MONTREAL ? With a three-hour break mid-day (we were told someone had to go to a funeral, so quit complaining&), yesterday?s long hearing day featured a ton of back and forth between Bell executives and the panel of CRTC commissioners.
Long lovely narratives explaining each exchange would be nice but time restraints mean we?re going for the bullets only of some of the highlights. We think we?ve hit some of the main points with our bulleted rundown here.
* In his first public appearance as chair of the CRTC, Jean-Pierre Blais acquitted himself well, nailing a few biting comments throughout the…
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Bell Media named official sponsor for MAC Viva Glam Fashion Cares fundraiser
TORONTO – Bell Media has been named the official media sponsor and broadcaster of the 25th anniversary of MAC Viva Glam Fashion Cares taking place on Sunday, Sept. 9 in Toronto. In its final year, the event which benefits AIDS Committee of Toronto (ACT) and Elton John AIDS Foundation (EJAF), features performances by Sir Elton John, Scissor Sisters, Janelle Monáe, Sky Ferreira, and Canadian artists Shawn Desman, Jully Back, and Kreesha Turner.
On World Aids Day, Saturday, Dec. 1 at 8 p.m. ET, MAC Viva Glam Fashion Cares honorary…
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TORONTO – Travel+Escape has announced an expansion into 1.8 million Shaw homes across Canada beginning this September through Shaw Cable and Shaw Direct carriers.
Beginning September 5 with Shaw Cable and September 6 with Shaw Direct, the new deal will increase the number of total Travel+Escape subscribers nationally to 2.7 million.
“We’re thrilled to bring Travel+Escape's new slate of original and exclusive travel-themed programming to so many more Shaw customers,” said Raja Khanna, CEO, Television & Digital, Blue Ant Media.
Travel+Escape is the destination for travel themed programming including hit series The Lonely Planet, Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations and The Layover, Scam…
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WE DRILL DOWN into the analytics of our content quite a lot at Cartt.ca, studying what resonates with our valued readers and what doesn’t. We learn a lot and try adjust our coverage accordingly. So, to give you a peek at what the folks in the cable, radio, television and telecom business have been paying the most attention to for the past year, we publish the top 25 stories of the past 12 months on the day after Labour Day.
As those in the TV business will tell you, September is really the beginning of the year – and September…
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TORONTO – Showcase’s new fall advertising campaign, which kicked off this week, centres around its two new police dramas Copper and Common Law.
The four-week campaign will build awareness and drive tune-in for the shows, targeting adults 25-54 primarily in Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary. On-air teasers and spots began airing in July, while the out-of home campaign includes posters throughout Toronto and Vancouver transit systems.
Consumers also have the chance to sample Copper and Common Law with pre-roll video on cross-demographic pop culture websites determined by CPAX’s Real Time Bidding. A unique extension of the online buy is Youtube’s “First Watch”…
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TORONTO – Rogers has launched its LTE network in Moncton, its first market in New Brunswick.
The company said Tuesday that it plans to cover approximately 60% of Canada’s population by the end of the year with its new wireless network, with planned launches in Trois Rivières, Sherbrooke, Quebec City, Kingston, Ajax, Pickering, Oshawa, Oakville, Burlington, Hamilton, St. Catharines, Niagara, Windsor, Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo, Guelph, London, Barrie, Sudbury, Saskatoon, Regina, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Kelowna, Whistler, Abbotsford and Victoria. More cities will be launched in 2013.
"Rogers is proud to be the first to launch LTE in Moncton," said Ken Marshall, Rogers’ regional…
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MONTREAL – Quebecor's Videotron is making its first step toward eliminating analog cable television service throughout its network.
Last Friday, the company issued a stop-sell order for new analog television subscriptions. The end goal is the transition of its approximately 412,000 remaining analog TV customers (many of which are hotel rooms or other business customers) to the company's illico digital service.
"We need more space in the network," said Videotron vice-president Isabelle Dessureault. In areas like western Montreal, where analog cable is still prevalent, Videotron devotes about 55 of its 135 6-MHz television channels to analog service. Ending analog service completely…
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WHILE WE HAVE NO inside information to give you, we have covered enough CRTC hearings featuring the current crop of Bell executives and regulatory folks to guess at what the thrust of their presentation will be when they face the panel of CRTC commissioners in Montreal come September 10th.
They are probably going to ask what all the fuss is about. The media industry has consolidated at a rapid pace with the likes of Bell, Rogers, Shaw, and Quebecor owning significant carrier as well as media assets. With one more company, Astral Media, assimilated into Bell…
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SO IT?S NOT JUST Quebecor, Cogeco and EastLink demanding the CRTC say no to Bell Canada'?s $3.38 billion purchase of Astral Media after all. Telus, Rogers, MTS Allstream, the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre and others want this latest edition of the ongoing vertical integration story erased.
(An earlier version of this story said Friends of Canadian Broadcasting were also opposed to the merger. That us not the case and Cartt.ca regrets the error.)
Still, other groups such as ACTRA, the Writers Guild, the CMPA and Directors Guild, while not ultimately opposing the…
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TORONTO – With less than two weeks to go until its Canadian debut, Shaw Media has kicked off a national advertising campaign to introduce Lifetime to Canadian women.
Targeting women 25-54, the off-air campaign highlights series Dance Moms and The Client List, plus layers in a third image piece featuring A-list talent including Jennifer Love Hewitt, Queen Latifah, Lindsay Lohan and Heidi Klum. Together, the campaign aims to promote the brand’s breadth of programming including scripted drama, unscripted series and movies.
Out-of-home executions include a “subway domination” at Toronto’s St. George station, plus large-scale billboards in the high-traffic Toronto Eaton Centre…
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