TORONTO – The number of soccer fans in Canada are gaining on the number of hockey fans, if the World Cup Final ratings are any indication.
While game seven of the Stanley Cup Finals drew 4.7 million viewers to CBC this spring, viewership of the final game of the World Cup peaked at 4 million viewers, CTV announced today.
"When Italy’s Fabio Grosso lined up his historic penalty kick, a record 4 million Canadians were watching in anticipation," says the press release. "When his Cup-winning goal lifted Italy into the history books, it capped the most watched World Cup…
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TORONTO – Today, MTV Canada will move down the dial into Rogers Cable’s Ultimate TV Pak in Ontario and Newfoundland or Classic Combo TV Pak in New Brunswick.
To make room, Golf Channel is being putted off onto digital, meaning duffers will now need a set top box to see the channel. Rogers sources, however, say that most Golf Channel subscribers have a digital decoder already.
MTV – the former Talktv – was always an analog specialty channel but was always in the nether regions of the dial for most viewers. This new packaging is expected to be good…
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ONE UNINTENDED HAZARD of deregulation is that all other news outlets will be under-reporting the size of the Canadian cable industry this morning.
On Wednesday, the CRTC released the Canadian broadcast distribution industry’s statistical and financial summaries. But the report doesn’t include all distributors.
From 2004 to 2005, revenues, as well as number of subscribers, remained more or less constant for Class 1 cable carriers. However, with growing investments in voice over IP, for example – as evidenced in Shaw Communications’ third quarter report that said capex will rise at a good clip for the next 24 months…
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TORONTO – With every single game live and in high definition, the World Cup has been drawing big ratings for Canadian broadcasters Rogers Sportsnet and TSN.
As reported by Cartt.ca, the two sports networks got together to ensure coverage would be as deep as possible.
After two rounds of play, the networks’ live and encore broadcasts combined have attracted a record average audience of 550,000 viewers, eclipsing by 77% the previous benchmark recorded in France 1998 (310,000 viewers for the first two rounds).
The following ratings success stories can also be reported for live game broadcasts:
* TSN’s and…
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MONCTON – Ted Rogers love of launching new products on Canada Day continues.
While last year’s launches and announcements were a little larger, this time Rogers Cable will begin offering residential telephone service to residents of Greater Moncton, Fredericton and Saint John starting July 1, 2006.
What will likely catch the most attention down east is that the company announced the whole province of New Brunswick will be a local calling zone. Rogers customers will not be required to dial "1" before the number, so calling from Moncton to Edmundston will be a local call.
"Not only are we opening…
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AS MORE AND MORE TV channels and data applications come on stream, there’s less and less bandwidth available on cable plants.
That’s where switched broadcast, or switched digital video, comes in. While the process is invisible to consumers, it can save up to 60% of a cable company’s bandwidth. Basically, it holds back channels that aren’t being watched from the network.
So, while two neighbors might watch the same TV stream of the British Open since the broadcast channel will nearly always be on, the Pet Network and other smaller channels will be held off the cable plant until…
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TORONTO – John H. Clappison has been added to the board of directors at Rogers Communications.
Ted Rogers, president and CEO, and Alan Horn, chair announced the appointment on Monday.
Clappison is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario and has had an extensive and successful business career. He was most recently the Greater Toronto Area Managing Partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers and sits on a number of corporate boards. Clappison is also active in the community with the Shaw Festival and St. Michael’s Hospital.
He will also become a member of the Audit Committee of RCI.
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GATINEAU – The CRTC on Friday announced that it’s renewing the transitional digital radio licences for another 12 months for some 73 stations in large centres across Canada.
The commission is extending the licence terms from Sept. 1, 2006 to Aug. 31, 2007, to buy time while it develops its new commercial radio policy, following its extensive public hearing held last month in Gatineau, and while it makes changes to its transitional digital radio policy, introduced in 1995.
The licences allow existing stations to operate a digital audio broadcasting signal. Of the 73 licences, 20 are not yet on…
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TORONTO – There’s no business like show business, as meteorologist Harold Hosein has found out. The 17-year veteran weatherman on Toronto’s Citytv told The Sun that he was fired with no reason last weekend.
A Citytv spokesperson told cartt.ca in an email that “Harold is no longer with us. He has decided to move on. He is launching a new business venture in the fall.”
According to the Sun report, Hosein has no plans to start his own business. "I didn’t leave, I was pushed out," he is quoted as saying.
The 66-year-old was apparently shoved aside…
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TORONTO – Rogers Cable is launching the Rogers Yahoo! portable Internet service for wireless access in 20 cities across Canada.
The service is plug and play, requiring a specially designed modem to be connected to a computer and a power source. It uses wireless technology to transmit signals to and from the special modem, without phone or cable lines.
It offers download speeds of up to 1.5 mbps, and upload speeds of 256 kbps, which is up to 25 times faster than dial-up Internet service, Rogers says.
It uses a non line-of-sight wireless broadband network currently available in Greater Vancouver…
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