OTTAWA – Just like Proctor and Gamble pays Loblaws for a front-and-centre placement in the laundry detergent aisle for Bounce dryer sheets, so should companies like Google or Apple or Amazon have to pay ISPs like Videotron for transmitting their goods to consumers along the Internet backbone.
In a speech Tuesday at the Fourth Annual Telecommunications Forum in Ottawa, Dépatie’s speech just might rip the lid off the so-called "net neutrality" debate in Canada. On one side we have sectors of consumers fearing their unfettered access to the Internet will be disrupted (or unduly influenced by who pays the…
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TORONTO – The radio, TV, publishing and baseball division of Rogers Communications can get a little lost in the much larger cable, Internet, telecom and wireless assets, but Rogers Media is pulling its weight, too, the company said today.
In the third quarter, ended September 30th, operating revenue was up 12.2% to $319.3 million while operating profit jumped 17.1% to $39 million.
The increases in Media revenues… reflect growth across all of Media’s divisions," says the press release. "These increases include higher advertising revenue in Publishing and Radio, and at Sportsnet where the Toronto Blue Jays games and World…
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TORONTO – Net income tripled, revenue climbed 15%, operating profit jumped 33%, subscribers in all segments are up – these are heady days for Rogers Communications.
Consolidated revenue grew to $2.35 billion in the third quarter, ended September 30th, while consolidated operating profit rose to $784 million driving operating profit margin up 460 basis points. Net income in the quarter was $154 million, up from $48.9 million in Q3 2005.
For the first nine months, revenue increased 23.4% to $6.6 billion, OP went up 30.2% to $2.1 billion and net income went from $22.1 million over the first three…
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TORONTO – The Ontario Chapter of SCTE is looking to add additional strong leaders to its board of directors.
The chapter has grown substantially since it’s inception in mid-2003. The bylaws require six board members, elected for two-year terms, with three board members replaced each year in order to provide continuity. Laura O’Hare (White Radio), Robin McIntyre (Rogers), and Rob McCann (Clearcable) have reached the end of their two-year term. John Anderson (Telcordia), Boris Eventov (Cogeco) and Bruce Marshall (Mountain Cable) will remain until the end of 2007.
All current Ontario members can nominate candidates for the board. Nominees…
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TORONTO – Corus Radio took a bit of a hit in fiscal 2006, company execs said Thursday while reporting the parent company’s year-end results.
"We had another excellent quarter for our television division, driven by strong ratings and subscriber growth for our brands. Our content business continued to post positive results and radio remained strong outside Québec, where we are integrating newly acquired stations," said Corus Entertainment president and CEO John Cassaday.
Consolidated revenues for the fourth quarter ended August 31, 2006 were $185 million, up 6% from last year’s Q4. Consolidated segment profit was $44.5 million, up 5% from…
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MONTREAL – As if remembering to turn the clock back an hour isn’t enough, many Quebecers also have to remember to dial all 10 digits come Saturday.
This marks the end of the four-month transition period implemented to get users out of the habit of dialing only seven digits (Ed note: We even remember the good ol’ days of only having to dial five). The intercept message and automatic call rerouting will be eliminated as well. The Telecommunications Alliance (www.dial10.ca) is issuing its final notice to anyone who has still not started using 10 digits to dial local…
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TORONTO – Rogers Cable added five specialty channels to its line-up of multicultural programming.
These five new channels – Indus Vision (Pakistan), Sahara One (India), Channel One Russia, as well as previously announced TV Chile and Azteca 13 Internacional (Mexico) – will expand the choices available to Rogers Personal TV subscribers, who already have access to Canada’s largest digital cable offering including more than 50 multicultural channels offered in 24 languages.
Available today across Ontario, these specialty channels offer diversified programming in their respective languages including Urdu, Hindi, Russian and Spanish. The new channels can be ordered individually, for…
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TORONTO – While Rogers Cable has no issue with people petitioning the company to carry certain channels, it strenuously objected to the tactics deployed by Bridges TV last week, as reported by Cartt.ca.
The English language Muslim-focused channel challenged Rogers on a number of fronts, accusing the cable company of discriminating against the Muslim community in an egregiously worded press release.
Rogers spokesperson Taanta Gupta said the decision to keep Bridges on the sidelines has nothing to do with the channel’s content and everything to do with their contract demands. "They want to be paid a fee for every single…
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IN THE FIRST PART OF Cartt.ca’s exclusive, wide-ranging interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation CEO, Robert Rabinovitch talked about stable funding, the TV Policy Review, The One, CBC radio and SRC, among other topics.
Click here to read Part I of the story from last week.
In the second part of our chat, Rabinovitch goes over on demand strategies, HD, CBC Sports (the interview was prior to Nancy Lee’s departure), local news and the residual effects of the 2005 lockout. What follows is an edited transcript.
Greg O’Brien: Let’s switch back to English TV – but actually this question…
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VANCOUVER – The Jack-FM brand is moving to the U.K.
SparkNet Communications, owner of the radio brand which "plays what we want", is taking Jack-FM, which Rogers Radiohas used extensively across Canada, international. Ofcom, the U.K.’s communications regulator, recently announced that Absolute Radio International (ARI), who launched their radio station bid with the Jack-FM format, successfully won the new FM radio license for Oxford and the surrounding South Oxfordshire area.
This step is the first step in Jack’s international expansion. As in North America, Jack-FM will be programmed locally and "will bring its unique musical variety and irreverent attitude…
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