I FINALLY HAVE A RESPONSE to something CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais asked we reporters – in absentia, mind you – during day eight of September’s Talk TV hearing, the day set aside for accessibility issues.
“I asked others beforehand – now they may be listening elsewhere – but the media table, which was chock-a-block last week, seems to be completely empty now,” chairman Blais said on September 17th. “And I'm struck, because members of the community you serve presumably buy goods and services – goods and services that are made by people that advertise in newspapers and other electronic media.
“Why…
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TORONTO – Customers of Rogers and Shaw will get their first look at subscription streaming service shomi on Tuesday.
While negotiations continue with other Canadian BDUs, shomi, a subscriber-authenticated streaming video service, will only be available in beta first to Rogers and Shaw Internet or cable customers, as the two companies co-own the venture.
Eligible Rogers customers can sign up and begin a 30-day free trial, after which customers can enjoy shomi for only $8.99 per month. The same terms apply to Shaw customers.
As an added benefit to select Rogers customers, shomi will be automatically included for Rogers Hybrid Fibre 50…
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TORONTO – The radio industry, electronic media’s elder statesman, is not in trouble and the sky is not falling, but radio broadcasters need to do a better job at promoting their advertising success stories to keep marketers from becoming too distracted by the “shiny, new toy” (a.k.a. digital audio streaming services).
That was the rallying call delivered by Erica Farber, president and CEO of the U.S.-based Radio Advertising Bureau, during an industry executive town hall session at the Ontario Association of Broadcasters’ Connection 2014 conference, held Thursday in Toronto. “Success stories work,” she said. “We do not do a good…
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TORONTO – Univision Canada launched a high definition version of its signal Friday, becoming the first national all-Spanish language TV channel in the country to do so.
The channel is currently available in over 1.8 million Canadian homes through TV providers including Rogers 780, Bell TV 699, Bell Fibe 867, Shaw 508, Vidéotron 248 and MTS channel 517.
Owned and operated by TLN, Univision Canada’s programming lineup includes daily news, award-winning telenovelas, talk shows, live music specials, and soccer coverage, complemented by made-in-Canada community programming.
www.univisioncanada.ca
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TORONTO – New subscription video-on-demand service shomi could debut as early as November 3, according to an invitation to its launch event received by Cartt.ca on Tuesday.
Owned jointly by Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications, the service was scheduled to launch “in early November” first to the 4.5 million combined subscribers of Rogers’ and Shaw’s Internet and cable TV customers for $8.99 per month. After six to 12 months of beta testing, Rogers and Shaw said that they will then determine what the distribution model will be going forward.
shomi will work initially on select set-top boxes, the Xbox 360, online…
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TORONTO – CTAM Canada has announced the industry leaders who will take centre stage at next month’s Broadcaster’s Forum entitled ‘Engaging Canadians with TV Everywhere’.
Scheduled for November 19 from 1:00 to 5:00 PM at the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto, the second annual event will feature exclusive, new, Canadian-specific market research, and two moderated panels that will discuss distribution and technology, debate current industry hot topics, and share insights.
Panel #1: Consumer Adoption of TV Everywhere
With subscriber adoption of authenticated TV Everywhere (TVE) products on the rise in the U.S., the value proposition appears to be…
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TORONTO – With just weeks until its November launch, shomi announced a new content deal with Warner Bros. International Distribution for new and library series, as well as select feature films.
The Rogers and Shaw-owned subscription video-on-demand service will become the exclusive streaming home to TV series including 2 Broke Girls, Two and a half Men, Shameless, Falling Skies, and the Canadian premiere home of the new Rob Thomas series iZombie (pictured).
The deal also includes film titles such as Blade Runner, Two Weeks Notice, Ocean’s Eleven, The Goonies, Unforgiven, Waiting for Guffman, the Lethal Weapon series, Mad Max movies, the Batman and Superman series and a collection of Stanley Kubrick…
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CALGARY – Shaw Communications ended the fiscal year on a high note Thursday, after posting double digit profits for both the fourth quarter and annual period ended August 31, 2014.
Net income jumped 64% to $192 million for the quarter and rose 13% to $887 million for the 2014 fiscal year. The company said that the current periods benefitted from higher operating income before amortization and restructuring costs, lower amortization and interest expense and improved net other costs and revenue, partially offset by higher income taxes. On an annual basis, the impact of the aforementioned items was partially reduced by…
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HAMILTON and TORONTO – Rogers Communications announced today in its third quarter results that it has purchased Hamilton’s remaining independent cable company, Source Cable, for $160 million.
Source Cable is a cable, Internet, and phone service provider with approximately 26,000 homes passed and 43,000 total service units, says the Rogers press release. For years it was known as Southmount Cable, before a rebranding effort in 2003.
The company has approximately 16,000 basic cable customers, however that figure is not in the press release. Using that number, the traditional cable valuation metric over the…
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TORONTO – Four traditional Canadian telcos which not that long ago had no TV subscribers now represent about 1.3 million Canadian subscription television customers.
A key reason behind that growth has been the offer of much more flexible packaging than what had been available from their cable and satellite competitors. While the telco TV companies’ cable competitors have made strides in that direction of late, it was the availability of smaller theme packs of specialty channels and some a-la-carte offerings that set the IPTV carriers apart from their more mature competition – who stuck with larger tiers for a long…
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