TORONTO – Top line results of a Super Bowl Sunday survey done by Solutions Research Group show good things for most advertisers – but not for the Conservative Party.
Of the 400+ Canadians surveyed immediately after the big game, 22% of those who were watching spent the whole four hours with the game and 63% watched at least half.
Sixty-eight percent of viewers watched the half-time show and 78% watched the game with someone else while 20% were watching with more than five people
Viewers were also connecting in other ways. One-in-ten were instant messaging others watching elsewhere as…
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TORONTO – Canadian Women in Communications have announced the winners of its CWC Annual Awards for 2006.
Four Canadian women and one communications-industry employer are recognized annually for their contributions to the Canadian communications industry.
“Celebrating the achievements of women is one of CWC’s most important and rewarding tasks,” said Stephanie MacKendrick, CWC president, in the press release. CWC holds an Annual Awards Gala in Ottawa that celebrates the achievements of women, and those who support their advancement in the Canadian communications industry.
Participants in the awards presentation program will include: Minister of Industry, the Hon. Maxime Bernier, Minister…
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IT’S STARTING TO LOOK like this year could be the final one for the Canadian Television Fund in its current form.
With two of its four largest contributors (#1 Shaw Communications and #4 Videotron) adamant that they will forward $0 to the CTF – and with a Heritage Minister in Bev Oda who may be sympathetic towards their complaints – at the very least, upheaval is a certainty.
Oda, who on Monday renewed her government’s $100 million annual commitment to the fund, met with representatives of the four primary private sector contributors: Rogers Communications’ vice-chair Phil Lind, Bell…
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TORONTO – A 425-channel high-definition (HD) satellite television universe will emerge in Canada by 2020, with all standard-definition (SD) programming finally making the conversion to HD by that time. That was one ambitious and optimistic outlook revealed at the recent Canadian Digital Broadcasting Summit 2007 held in Toronto this week.
However, some cable industry players who attended the conference are adopting a more cautious perspective.
The bullish HD camp includes Ciel Satellite Communications Inc. of Kanata, Ont., and Nordicity Group Ltd., a telecom strategy consulting firm with offices in Toronto and Ottawa. In response to Industry Canada’s July 2006…
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TORONTO – Next Tuesday, "OMNI News: Online Edition" will launch to multilingual audiences anywhere in the world, joining the already popular news updates the channel does online.
Rogers-owned OMNI Television has been streaming 60 to 90 second updates of its newscasts to five, non-official language communities each weekday. Visits to this feature have been numerous and in response, OMNI has opted to post key content from all of its language newscasts – OMNI News: Cantonese, Italian, Mandarin, Portuguese and South Asian Editions – online at www.omnitv.ca/ontario.
"OMNI News has established strong audience numbers in all language broadcast corridors," said…
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OTTAWA – NDP Heritage critic Charlie Angus read from Cartt.ca today in the House of Commons while calling for hearings into the future of the Canadian Television Fund.
The emergency hearings will happen soon after a motion to launch them passed the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage today.
During Question Period this afternoon, Angus suggested that Heritage Minister Bev Oda was colluding with the cable industry to kill the fund after reading our Analysis piece on the CTF this morning which keyed off an interview with Shaw Communications senior vice-president Ken Stein, who described the meeting to Cartt.ca.
Oda…
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HOUSTON – This year’s SCTE Emerging Technologies Conference held last week in Houston, was far more “marketing” oriented than Engineering.
The Thursday session themes continued around consumer consumption of any content, anywhere, any time on any device and the growing demand for “personalization” of TV. The YouTube and MySpace.com generation mandates “personalization” and sharing of content and cable engineers have to learn to adapt.
Some of the changes illustrated in data are: Twenty million Americans aged 12+ have downloaded a full-length movie within the last month, according to Solutions Research Group, and 80% of total movie “downloaders” only use peer-to-peer…
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OTTAWA – That’s the question the entire industry is asking. With no direct experience in the cable, telecom, or TV fields, what does the eminently qualified career public servant have in mind for the CRTC as its new chairman?
At this point, no one really knows.
"He’s a bright guy and is certainly engaged in the dialogue a little bit from what we know about him in communications issues," said Rogers Communications vice-chair Phil Lind. "He could be good."
"Was I surprised it was him? Yes. But once the process got derailed and once Fern (Belisle, the front-runner…
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TORONTO – When Canadians are made aware of what a personal video recorder can do for them – specifically the convenience and simplicity of watching their programs on their own schedule – interest in the product grows and the likelihood of purchasing the technology increases, according to new research released today by CTAM Canada.
In contrast, in the U.S. TiVo and other Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) have been around since 1997 so awareness and adoption of PVRs in Canada is much lower. The research indicates that just five percent of Canadians own a PVR compared to 15% in the…
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OTTAWA – It’s no increase (as producers, actors and broadcasters were hoping for) but the $200 million committed to the Canadian Television Fund by the federal government over two years is far more than two of CTF’s primary industry contributors are currently paying.
That is to say, zero.
Hot on the heels of Shaw Communications and Quebecor Media’s decisions to suspend monthly payments to the CTF, Heritage Minister Bev Oda said Friday the federal government is renewing its $100 million a year contribution to the fund through 2008-09.
"This announcement signifies this Government’s commitment to producing quality Canadian programming…
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