CALGARY – Shaw Communications has tweaked its senior management structure in a move it claims will “better enable its strategic decision making ability and to improve the efficiency and enhance the customer-centric alignment of its operational management”.
The company said Monday that following changes are effective immediately:
– Peter Bissonnette, president, has agreed to postpone his previously announced retirement until December 2015. In addition to his current duties, he will also assume responsibility for Shaw's regulatory and government affairs activities and strategic priorities, as well as providing support and leadership for Shaw's social responsibility activities. This is an important move for…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Rogers’ new 12-year $5.2 billion broadcast and multimedia deal with the NHL may have grabbed headlines across the country, but will likely have little impact on the company’s bottom line, say industry analysts.
Rogers Communications executives said Tuesday the deal will be immediately EBITDA-accretive to its Media division, predicting an influx of $25 – $35 million in the first year, rising to more than $60 million per year after that. But Dvai Ghose, managing director/head of research for Canaccord Genuity, pointed out that Rogers Media only accounted for 4% of the parent company’s 2013 third quarter adjusted EBITDA.
In…
Continue Reading
AT THE 2013 Canadian Telecom Summit, just a day after the CRTC released its Wireless Code of Conduct, Commission chairman Jean-Pierre Blais told delegates, essentially, what’s good for your business should be good for the customer – and vice versa.
In his June 4 speech, he quoted Mary Kay Ash, the enormously successful founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics – a brand built on direct personal relationships who said: “Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying, 'Make me feel important.' Never forget this message when working with people."
Blais went on to note: “Mary Kay…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – Bell has received CRTC approval to launch its own community channels via video-on-demand to select official language minority communities in Ontario and Quebec.
The Commission said Friday that it will amend the broadcasting licences for Bell’s terrestrial BDUs so that it is authorized to redirect up to 2% of its gross annual revenues derived from broadcasting activities to each of its English- and French-language community VOD channels in Hamilton/Niagara, Kingston, Kitchener, London, Oshawa, Ottawa, Peterborough, Stratford, Toronto and Windsor, and their surrounding areas, in Ontario.
In Quebec, the communities include Drummondville (region of Centre-du-Québec), Gatineau, Joliette (region of…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Call this a case of bad news, good news.
The bad news is that TV Everywhere still faces some serious hurdles before it can really take off for cable operators, telcos and other video service providers. The good news is that video-on-demand (VOD) may be on the cusp of reaping significant ad revenues for Canadian pay TV providers.
These twin assessments of the market for advanced video services emerged from the packed CTAM Canada Broadcaster Forum held Wednesday at Toronto’s Westin Harbour Castle Hotel. In back-to-back panel sessions, cable operators, programmers, equipment vendors, online experts, audience measurement specialists and…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – What is the best way to offer choice to your customers when the very act of choosing is personal and subjective?
That was the basis of a panel entitled ‘Packaging Flexibility: Customer Choice vs. Brand Investment’ at the CTAM Canada Broadcaster Forum held Wednesday in downtown Toronto. And that panel, a mix of broadcasters and distributors moderated by Rogers’ senior vice-president of content David Purdy, all agreed that Canadians’ ability to choose their own television channels was inevitable, whether mandated by the government, the Regulator, or driven by consumer demand.
“This…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Global Television’s ET Canada has launched a new monthly music series that gets viewers up close and personal with top recording artists at The Orange Lounge Recording Studio in Toronto.
Called ET Canada At The Orange Lounge, the show offers intimate interviews and performances with select musicians. Music fans left wanting more may visit ETCanada.com for an extended version of the same session that also includes behind-the-scenes footage. Viewers can also join the Twitter conversation using #ETCanadaOrange.
Continue Reading
DID THAT HEADLINE get your attention? I can already hear irritated e-mails disputing that claim being tapped out in response, but bear with us for a few paragraphs.
“What!?” some of those running popular specialty video brands might be asking, “Isn’t Galaxie just that group of sleepy music channels which are a throw-in with everyone’s digital cable box?” Well, they may be a value-add which come automatically with most digital TV subscriptions, but some comprehensive recent measurement shows the suite of music channels (anywhere from 40 to 100, depending on the BDU) is anything but sleepy. This is…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – In the third quarter of 2013, Canada’s publicly traded television service providers combined to add subscription TV customers, thanks to the record growth of IPTV, reversing a trend of cumulative losses in each of the previous three quarters.
New research from Ottawa-based research and consulting firm Boon Dog Professional Services shows that the publicly traded TV service providers (cable satellite and telcoTV) added an estimated 14,145 TV subscribers combined in Q3 in what is traditionally a strong quarter for TV subscriber growth – and all of it was a result of record IPTV subscriber…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – Shaw Communications has parted ways with its senior vice president, corporate and regulatory affairs, Jean Brazeau.
While a company spokesperson confirmed Brazeau is no longer with Shaw, the reasons for his departure are not known at this time. He had worked at Shaw since 2006.
Prior to joining Shaw, Brazeau was SVP regulatory at Call-Net and then at Rogers after the company’s acquisition of Call-Net in 2005. He has also worked at Bell Canada, the Competition Bureau and at Cable & Wireless.
Shaw has listed the job opening, a plum one in the media regulatory space,…
Continue Reading