TORONTO – CanoeLive will be different, that’s for sure.
If the three minutes of the news program that Quebecor CEO Pierre Peladeau revealed to ad agency types and media buyers at Tuesday’s Canadian Media Directors’ Council annual conference is what comes to air, SUN TV’s CanoeLive will be a dizzying hour for TV viewers.
The clip featured a young 20-something female visible minority anchor fronting the show with an urban music track humming in the background non-stop (at about the same sound level of TSN’s background noise of local play-by-play), lightning quick cuts from one screen to the next,…
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TORONTO – Televising a combination of native HD programming and content converted with active pan-and-scan technology, the Score HD will broadcast in 720p widescreen 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, the sports channel announced today.
It’s the first Canadian HD sports channel with a constant widescreen image. News of the move was first reported here in December.
The Score HD is now available to Rogers Digital Cable HDTV customers on channel 507. Negotiations with other carriers are ongoing.
"This is the first phase of our long-term HD vision," said David Errington, senior vice-president and general manager. "The…
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TORONTO – Televising a combination of native HD programming and content converted with active pan-and-scan technology, the Score HD will broadcast in 720p widescreen 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, the sports channel announced today.
It’s the first Canadian HD sports channel with a constant widescreen image. News of the move was first reported here in December.
The Score HD is now available to Rogers Digital Cable HDTV customers on channel 507. Negotiations with other carriers are ongoing.
"This is the first phase of our long-term HD vision," said David Errington, senior vice-president and general manager. "The…
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CALGARY – Cybersurf, an independent Canadian ISP, announced Monday it would offer free high speed Internet access to customers choosing its voice product.
The company is near completion of its national VOIP and cable high speed service and will use the Shaw, Rogers and Videotron backbones to provide its service.
To BR: branded CIA Local Phone in the Toronto market, Cybersurf’s service is offered as a competitive alternative to Bell and Rogers’ local phone service, and includes E911, 411, free unlimited local calling in the 416 area code, free call features and low domestic and international long distance rates….
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By Greg O’Brien
I REMEMBER WHEN THEN-CRTC broadcasting vice-chair Andrée Wylie told the 1999 CCTA convention in Vancouver that the Commission had no intention of trying to regulate the Internet.
Because of it’s very nature, it’s impossible to regulate the Internet itself (unless you’re China or some other repressive government that deploys some painful cyber-clamps and doesn’t mind tossing people in jail for reading the New York Times or somesuch online), which the CRTC recognized early on. Plus, 1999 was pre tech-bubble and the opportunities of the ‘net seemed endless. Why toss up regulations in front of such potential?
That Commission…
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OTTAWA – In a submission which generally backs a cable company’s request to use the local avail ad time to market its telephony and high speed Internet products along with programming services, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters has also asked the CRTC for more cost clarity.
An intervention filed with the Commission last week mostly supports an application made by Halifax-based MSO EastLink to expand what the broadcast distribution regulations say can be promoted during the so-called "local availability" time on American cable channels. Those channels (like CNN, A&E and The Golf Channel) make two minutes per hour of…
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TORONTO – Citytv will air its flagship shows, including BreakfastTelevision, in high definition starting this September.
The station will show BreakfastTelevision, Toronto’s top-rated morning show, along with CityLine, CityNews at Noon, CityNews at Six, and CityNews at 11 in HD, becoming what it says is the first daily newscast in Canada to be in high def.
Citytv is available in HD on Rogers (channel 134) and Bell ExpressVu (channel 803).
Parent company CHUM says it’s committed to increasing its HD content, through initiatives such as the MuchMusicVideoAwards, shown in HD in 2004 and 2005, and the 2005 Genie Awards….
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FORMER ROGERS EXECUTIVE Len Katz has been overseeing the restructuring and re-organization of the administrative functions of the CRTC.
As reported by www.cartt.ca, the Commission’s processes have been streamlined and the structure from which it works, remodeled. A new "centre pod" of oversight that will examine new technologies, help navigate the paths upon which those technologies lead us, and help bring together the telecom and broadcast portions of this converged industry, has been created. Some in the industry will say it’s long overdue. Others will chafe at the changes because one of those alterations means that…
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BURNABY, B,C. – Wireless Wave/The Telephone Booth retail owner Glentel Inc. announced Friday will soon launch a new retail wireless presence – a store-in-store concept for large national retailers who want to sell wireless products and services in their stories.
Since November of 2005, Glentel’s retail group, working with a national big-box retailer it didn’t name, has successfully opened three store-in-store kiosks trading as "Wireless Etc…" in the Greater Vancouver region of British Columbia.
In the next 45 days, under this new retail banner Glentel plans to open an additional four stores in the provinces of Alberta and Ontario….
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AS AN UNABASHED OLYMPICS FAN and a Winter Olympic nut (two-man luge, anyone?) I knew what I wanted during Torino 2006: The Samsung a920.
That was the little navy blue handset that Bell Canada’s beavers, Frank and Gordon talked soooo much about during their many, many, many appearances during the Olympics last month. So, I begg, er, asked the nice folks at Bell if I could test one during the Olympics. Happily, they obliged.
In a deal with the CBC, Bell was offering the Corp.’s live feed of the Olympics on the handset, as well as numerous pre-packaged features…
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