CALGARY – Shaw Communications announced today that it will close its community cable TV stations in Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver and redirect $10 million annually that would normally fund those stations to Corus Entertainment’s Global News.
Beginning September 1, 2017, Global News will use these new resources to sustain and expand its local journalistm.
The CRTC gave vertically integrated companies in large metropolitan centres the option to do this when it re-wrote the rules on funding local programming in 2016. Rogers Communications already has announced it will take advantage of the new regs,…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Irwin Gotlieb’s company is in charge of a third of the world’s advertising budget and he came to Toronto last week to tell Canada’s broadcasters to get on with addressable advertising, measure better, and work co-operatively, or his company will soon be spending its clients’ money elsewhere.
In an appearance at the Future of TV Ads Conference Thursday at Steam Whistle Brewery and in an interview with Cartt.ca, the global chairman of Group M implored Canadian broadcasters – especially those with TV distribution arms as well – to follow the lead of much of the rest of the…
Continue Reading
VICTORIA – Canadian households are still cutting the cord from their television services providers while residential broadband subscriptions spike, say two new reports from Convergence Research.
The Battle for the Canadian Couch Potato: Online and Traditional TV and Movie Distribution estimates that 220,000 Canadian TV subscribers opted to cut the cord in 2016, compared to a 190,000 decline in 2015, and predicted that another 247,000 would eschew a paid TV subscription in 2017. Hence, Canada’s TV subscriber base is declining by 2% per annum, and the report forecasts a 3% drop in 2019.
As of year-end 2016,…
Continue Reading
EDMONTON – Super Channel has licensed the contemporary spy drama Berlin Station from Paramount Pictures.
Produced by Paramount Television and Anonymous Content for EPIX in the U.S., Berlin Station follows Daniel Miller (Richard Armitage, Hannibal) who has just arrived at the CIA station in Berlin, Germany with a clandestine mission: to determine the identity of a now-famous whistleblower masquerading as "Thomas Shaw." Guided by jaded veteran Hector DeJean (Rhys Ifans, Snowden) Daniel learns to contend with the rough-and-tumble world of the field officer–agent-running, deception, danger and moral compromises.
The ten-part espionage thriller will make its Canadian broadcast premiere on May 15…
Continue Reading
Top 10 priorities
TORONTO – Expectations will be high for Joe Natale when he takes the elevator up to the 10th floor of 333 Bloor St. E. for the first time as CEO of Rogers Communications.
Since he has such a long history in Canadian telecom and wireless and stellar track record leading so much of the growth at Telus since joining that company in 2003 (and departing in 2015), Bay Street expects Natale to waste no time making his presence and his priorities felt.
BMO Capital Markets telecom/media/cable financial analyst Tim Casey even went so far as to construct a top-10…
Continue Reading
CALGARY and TORONTO – Alek Krstajic is stepping down as CEO of Shaw-owned Freedom Mobile while Paul McAleese was named Chief Operating Officer.
Shaw made the announcement early Wednesday, in conjunction with the release of its second quarter financial results which saw its Wireless division add over 33,000 new postpaid and prepaid wireless subscribers in the three month period.
“We thank Alek Krstajic for his leadership over this past year," said CEO Brad Shaw, in the announcement. "During that time, Alek was instrumental in activating Freedom's LTE-Advanced network and in providing customers with the best value and an enhanced connectivity…
Continue Reading
CALGARY – New Freedom Mobile subscribers combined with slowing TV, Internet and landline customer losses helped to power Shaw Communications to its best quarterly subscriber performance in five years, the company said Wednesday.
For the three month period ended February 28, 2017, consolidated revenue from continuing operations of $1.30 billion increased by 13.3% from $1.15 billion year-over-year, while operating income before restructuring costs and amortization for the quarter of $540 million improved 7.6% over the comparable period. Excluding the results of the Wireless division, acquired on March 1, 2016, revenue for the quarter from the combined Consumer, Business Network Services…
Continue Reading
THE SUBSCRIPTION TELEVISION industry likes to say that outright cord-cutting (defined as when a consumer abandons a TV subscription altogether) is still a pretty small phenomenon.
So far, overall, that remains technically true. The latest numbers show about two percent of Canadian households with a TV subscription have chosen to cut the cord and stop subscribing to traditional TV. Generally, it’s been a story of “flat is the new up”, while inside of the likes of Rogers, Shaw, Cogeco, Bell and others, hardworking employees are doing their best to swallow hard every day and manage substantial…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Corus Entertainment saw revenues increase by 86% for its second quarter ended February 28, 2017, but rising costs helped to weigh down profits.
The company said Thursday that net income attributable to shareholders for the quarter was $24.9 million, well below the $102.2 million posted in the same period last year, which includes business acquisition, integration and restructuring costs of $0.9 million. Adjusting for the impact of this item resulted in an adjusted net income attributable to shareholders of $25.6 million.
Consolidated revenues for the quarter of $368.2 million jumped from $197.7 million year-over-year, while consolidated segment profit of…
Continue Reading
Shaw telling customers it's time to talk to your television
CALGARY – Shaw Communications’ next generation of television, BlueSky TV, is now available across Western Canada, the company announced Wednesday morning.
Powered by Comcast's next generation X1 platform, BlueSky TV's interface allows customers to access live programming, DVR recordings, on-demand shows and streaming services all in one place. The voice-activated remote lets customers find content by title, genre, actor name or even by famous movie quote. New content can be discovered by saying "recommendations" or asking the remote "what's trending" to see what content is popular with other BlueSky TV users…
Continue Reading
