TORONTO – Newsmagazine entertainment program ET Canada will mark its 10th season next month, promising more exclusives, more specials and even more celebrity.
Beginning September 2 at 7:30 PM ET/PT on Global, the show will revisit memorable celebrity interviews, blooper moments from behind the scenes, and ‘Star Evolutions’ featuring Hollywood's biggest names from their humble beginnings to superstardom. Fridays will host ‘The Ten List’ covering a countdown of topics including host's fashion faux pas, celebrity mug shots, and the best New Year's Eve moments.
Hosts Cheryl Hickey, Rick Campanelli and Roz Weston will continue to serve up entertainment's latest scoop, along with…
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GATINEAU – Rogers Communications and Corus Entertainment have told the CRTC that it must reconsider the usefulness of Terms of Trade (ToT) agreement between broadcasters and independent producers in creating independent Canadian programming. On the other hand, the Canadian Media Production Association (CMPA) argues that in a new broadcast environment with greater pick and pay options ToT will become increasingly important.
In their respective interventions to the Commission’s Let’s Talk TV Conversation with Canadians, Rogers and Corus claim that ToT (a deal hard-fought for by the CMPA and others which was developed and demanded over a number of years) is…
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JUST BECAUSE BELL Canada, Quebecor Media, Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications are all broadcasters, specialty service operators, TV distributors, phone companies and broadband providers doesn’t mean they think alike. They do, however, agree on this generation’s “Death Star”. We’re looking at you, Netflix.
In their submissions to the CRTC’s TV Policy Review, the four big vertically integrated behemoths are on board together with certain things, such as maintaining simultaneous substitution (which is actually something virtually every industry submission we’ve read demands be kept), decreasing the amount of Canadian content which must be shown, while spending more money on fewer big…
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TORONTO – TSN will flip the switch on its three new national feeds on August 25, opening day of the U.S. Open, and take the opportunity to deliver expanded live coverage of the final tennis Grand Slam of the season.
TSN said Monday that its feeds, branded TSN1, TSN2, TSN3, TSN4, and TSN5, will initially be available to customers of Bell Fibe TV and Bell Satellite, Cogeco Cable, Eastlink, FibreOp TV (Bell Aliant), MTS, Rogers, SaskTel, Shaw Cable and Shaw Direct, Source Cable, and Telus Optik TV.
The additional feeds will allow the sports network to show more live game coverage,…
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GATINEAU – Despite the fact cable and other TV carriers in many countries are compiling and using data gleaned from customer set top boxes to modify their programming and advertising, Canadian companies seem loathe to do the same or are apathetic about moving quickly to gather that real-time information, according to their submissions to the CRTC’s TV Policy Review, slated to get under way a month from tomorrow.
The Commission asked nine different questions about establishing a set-top box (STB) audience measurement system in Canada, covering issues from consumer privacy to costs and governance. With a few exceptions (especially from…
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TORONTO – TVO will soon premiere a new children's series, Hi Opie!, about a 5-year-old who navigates his way through the struggles and successes of kindergarten for the first time.
Hi Opie! is a TVO developed (marblemedia-produced) live-action series, teaching preschoolers kindergarten readiness skills, helping to ease their transition from home to school, says the public broadcaster’s release. The show features Opie, a custom-built puppet created by Jim Henson's Creature Shop, as he interacts with new real kid friends, gets to know his teachers and discovers a whole new world, all while learning important life lessons.
Targeted to ages 3-5, preschoolers…
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TORONTO – “Contemporary lifestyle network” FYI will take the place of Twist TV as of September 1st, Shaw Media confirmed today.
As we reported in June, the new channel is geared towards “reflecting how people actually live their lives today,” says the company’s press release this morning. “Adding FYI to our portfolio cements Shaw Media’s stronghold on female viewers, especially those captivated by contemporary lifestyle programming,” said Barbara Williams, senior vice president of content, Shaw Media. “With its non-prescriptive and social format, FYI brings viewers big personalities and buzzed about series, a perfect blend for exciting on-air entertainment and engaging…
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GATINEAU – Rogers has been left quite a regulatory pile of laundry to sort through with its license renewals announced Thursday. And, the company was told "no" a lot.
The CRTC has renewed the licences of most Rogers-owned television services until 2016, but though it’s a short-term renewal (at Rogers’ request, so it lines up with the licence terms of the other major English-language broadcasters), the decision makes a lot of changes to how Rogers will operate, particularly in light of its $5.2-billion deal for rights to National Hockey League games.
The biggest change in the decision is that Rogers’s services…
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CALGARY and DENVER – Shaw Communications announced today it will acquire a 100% interest in call centre company ViaWest from Oak Hill Capital Partners and other shareholders for an enterprise value of US$1.2 billion.
Based in Denver, ViaWest is one of the largest privately providers of data centre infrastructure, cloud technology and managed IT solutions in North America. It employs over 350 people and services more than 1,300 customers across Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Minnesota, Oregon Texas and Utah.
The Company has a strong record of financial growth and over the last decade, ViaWest has grown from five data centres in two…
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TORONTO – CBC announced Monday the appointment of Munro Cullen as the new senior creative director of CBC’s communications, marketing and brand department.
Cullen joins CBC with more than ten years’ experience building brands and prominent marketing campaigns. In his most recent position as senior copywriter at Shaw Media, he was integral to the creative direction of off-air print, radio and online advertising for more than 18 brands.
He was also the head writer for the Shaw Media upfronts, with the scope of his work including corporate brand-building. Prior to Shaw, Cullen worked at Alliance Atlantis, first as a promo producer;…
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