TORONTO – It’s always one of the biggest annual events on Canadian television, and Sunday night’s 107th Grey Cup was no different as Bell Media saw its audience grow by 19% over 2018, according to overnight data from Numeris.
An average audience of 3.9 million viewers tuned in to TSN (3.7 million) and RDS (252,000) to watch the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ beat the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
Overall, nearly nine million unique viewers watched some or all of the game, which hit a 31% share Sunday night, meaning nearly one in three Canadians watching television then were tuned into the game.
The audience…
Continue Reading
Flexible storytelling is the key to the future
TORONTO – Overall, Canadians are spending less time watching video content than in 2018, but 18-to-34 year-olds increased their overall viewing, while those 35 and over have seen a decrease in viewing hours, according to new research from CTAM Canada.
Further, 50% of Canadians are using an OTT (over-the-top) service to supplement a traditional TV subscription. They want more content, but find it difficult to locate it all with a traditional TV subscription – and they believe traditional TV is too costly. Subscribers to OTT report paying around $20 a month whereas those…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The judicial process against the CRTC’s August decision on the final rates for aggregated wholesale high-speed access (HSA) service will go forward – and the decision’s application will remain suspended pending a ruling from the Federal Court of Appeal.
This means that the rates in force today are the interim ones set in 2016 and retroactive payments set out in the summer decision are suspended, pending the court’s decision.
The FCA had already granted a temporary stay on October 1st.
Justice Richard Boivin determined “the implementation of the CRTC Order that could result in a permanent market distortion…
Continue Reading
THE DISCUSSIONS ABOUT the Canadian wireless industry and the merits (or perils) of new competition from Mobile Virtual Network Operators can leave your head spinning. The number of price comparisons and examples, local or international, can be so disorienting you start confusing up from down, the high-end of the market from people on a budget and Bay St. from Parkdale.
This Financial Post opinion piece, for example, calls affordability an ‘alleged’ problem. While it was focused on poking holes in the numbers provided by Timothy Denton in an earlier article, it fails…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – Back in the summer, as we reported, Justices from the Federal Court ordered the individuals operating the so-called GoldTV Services to cease operations.
They are unauthorized subscription services that provide access to programming content over the Internet without having obtained the rights, a violation of the Copyright Act, and Bell Media, Groupe TVA, and Rogers Media had all pursued the matter in court.
Despite the issuance of injunctions, the Court, in a decision released last week, says some of the GoldTV services remain in operation and the infringements continue.
Last Friday, the Complainants against Gold, Rogers,…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – The fact that ARPU is trending downwards and churn is rising among the big three wireless providers shows that facilities-based competition brought by the likes of Videotron, Freedom and Eastlink is working – and mandated MVNOs would be a bad move for Canada.
So says a report published this week by Scotiabank’s telecom analyst Jeff Fan.
“Quebecor has been a wireless facilities-based competitor in Quebec for a decade. Is that not sustainable enough? We estimate the company has now captured approximately 19% market share in the province, and, with its new Fizz brand, the momentum has actually accelerated. We…
Continue Reading
NORTH BAY, Ont. – The headline you see came about mid-day during the first Bridging the Digital Divide rural broadband conference being held in North Bay this week.
The prescient comment was made by Geoff Gillon, executive director of the Rainy River Business Development Corporation (Fort Frances, Ont.), and those six words sum up the massive challenge of making sure all Canadians can get excellent broadband and wireless service, no matter where they live.
Canadian consumers and businesses need broadband, whether it’s to take a university course where the school is thousands of miles away, to run robotics in a dairy…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – Canada’s major cable carriers (Eastlink, Cogeco, Rogers, Shaw and Videotron) Wednesday made the point to federal cabinet that all the CRTC decision on new third party internet access aggregated wholesale rates does is disincentivize needed investment in high-speed networks, which is contrary to public interest.
November 13th was the deadline to file petitions to Cabinet (technically to the Governor-in-Council with cabinet) on the August CRTC decision to set lower final rates for TPIA – and force the incumbents to pay three years of retroactive overpayments to independent ISP resellers – and as the cable carriers argue, “by reducing…
Continue Reading
GREENWOOD VILLAGE, CO — CSG, a Colorado-based provider of managed services for business support system (BSS) operations, has extended its partnership with Shaw Communications’ Freedom Mobile to provide additional business and IT operations managed services to help the wireless company provide exceptional customer service to its subscribers, the companies said Tuesday.
Through the expanded partnership, CSG will support Freedom Mobile in addressing customer inquires related to billing and payment management, error processing and service disruptions. CSG is also providing monitoring of business operations and best-in-class IT support, CSG said in a news release.
“Our partnership with CSG helps us streamline…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Like most others worldwide, Canadians' TV viewing habits seem in constant flux. They're taking to streaming and on-demand viewing, driven by the adoption of Amazon Prime, Netflix, Crave TV, and other services, and are watching on more than television sets. An expert panel at the Canadian ISP Summit took a look at this changing landscape and discussed what the future may hold for ISPs and traditional TV providers.
Moderator Brad Fisher, CRO of Distributel, was joined by panelists Doug Edwards, executive chairman and founder of Zone TV, Kerry Travilla, VP of technology at MobiTV, John Pomeroy, GM –…
Continue Reading
