet their special someone anywhere in Canada and also provide them with a Rogers Home Phone Service package to keep them connected.
The winners’ stories will be broadcast every Wednesday over three weeks on CHUM’s BreakfastTelevision program on Citytv Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver. The lucky entrants will be informed they have won via a live phone call from BT.
To enter, log on…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The CRTC has launched a public proceeding to set out rules regarding the installation of a network interconnection device (NID) when the incumbent local exchange carrier’s (ILEC) network is disconnected from the inside wire at the home of a residential customer who has elected to take a cable telephone service and no longer wishes to use any services provided on the ILEC’s network (Telecom Public Notice 2007-3).
The commission is asking for comment on whether a NID should be installed at the premises of a residential customer when no such device is present; should the cableco or…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – Official Languages commissioner Graham Fraser called Tuesday on the government to compel the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. to spruce up its regional programming to help build cultural connections among Francophone minorities outside Quebec and English minorities inside the province.
Appearing before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage which is in the midst of an investigation of the role of the CBC in the 21st century, Fraser said one of the shortcomings of the public broadcaster is that it has become too centralized in Toronto and Montreal.
He noted that Francophone communities outside of Quebec need to have access…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The Canadian Copyright Board has ruled that 8.8% of the price of a song that is permanently downloaded must go back to the copyright holders. It also set a minimum fee of 4.5 cents per file in a bundle and 5.9 cents per permanent music download in all other cases.
In its March 16 decision on royalties for online music services for the years 2005 to 2007 (to be paid retroactively), the board set rates of 5.9% of the month’s subscription price for limited music downloads that require an online subscription and 4.6% for on-demand streaming music….
Continue Reading
ONE OF THE KEY DEMOGRAPHIC differences between the U.S. and Canada is the number of Hispanics here versus there.
Stateside, there’s an entire media sector dedicated to the Hispanic consumer, of which there are 40 million or so, including several cable channels such as Univision. In Canada, there are about one million Spanish-speaking Canadians and until recently, just one place to get some Spanish language programming: Telelatino.
Of late, however, other Spanish language channels have been added and in March, two Canadian channels were launched, one by the legacy brand owner in Canada, Telelatino.
In a recent chat with Cartt.ca…
Continue Reading
