CALGARY and TORONTO – JR Shaw and members of his family and corporations and trusts which they collectively own or control have completed an internal reorganization of their holdings in Shaw Communications and Corus Entertainment as part of ongoing estate planning for JR Shaw and his family.
The Shaw Family Group beneficially owned, and continues to own, 17,782,600 Class A Voting Participating Shares and 36,416,426 Class B Non-Voting Participating Shares of Shaw, and 2,906,496 Class A Voting Participating Shares and 5,651,417 Class B Non-Voting Participating Shares of Corus. Accordingly, the reorganization does not affect either company, reads the news release.
The reorganization…
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TORONTO – Hollywood Suite’s four HD movie channels are officially now known as Hollywood Suite 70s Movies, Hollywood Suite 80s Movies, Hollywood Suite 90s Movies and Hollywood Suite 2000s Movies, after being relaunched on Monday.
The independent broadcaster announced in September that the rebrand would include a streamlined look that brings a single Hollywood Suite identity to the four on-air HD channels, On Demand, the Hollywood Suite Go app, and its web and social media properties.
Subscribers can still find the big pre-1970 films with programming blocks dedicated to the essential classics from the golden age of Hollywood. All movies will remain uncut…
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TORONTO – Discovery launched its TV Everywhere app Discovery Go this week, pledging to become the first in Canada to offer content in 4K Ultra HD.
Launching with 4,500 hours of programming from Discovery, Animal Planet, Investigation Discovery, Discovery Science, and Discovery Velocity, that total will swell to more than 7,000 hours by January 2016, reads the company’s news release.
Content includes complete season stacks of series such as Highway Thru Hell, Deadliest Catch, Close Encounters, Shark Week, and How It’s Made, alongside current episodes of the network’s flagship daily science program Daily Planet. The release added that Discovery networks programming in 4K…
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PEOPLE ARE ALREADY CALLING Justin Trudeau our first “selfie” Prime Minister. Images of him on the campaign trail – and the day after the election – mugging with various Canadians who have one arm outstretched and the other around our PM-to-be number in the hundreds of thousands. He’ll apparently even click it for you, if you like.
Of course, those snapshots are then uploaded to the likes of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, LinkedIn or any other sharing platform to display to followers around the country and the world. Just Google “Justin Trudeau selfie”.
Invariably, those images ride…
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OTTAWA – Late Thursday, Bell Canada applied to the Federal Court of Appeal for leave to appeal the CRTC’s recently announced Wholesale Code of conduct which it established for the TV industry as part of its Let’s Talk TV policy review process.
The Commission released the Code September 24th.
The CRTC has overstepped its jurisdiction with this Code, says the Bell application to the court. “The purpose of the Wholesale Code is to govern the commercial relationships between Programming and Distribution Undertakings. In doing so, the Wholesale Code conflicts with the Copyright Act and exceeds the CRTC’s…
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CALGARY – Shaw Communications saw fourth quarter profits jump by nearly 44% thanks in part to the sales of wireless spectrum to Rogers earlier this year.
For the three month period ended August 31, 2015, Shaw said that net income was $276 million, while consolidated revenues grew 6.3% to $1.34 billion year-over-year, primarily attributable to the operations of ViaWest, organic customer growth in Business Network Services as well as Consumer division rate increases introduced earlier this year.
Total operating income before restructuring costs and amortization for the quarter of $573 million improved 9.1% primarily due to the acquisition of ViaWest and…
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NEW ORLEANS – The cable industry's long-awaited transition to all-IP video world is finally becoming a solid reality after years of brave talk.
At the SCTE Cable-Tec Expo show in New Orleans last week, Comcast CTO and EVP Tony Werner said North America's largest MSO has firmly put its stake in the IP video future. Speaking in the show's opening general session, Werner boasted Comcast will have all of its linear and VOD services available over IP by the end of the next March.
In fact, Werner revealed that 95% of Comcast's vast U.S. cable footprint already has all of its…
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TORONTO – CBC has named Chris Harris as executive producer, digital, scripted, effective immediately.
Harris, pictured, returns to CBC from his most recent position as VP strategy and business development with content studio Secret Location, a position he held since 2013. He previously spent more than seven years with CBC, from 1999–2006, as an award-winning interactive producer and journalist, working in Sports, News, Kids, and Television. In 2006 he joined Alliance Atlantis/Canwest where he led the digital content teams at Shaw Media and Canwest as both director and head of oine content, plus was Shaw Media’s first ever head of social media.
In his new role,…
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OTTAWA – A look ahead at Canada’s broadcast industry is just one of the sessions confirmed for the upcoming Prime Time In Ottawa conference.
Shaw EVP and Shaw Media president Barbara Williams and CBC English services EVP Heather Conway will share what impact the recent changes to Canada’s TV industry have had and will continue to have on their businesses, plus detail what’s next in programming strategies for multiple broadcast and digital platforms in the session entitled ‘Broadcast – A Look Ahead’. Other confirmed sessions include ‘Digital Buyers’, ‘Accessing the Global Marketplace’, ‘Brand Funded Entertainment’ and ‘Evolution of Advertising’.
Scheduled for February 3-5, 2016…
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TORONTO – CBC has named Tara Ellis as executive director of scripted content effective October 19.
Ellis, (pictured), was most recently senior director of original drama content for Shaw Media. Prior to that, she was Alliance Atlantis's VP of content for Showcase, and executive in charge of production for CBC.
In her new role, Ellis will lead CBC's scripted content teams as they continue to raise the bar in comedy and drama, kids programming and digital originals, reads the announcement. Ellis will report to programming GM Sally Catto and reporting to her will be the senior directors of drama, comedy and…
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