BOSTON – "Clearly, I was wrong," David Purdy told CTAM Summit delegates today.
The Rogers Cable vice-president and general manager of television was talking about his (formerly) held opinion that making sports available on demand wouldn’t work – that viewers wouldn’t want to see games and events hours or days after they happened.
And then the number of users of the MSO’s Winter Olympics on CBC on demand blew away even the most optimistic usage projections. The Rogers on demand project won first place in the free division in CTAM’s On Demand Case Study competition and Purdy presented the…
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BOSTON – Fifty Gold and 109 Silver Mark Awards were presented on Day One of the 2006 CTAM Summit here in Boston.
Among the Gold winners was a Canadian company: Astral Television Networks, for its On Demand TV spots for The Movie Network. Astral was the lone Canadian company to take home an award in 2006. For the full list of winners, click here.
The Mark Awards recognize excellence in consumer and industry marketing for the cable and telecommunications industry. MTV Networks received the most honors among the content providers, winning a total 19 Mark Awards, eight gold and…
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TORONTO – BBM released its latest round of radio ratings Monday afternoon, and the pecking order was shuffled a little in Toronto and Vancouver.
The A12+ top line results show Q107 in Toronto moving up into third place with a 7.0 share (up from last year’s S2 survey result of 6.4), behind Rogers’ CHFI (8.6) and CHUM FM’s 8.8. EZ Rock dropped to fourth at 6.9, down from 7.3 in the S2 2005 book.
In Vancouver, perennial ratings leader CKNW (Corus) is showing some serious weakness. It still rates as the top station in the market at a 10.3 share,…
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IT’S EASY TO FIGURE OUT just what the American cable operators are doing when you travel to conferences Stateside.
The SCTE Cable-Tec show in Denver last month was no different. Network DVR, switched digital, VOIP, analog reclamation and MPEG4 – attendees sure were able to get a handle on what our U.S. neighbours are up to.
But what of Canadian cable plans? Why not ask Rogers Cable senior vice-president network engineering and operations (and the SCTE board’s Canadian rep) Dermot O’Carroll? All new cable concepts and new gear for Rogers passes through his office so if anyone knows where we’re at…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC has approved requests to show VOD and PPV programs that include commercials if they were already aired on Canadian TV and the show is offered for free to subscribers.
The commission will amend the licence for the Bell ExpressVu’s Vu! on-demand and pay-per-view services, and Cogeco’s VOD service, to allow this limited use of advertising.
Bell ExpressVu said the amendment would allow it to compete equally with other Canadian VOD services and evolving PPV media. Cogeco said it would be in the public interest.
Rogers Cable supported the move in its intervention to the commission,…
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"REGULATORY APPROVAL" are the two stock words every media sale announcement made in Canada has attached to it. As in: "Agreement XYZ will close after the required regulatory approval."
Wednesday’s big buy is no different as it will have to pass under the Competition Bureau’s and CRTC’s magnifying glasses, smudged and cracked as they appear to be sometimes. In the official release, Bell Globemedia and CTV CEO Ivan Fecan said: "With regulatory approval, we intend to serve Canadian audiences with both CTV and Citytv stations."
This time, though, that particular sentence means regulatory approval will only be able to come…
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TORONTO – All the newfangled communications technology in the world can’t get around a shovel through a fibre line.
Many Rogers Wireless Blackberry users were without service for about three hours Wednesday after a fibre cut to an Allstream line. Allstream connects Research In Motion to Rogers Wireless Blackberry subscribers and their devices. (Ed note: We’re a little surprised there isn’t better redundancy built into this part of an important system in order to get around such problems more easily.)
Rogers has about 200,000 Blackberry subscribers in Ontario and it’s not clear how many were affected. The disruption did…
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OTTAWA – Saying it needs to enhance its prospects among potential viewers and BDUs, Catholic TV channel Salt and Light wants to change to an English specialty service.
The category 2 digital channel targets Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Filipino, English and French-speaking audiences. Its conditions of license say that no more than 20% of its programming can be English or French.
The application requests Salt and Light be able to air 60% English with the rest dedicated to French and third language programming, which will also include Cantonese shows.
"The licensee indicates that reducing the amount of third-language…
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TORONTO – Rogers Cable is now offering Baby TV in Canada on demand.
Baby TV On Demand is an assortment of educational programs (usually eight minutes or so in length, befitting short attention spans) dedicated to babies and their parents. Rogers customers with a digital box can access Baby TV On Demand, under the "Kids" folder, on channel 100 in Ontario and New Brunswick.
"Baby TV offers parents programming for their babies and toddlers up to age three. Created in collaboration with child psychologists and development experts, Baby TV is designed to inspire, excite and promote learning," says the…
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TORONTO – The 25-54 demographic – which spans from Boomers to Gen Xers and Gen-Y and other trendy demo divisional names – continues to grow in dominance, now capturing 63% of all national radio advertising dollars, says Canadian Broadcast sales.
In the third quarter, ended May 31st, the adults 25-54 demo alone represented almost 50% of spending, an increase of 1.2 share points over the previous year. Adding distinct categories for women 25-54 (8.7%) and men 25-54 (4.7%) brings the total age group spend to 63%.
"While the 25-54 age group is not truly a homogenous target group, radio’s…
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