PETER AND TONY VINER are a rare pair in the world of business, let alone broadcasting. The two brothers, separated by two years, each and on their own rose to the top of major, multi-billion dollar broadcasting businesses headed by two of Canada’s most celebrated entrepreneurs.
Peter, 67, helped the late Izzy Asper build Canwest Global into a multi-billion-dollar international media powerhouse before the company fell on hard, debt-burdened, times. Tony, 65, built Rogers Media from two Toronto radio stations (Ted Rogers’ famous first media asset, CHFI-FM, and CFTR-AM, now 680News) when he came on board in 1982 to a…
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WHILE CONCEDING THAT THE various accusations and complaints levelled against it over the past weeks and months show a high level of “competitive and financial tension” evident in the Canadian TV business nowadays, Bell Canada told the CRTC Friday that this tension should not impact the approval of its purchase of Astral Media.
In its final written reply to the CRTC hearing into the purchase, Bell Canada insisted its decision to buy Astral Media and all of its radio stations, TV properties and other assets is in the public interest and that only by owning the…
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TORONTO – Rogers Communications says it has expanded its LTE network to an 18 additional markets bringing it to nearly 60% of Canadians. The telecom says it’s the first to launch LTE in Saskatoon and Regina, St. Catharines/Niagara, Oshawa/Pickering/Ajax, Windsor, Sudbury, Sherbrooke and Trois-Rivières.
Rogers LTE is also available in Victoria, Abbotsford, Kelowna, Kingston, Edmonton, Quebec City, Oakville/Burlington/Hamilton, London/Kitchener/Waterloo, Cambridge and Barrie. Rogers says it will continue to expand its LTE coverage adding additional markets this year and in 2013.
"We're proud to bring LTE first to many more Canadians and we're hearing great…
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TORONTO – By the end of 2014 the new Canadian mobile providers will nearly double their total subscriber base to 3.2 million, or a 4% increase in market share compared to the 1.73 million base they should reach by this year’s end. This according to a 102-page report entitled Canadian Wireless: Assessing the Impact of New Entrants by the Convergence Consulting Group.
The report however cautions that the “outcome of the 700 MHz auction, Shaw’s potential wireless entry, the possible merger or sale of certain new entrants, are all pivotal variables.”
Driving this growth is how new entrants can undercut incumbents…
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ST. JOHN’S – Cutbacks, concentration of ownership, reimagining public media, and even the cable bill of president and CEO Hubert Lacroix were all up for discussion at CBC’s 4th annual public meeting. Ahead of its CRTC renewal hearing scheduled for November 19, executives also called for a regulatory framework that will enable the public broadcaster to maintain a presence “no matter what degree of industry consolidation may happen, or how fast technology and demographics might evolve.”
But before they got to the CBC’s numbers, Lacroix, whose future at the CBC remains unclear as…
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OTTAWA – In a battle of GOs, Telus is charging Corus Entertainment and Shaw Communications of conspiring to block its efforts to stream Movie Central/HBO content to its Optik On The Go customers, which competes directly now with Shaw`s GO TV Everywhere service.
Telus filed a complaint with the CRTC last week saying Telus has tried unsuccessfully for nearly a year to acquire the premium content for its Optik on the go service from Corus, to no avail.
“Corus is offering in-home, out-of-home and on-the-go access to Movie Central…
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TORONTO – Mason Capital Management has filed and is sending its dissident proxy circular to voting shareholders of Telus Corporation ahead of its general meeting scheduled for October 17, 2012.
Mason has been locked in a bitter dispute with Telus over the telecom’s proposed plan to eliminate its dual-class share structure without paying a premium to voting shareholders, including itself, to reflect their higher value on the open market
The proxy circular filed today includes a letter to voting shareholders, which outlines the reasons Mason believes voting shareholders should vote “No” to Telus’ proposal including:
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TORONTO – The Canadian Premium Audience Exchange (CPAX), a new online, real-time bidding exchange service is adding two new networks, V and Télé-Québec. The networks join recently announced Corus and founding partners Shaw Media, Rogers Media and CBC/Radio-Canada.
The participation of V and Télé-Québec further expands and strengthens CPAX's premium French-language opportunities for the advertising community, with Canadian digital advertising inventory now reaching across a wide network of top domains in French. CPAX says it now offers an efficient and cost-effective means of reaching targeted audiences with premium inventory across leading Canadian brands in both English and French.
"V is…
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GRANTING BELL THE RIGHT to buy Astral Media will make an already big company that acts badly, enormous, add incentive for it act even worse, which in the end will crush competition and choice in Canada. Therefore, the deal needs to be quashed altogether or tough new rules applied to constrain the biggest player in Canadian media, say final replies to the CRTC’s public proceeding into Bell Canada’s quest to buy Astral Media.
Those last written rejoinders to the Commission’s public proceeding into Bell Canada’s purchase of Astral Media (CRTC 2012-370) from intervenors were due into the Commission on Friday,…
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MONTREAL – An American consortium of cable companies which have banded together to let their customers roam freely on each others’ Wi-Fi networks may soon gain a Canadian partner.
Earlier this year (as reported on by Cartt.ca from the Cable Show in Boston), a number of U.S. MSOs forged a new partnership to let their respective customers share 50,000 wireless hotspots for free when they travel. When traveling outside their home markets, high-speed Internet subscribers of the participating companies (Cablevision, Comcast, Cox, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House) will look for the “CableWiFi” network and through…
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