I THINK WE’VE ALL HIT the point of severe fatigue when it comes to talking about telecom policy.
A number of senior telecom executives rehashed their recent regulatory presentations this week in Toronto during the third annual Canadian Telecommunications Forum, put on by Insight Communications.
The sessions featured all the usual suspects from Telus (EVP Janet Yale), MTS (SVP Chris Peirce), the CCTA (president Michael Hennessy) and others. But in their sessions on Monday, let’s just say the spark was missing that has been there at other times this year.
Bell’s main regulatory honchos, Lawson Hunter and Mirko Bibic actually…
Continue Reading
CALGARY – Shaw Communications became the first BDU in Canada to add Turner Classic Movies to its channel lineup, both on Shaw Cable and Star Choice.
TCM has actually been on the eligible satellite list for about eight years but because of movie copyright ownership issues, Canadian cable and satellite companies have been reluctant to carry a channel which would then need to be blacked out often.
However, executive vice-president Tom Karsch told www.cartt.ca in an interview on Tuesday that the channel has been working on new deals to gain the North American rights to its classic movies (primarily…
Continue Reading
MONTREAL – Inukshuk Internet has announced the launch of its 2005 Calls for Proposals in Alberta, British Columbia, Eastern Ontario and Outaouais, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Québec and Yukon.
Inukshuk, which has had a number of owners in its lifespan, but is not a commercial service as yet, was granted licenses from Industry Canada for multipoint communications systems (MCS) spectrum in the 2500 MHz frequency range, to build a unique, "last mile" broadband wireless access network.
On November 8, 2004, Rogers acquired the control of Microcell, including Inukshuk. On September 16, 2005…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Hardcore sports fans can be just a push of a button away from their favourite team’s score with Score Mobile, launched Thursday by sports specialty channel The Score Score Mobile delivers up-to-the-minute scores to subscribers’ cell phones. Using an interactive menu that enables users to skip almost instantly to the scores they crave most, Score Mobile delivers live in-progress scores and odds (for the wagerists) for all major professional sports leagues, U.S. college football and basketball and Canadian CIS football. Score Mobile Version 1.0 can be downloaded now for free at www.thescore.ca, subject to…
Continue Reading
CALGARY – To the chagrin (but maybe not the surprise) of Canadian broadcasters, Shaw Communications CEO Jim Shaw said Thursday that pushing digital cable is not at the top of the company’s priority list.
During its quarterly conference call with financial analysts to discuss its third quarter results, Shaw was asked why its strategy when it comes to marketing digital cable is so different when compared to Rogers. While Rogers carries just about every channel under the sun and strongly markets digital cable, Shaw has been far more reluctant to add many of the new category two channels…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – After a remarkable 50 years in the broadcasting, CHUM Ltd. founder Allan Waters, has stepped down as a member of the board of directors, the company announced this afternoon.
The octogenarian has been named an honorary director.
Waters (right) began his broadcasting career in 1954 with the purchase of 1050 CHUM in Toronto which, under his leadership, became the first Top 40 radio station in Canada. As chairman and president until 2002, Waters created the vision for CHUM Limited’s growth to its current position as one of Canada’s premiere media companies with radio and…
Continue Reading
IT’S NOT OFTEN THAT a family-owned cable company will bring in an outsider to run it. Especially a telco guy.
But, when that cable operation is in the middle of turning into a telephone company, too, it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea after all. Until June of this year, John Piercy was working as a consultant to Hamilton’s Mountain Cablevision, working out the kinks in its telephony offering, leading up to this past summer’s launch.
That’s when Owen Boris (Mountain’s founder) and his son Les asked Piercy (right) to come aboard full time as president. Les is…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Revenue and operating profit were up significantly for Rogers Communications in the third quarter of 2005, ended September 30th.
Adding Call-Net and reflecting results from Microcell, consolidated revenue jumped 42.8% to $20.4 billion in the quarter while operating profit grew 29.3% to $589 million.
The busy part comes in the list of things that have happened under the RCI banner in the quarter.
* All four RCI operating companies contributed to the year-over-year growth, including 48.2% growth at Rogers Wireless Inc. ("Wireless"), 4.8% growth at Rogers Cable Inc. ("Cable"), 14.3% growth at Rogers Media Inc. ("Media") and…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Nortel announced this morning that Rogers Communications will purchase Nortel’s one million square foot office and manufacturing facility in Brampton, Ontario.
The move was not unexpected, as reported earlier.
Under the terms of the agreement, which is subject to due diligence and other terms and conditions, Rogers will acquire the facility, including fixtures and certain personal property located at the facility, and the 63 acres of land the facility is located on for a purchase price of approximately $100 million.
Rogers will take possession January 4th and has not said exactly what it will put in the building….
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Canadian radio outperformed its U.S. counterparts and the 25-54 demographic gained further share of market, according to Canadian Broadcast Sales, a national sales firm co-owned by Rogers Communications (46 stations) and Corus Entertainment (51 stations) representing approximately 60% of all Canadian radio stations.
For the 12 months ending August 2005, spot and non-spot radio sales increased only 1% in the U.S. compared to an overall increase in Canada of 8.7%, comprised of national growth of 17% and local growth of 6.1%.
There are a number of reasons for this, CBS president Patrick Grierson told www.cartt.ca in…
Continue Reading
