COUNT CANADA’S SATELLITE and cable companies (outside Quebec, anyway) as generally pleased with the Commission’s new policy on over-the-air TV broadcasters.
"We think it’s a very balanced decision and we’re happy with it," said Rogers Communications vice-chair Phil Lind.
"I think it’s overall a balanced decision," added Shaw Communications vice-president, regulatory, Ken Stein.
"They were clearly listening to everybody because they’ve come up with a balanced decision that reflects all parties representations I think," explained Bell ExpressVu president Gary Smith.
Only Telco TV’s Ann Mainville-Neeson stayed off the balance beam, saying: "Kudos to the Commission for a very…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – About 18 months after abandoning some of its multi-product bundles, Bell Canada has re-launched a new quad-play bundle.
The new Bell Bundle is a package of Sympatico high speed Internet, Bell ExpressVu HDTV, Bell long distance and Bell Mobility wireless. Local phone is not included in the new bundle because local phone market deregulation (local forbearance, to use the lingo) hasn’t happened just yet.
The inability to offer discounted local phone was part of the reason Bell dropped the former bundles in the first place. Without local phone, it’s simply an incomplete package.
"We’ve developed the Bell Bundle to meet the…
Continue Reading
REGINA – RTNDA, the association of electronic journalists handed out its Prairie region awards for 2006 this weekend at the annual Prairie Regional Professional Development Seminar.
This year RTNDA Canada created five new award categories to recognize outstanding videography, use of sound, new media, information programming and diversity.
The RTNDA "Diversity Tool Kit" which was released across the country in January offers practical solutions to bring diversity to our stories and to our newsrooms. To acknowledge those accomplishments RTNDA created a new Diversity Award this year. Global Calgary and CBC Saskatchewan won the inaugural awards in the Prairie region….
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – Saying the wireless market is not competitive enough in Canada, Quebecor and MTS Allstream have joined forces to lobby both government and Canadians so that the companies are given a break in 2008’s wireless spectrum auction.
“Canada needs to permit new competitors in the wireless sector to ensure consumers are offered lower prices and advanced services which other countries already enjoy,” says a press release from the Coalition for Wireless Competition issued today.
Citing the oft-referenced but little understood Telecom Policy Review Panel report which “identified the need for a more efficient and vibrant wireless industry…
Continue Reading
LONDON – Ed Jarmain, the man widely considered to be the first to bring cable television to Canada died yesterday. He was 99.
Born and raised in London, Ont., Jarmain originally ran his father’s dry cleaning business in the city in the 1930s through the ’60s. In the 1950s, however, as one of the first families in London with a TV set, he suffered through spotty reception from U.S. signals (there were no local broadcasters at the time). As an engineer, he thought there must be a better way to get these signals.
After reading about cable and then…
Continue Reading
LAS VEGAS – While there are a lot of new companies with nifty new products and services out there, what will carry the day are two plain old business benchmarks: execution and customer service.
In today’s closing session of the 2007 Cable Show, Cox Communications president Pat Esser said that most of what customers desire now is the same as what they wanted when he began in the cable industry in 1979: “They expect reliability and responsiveness,” he said, along with relevance. The key differentiation nowadays is the level of personalization those customers want.
“That’s the world we’re going…
Continue Reading
WINNIPEG – MTS Allstream recorded double-digit customer and revenue growth in its wireless, high-speed Internet, digital TV and converged IP services in the first quarter ended March 31, according to financial results released May 8.
But the company had 3,000 fewer residential phone lines as continued competitive pressures impacted all lines of business related to MTS Allstream’s traditional legacy services in the quarter with customers migrating to newer IP-based growth services.
Although the number of residential phone lines was down 3,000 lines in the first quarter of 2007, the figure is about half the loss recorded in the same quarter of 2006. The…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The CRTC is asking if it should eliminate winback rules for incumbent cablecos with 6,000 or more subscribers serving multiple-unit dwellings (MUD).
Broadcasting Public Notice 2007-48 was issued Tuesday following a request last month from Rogers Cable Communications Inc. for the elimination of the remaining winback restrictions. The cableco argued the imposition of winback rules on the cable industry creates an asymmetry in the broadcasting system that protects telephone companies entering the TV distribution business and the country’s two satellite TV distributors from the normal workings of a competitive market.
Rogers noted that a similar winback restriction…
Continue Reading
HALIFAX – If you thought Bragg Communications, parent company of EastLink, was content with being the dominant cable operator in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island – not to mention a painful, persistent competitive thorn in Bell Aliant’s side, you’d be wrong.
On Friday, Bragg more than doubled its size by announcing it has signed a purchase agreement with Persona Communications. The combined company – when you add in its impending purchase of Amtelecom – will have close to half a million basic cable subscribers (260,000 from Persona added to EastLink’s approximate 230,000).
The agreement to purchase the shares…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – Hockey and regulation, two things Canadians are well known for, thoroughly revealed their influence in statistics released today by the CRTC.
The headline, of course, was the massive revenue line. Revenues earned by Canadian specialty services, pay-TV channels and video on demand license holders surpassed $2.5 billion in the 2006 broadcast year, ended August 31, 2006, says the Commission data on the industry released today.
During the last year, this part of the electronic media industry saw the highest growth in its revenues as they rose by 12.4% as compared to 2005.
However, profits before interest and…
Continue Reading
