OTTAWA – A Senate committee turned to a former broadcast regulator for insight on how to address the challenges facing CBC/Radio-Canada in light of its loss of Hockey Night in Canada to Rogers Communications last year.
Appearing via video conference from Florida, former chair of the CRTC Konrad von Finckenstein told the Standing Senate Committee on Transportation and Communications what he believes could be done to improve the chances for success of Canada’s public broadcaster. He pointed to unloading the corporation’s vast over-the-air broadcast network, refocusing of the public broadcaster’s content as well as changing the governance structure and oversight…
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TORONTO – Attention budding fashionistas: GameTV is bringing fashion-forward reality competition The Fashion Fund to Canada next week, complete with celebrity judges Anna Wintour and Diane Von Furstenberg.
Starting February 13 at 8:00 PM ET/PT, The Fashion Fund follows ten aspiring fashion designers vying for the chance to be named the 2013 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund winner. The series takes audiences behind the catwalk and showroom floor, sits in on studio visits and a Vogue fashion photo shoot, and culminates with a presentation at NYC Fashion Week and the announcement of the winner.
The designers are judged and given feedback by the…
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WHISTLER, B.C. – While Rogers, Shaw and Telus say they are supportive of an a-la-carte channel environment, executives from each company offered up some cautionary advice during CIBC’s annual Whistler Institutional Investors conference last week.
Speaking at the event January 23, Steve Wilson, Shaw’s executive vice-president of corporate development and CFO, acknowledged the industry realizes that consumers want more choice, and from his company’s point of view, it’s about giving them the ability to access content in a variety of ways. There also needs to be consideration given to the impact that has on the Canadian broadcasting system and the…
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CALGARY – Shaw Communications said Tuesday that it is offering $500 million principal amount of 4.35% senior notes due 2024 and $300 million principal amount of floating rate senior notes due 2016.
The net proceeds of this offering will be used for repayment or redemption of the $600 million principal amount of senior notes due June 2, 2014 and for working capital and general corporate purposes.
Closing is scheduled to occur on January 31, 2014. Based on the closing purchase price, the effective yield of the 2024 notes, if held to maturity, is 4.353%. The 2016 notes will bear interest at an…
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WHILE THE CANADIAN SUBSCRIPTION television market is at the beginning of a decade-long decay, growth is still in the cards for cable and telecom companies in Canada thanks to the world’s shift to broadband, says a new report from Scotiabank.
The report, entitled “Embrace the Evolution” (whose cover photo is pictured) says thanks to broadband internet “the growth outlook is bright” for telcos and cablecos (1%-1.5% revenue growth and 2.5%-3.5% in EBITDA growth), due partially to more predictability on the capital expenditure front – and the concentration on more profitable broadband products and services.
However, it won’t be pretty on the…
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TORONTO – A coalition of Canadian academics and consumer groups are asking the country’s biggest telecommunications service providers to divulge the extent to which they pass on their customers’ private information to government agencies when asked.
Spearheaded by Toronto-based researcher Dr. Christopher Parsons, the organization sent letters to 16 different companies this week, including Bell, Rogers, Cogeco, Shaw, Telus and Videotron, asking them to respond to questions on their data retention and sharing policies. The telcos were asked to respond or commit to responding by March 3, 2014.
“Specifically, we are asking how, when, and why your company discloses information to…
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A UNIQUE 30-SECOND spot began airing across most Canadian TV channels last week trumpeting how much Canadians love television, while promoting a new iOS and Google app which, it appears, will let some individual Canadians get on TV on February 6th.
While the whole industry has so far been pretty tight-lipped about the initiative, the ad and the app have been put together by the Television Bureau of Canada and its member companies. The raison d’etre of TVB (whose members count most of the channels available to Canadians, except for Corus Entertainment’s, Quebecor’s TVA and its…
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TORONTO – HBO Canada is offering another free sampling opportunity for three of its “buzzworthy series” following their broadcast premieres.
The channel said that the first episodes from HBO’s new dramedy Looking, the second season of Cinemax’s Banshee, and Season 3 of HBO’s Golden Globe Award-winning series Girls are available now on HBOCanada.com, TMN GO, Movie Central On Demand, and via on-demand platforms of participating television providers.
All new HBO programming airs day-and-date with HBO in the U.S. In Eastern Canada, episodes are available on TMN GO, HBOCanada.com, and HBO Canada OnDemand. In Western Canada, episodes will be available…
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CALGARY – While Shaw Communications reported a 4.3% increase in first quarter profits, it also lost close to 30,000 cable customers for the period ended November 30, 2013.
In a media briefing on Tuesday afternoon, CEO Brad Shaw blamed the customer loss on promotional activities staged by an “aggressive competitor”.
“We have a 98% overlap of IPTV within our market with Telus. I think when you look (at) North America, we have the biggest overlap from a competitive point of view”, he said. “If we wanted to go out this quarter and get 80,000 revenue generating units, we could certainly do…
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TORONTO – Showcase is harnessing video game advertising, event marketing, and the fear of contagions to spread the word on its new sci-fi series Helix.
The four-week campaign, targeting adults 25-54 with a special focus on Toronto, Kitchener, London and Ottawa, is anchored by one of the two key taglines – “The Truth will Spread” and “Play God. Pay The Price”. Banner ads are appearing in high profile video games such as Need for Speed Shift, Fight Night, Madden NFL, NBA Jam and NHL. In addition to promoted tweets and trends leading into the launch of the series, display banners…
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