TORONTO – The Radio-Television News Directors Association of Canada honoured some excellent television and radio journalism today as the association gave out its annual awards in Toronto today for TV and radio news.
The 2004 national television winners are: Bert Cannings Award – Best Newscast CHAT-TV – Redcliffe, AB – "Newswatch" (Small Market) CTV Regina – Regina, SK – "CTV News Six O’clock Report" (Medium Market) CFTO-TV, Toronto – Toronto, ON – "CFTO News at 6" (Large Market)
Charlie Edwards Award – Spot News ATV News – Halifax, NS – "White Juan" CHEX Television – Peterborough, ON – "The…
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MONTREAL – Cogeco Cable today made official its launch of voice over Internet telephony in many of its major service areas.
Over the last year, Cogeco Cable has successfully tested its new digital telephone service in the Trois-Rivières area in Québec and in the Burlington/Oakville Ontario corridor.
These conclusive trials, as well as the market studies conducted at the same time, have helped to better pinpoint the services and functions that customers want, says the company.
In 2001, Cogeco abandoned testing it was doing in the telephony space after spending about $25 million, saying it would wait for the…
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TORONTO – Buyers by the dozens gathered at the Carlu in Toronto this morning for CanWest MediaWorks official unveiling of its new 2005-2006 programming slate for the Global Television Network and CH.
"We are very excited about our exceptional slate of new programming this year," said Kathleen Dore, president, radio and television, CanWest MediaWorks. "With a diverse mix of new comedies and highly touted dramas, combined with a strong roster of returning hits and new Canadian programs, Global and CH are well positioned to be the destination in television entertainment this fall."
The roster of new one-hour dramas includes…
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ALMOST ALL OF MY TELEVISION watching is on demand. My house is an OD house.
I’m not saying all I watch are movies, old TV shows and kids stuff that my cable company offers via video on demand. What I’m saying is that about 80% of all of my TV watching has morphed into a near fully on-demand model.
I started thinking seriously about that just this week when I read a short Canadian Association of Broadcasters submission to the CRTC. The letter was in response to recent applications from Rogers Cable and Groupe Archambault (a division of Quebecor…
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TORONTO – Facing rapidly increasing demand, Dome Productions announced this week it has added a second high definition production truck to its fleet.
The Rogers Communications/CTV Inc. co-owned company unveiled Horizon, the company’s second multi-format high definition mobile production truck. Like its predecessor Majestic, for which Dome was awarded the 2004 Gemini Award for Outstanding Technical Achievement, Horizon is capable of supporting standard and high definition for both 1080i and 720p HD formats in traditional 4:3 or wide screen 16:9 aspect ratios. In fact, the design and build of Horizon began hot on the heels of the launch of…
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OTTAWA – Shaw Communications has asked the CRTC to free its pay-per-view service from its geographic shackles.
In its license renewal application for Shaw Pay-Per-View, the company has asked the Commission for an amendment to permit national distribution, but only via satellite companies.
As the Shaw PPV license now stands, it may only distribute its service in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut.
Viewer’s Choice PPV gets the rest of the country in its license.
Since Bell ExpressVu has its own branded PPV service called Vu! –and the only other licensed DTH company in Canada…
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CHICAGO – Scientific-Atlanta, Inc. and Microsoft Corp. announced today the two companies will collaborate on developing IPTV.
S-A (which supplies digital cable set-top boxes to Rogers Cable and Videotron in Canada) and Microsoft said today at Chicago’s Supercomm convention that they will “collaborate on the development of Scientific-Atlanta advanced encoders that will be compatible with the Microsoft TV Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) Edition software platform.”
These encoders will support MPEG4 part 10 and VC-1, the proposed SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers) standard video codec based on Windows Media Video 9, to deliver integrated IP television (IPTV)…
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TORONTO – Last week’s Canadian Telecom Summit saw the leaders of Canada’s largest ILECs stay relentlessly on the attack, hitting at the CRTC as well as Canadian cable companies.
While Bell Canada Enterprises CEO Michael Sabia’s keynote on Tuesday said the telecom regs were just plain wrong, Telus Communications CEO Darren Entwistle backed him up the next day.
Both executives are peeved at the May 12th voice over Internet protocol regulatory decision which said, mainly, that for the incumbent local exchange carriers VOIP will be regulated as their traditional circuit-switched systems in that they must file tariffs each…
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MONTREAL –Videotron today announced the addition of RAI International to its channel lineup.
This must be one excellent, in-demand channel, because Videotron is the third cable company in three weeks (Rogers was first, then Cogeco) to make a formal announcement of its addition since the CRTC decision allowing it into the country.
Heritage Minister Liza Frulla is even attending a launch event for the channel on Sunday.
RAI International will be available to Videotron’s illico digital television service in the Montreal and Gatineau areas starting 2:30 p.m., June 5, 2005.
RAI International is the international service of Italy’s largest…
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NIAGARA FALLS – For the first time in memory, the CRTC is coming to Niagara.
And, will they get an earful on Monday when three days of hearings begin because up first is broadcast veteran Wendell Wilks, who is looking to recreate ITV all over again, this time in the Niagara region.
The founder of Edmonton’s ITV (which is now Global Edmonton) says that the Niagara region (pop. 500,000 or so) is so poorly served by the existing Canadian TV broadcasters that it needs its own station and he’s willing to bet $20 million to prove it.
What’s interesting…
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