CALGARY – Shaw Direct has begun using adaptive streaming technology to deliver on demand content, including more than 1,500 standard and high-definition movies and TV titles, directly to customers’ set-top boxes.
Users will need to connect their satellite receiver to a high-speed Internet connection to access the new content. Customers who own an Essential or Advanced HD receiver (HDDSR 600 or HDDSR 605) or an Advanced HDPVR receiver (HDPVR 630) will receive a free software update which enables the VOD services to be connected.
"Streaming video on demand is the next step in giving our customers access to Shaw Direct's exceptional programming…
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PETERBOROUGH, ON – Capella Telecommunications has bought ESA Communication Systems, the voice, video and data systems distributor announced Monday. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Oshawa-based ESA Communication Systems sells, leases and installs satellite, terrestrial microwave, radar and HF antennas for the broadcast industry. The company will continue to operate under that name and serve its value added reseller network, though the shop will relocate to Capella’s head office in Peterborough.
“Our past work together on projects in Canada and the Caribbean confirmed for us ESA’s well-deserved reputation”, said Capella president Norm Slater, in the announcement. “Wayne Soules’ experience…
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HALIFAX – Veteran broadcast executive Jim Haskins has been named station manager/news director for Global Maritimes.
Haskins, who began his career as a reporter and anchor for CJIC TV and CKCY radio in Sault Ste. Marie, ON, was most recently at CBC Television and CBC.ca where he was responsible for media sales and marketing across Alberta. He was also VP and GM with Craig Media (later CHUM Ltd.) and served as president and GM of the Grand Prix of Edmonton.
In his new role, Haskins will oversee all editorial and station operations for Global Maritimes, and will help the station transition…
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BANFF – Social TV audience measurement company, Seevibes, used the Banff International Media Festival to inaugurate Seevibes TV Ratings.
This service, accessible at www.seevibes.com/top, allows users to view the ratings of Canadian TV shows via the experience viewers share on social media. Seevibes offers broadcasters and media professionals exclusive data on the television audience to help them valorize their TV programming and optimize their cross-media ad campaigns.
For Seevibes president Laurent Maisonnave, "Canadians spend more than 28 hours a week watching television and the latest studies show they still love their TV. But social media have changed their relationship with…
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CALGARY – Shaw’s second national food bank drive raised 1.2 million pounds of food and more than $630,000 for food banks across the country.
The four week long Fill the Food Banks campaign saw more than 300,000 Canadians watch Shaw's Fill the Food Banks video, resulting in a $250,000 donation from Shaw and 250,000 pounds of food from Campbell Canada. The campaign wrapped up during Hunger Awareness Week, which ran from May 7 – 11, 2012.
“All across the country, we've been inspired by the people who have gone to extraordinary lengths to help others in need," said CEO…
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BANFF – The questions have been delivered in almost every conference room, certainly every hallway of the Banff World Media Festival this year. It has also been postured in many forms: How will Google, Apple and Netflix influence the Canadian broadcast industry? Is the CRTC’s present policies helping or hindering the equation? What about vertical integration?
Times, They Are A-Changin’, so what should we do?
At the Canadian Media Leader session late Sunday afternoon, there was some consensus on the state of affairs in the industry and the direction of video production and development in the country.
For starters, Bell Media president…
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TORONTO – Canada’s public broadcaster has a key role to play, perhaps even more vital in this era of vertical integration, but it needs the Local Program Improvement Fund and “a flexible regulatory framework" to continue to do so.
That was the gist of an address given Thursday afternoon by CBC/Radio-Canada president and CEO Hubert Lacroix at the Economic Club of Canada in Toronto.
In his first public address since the federal government handed the Corp. $115 million in budget cuts this spring, Lacroix wasted no time in taking issue with the popular refrain that CBC, which receives about $1 billion from…
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TORONTO – Freshly minted Canadian citizen Kevin Crull said Wednesday that without some regulatory change, he fears for the future of the Canadian television system.
Perhaps newly emboldened after becoming a Canadian citizen just last week, the Bell Media president used his luncheon keynote at the Canadian Telecom Summit on Wednesday to heap criticism on the way the regulations governing the Canadian TV industry have mutated over the past couple of years, and to wonder why our knee-jerk reaction as Canadians always seems to fear the big company and how badly it could act, even in the face of the…
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TORONTO – Incumbent telcos Bell and Telus have proven that cable's "big pipe advantage”, is in fact, overrated, according to Canaccord Genuity telecom analyst Dvai Ghose.
In a research note to clients this week entitled ‘Revenge of the Telcos’, Ghose said that Telus and Bell continue to take TV and broadband share from the likes of Rogers and Shaw, at the same time as cable telephony has matured. Part of this shift can be attributed to the telcos’ Mediaroom platform which offers desirable features such as whole home and remote PVR, a superior interactive guide and social media interoperability. While next generation cable boxes…
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TORONTO – Machine to machine communications, the mobile wallet and mobile video (mmmm…) are the three most exciting opportunities on the immediate horizon for the Canadian wireless industry, but only if we get a few things done first, Rogers' communications division president Rob Bruce told the Canadian Telecom Summit this morning.
Bruce explained in his opening keynote how machine to machine (M2M) technology is transforming health care, security, government and energy, among other things. He predicted the Canadian M2M market would be providing $400 million in network revenue by 2015.
The mobile wallet, on the other hand, will alter the way…
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