TORONTO – Shaw Media announced today it has made a couple of new hires in its marketing department.
Sherida German has been appointed to the newly created role of senior director, marketing, Global News. In this role, she will oversee all news marketing and community relations strategy for the Global stations across the country, as well as Global National. German first the company in 1998 and most recently negotiated the largest co-marketing initiative in the company’s history with Johnson & Johnson’s brand Motrin, which resulted in brand exposure for TVtropolis and Wipeout Canada in 1,400 major national retail outlets.
She will…
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WOODSTOCK, NB – Xplornet Communications has acquired more than 1,300 satellite broadband subscribers predominantly in Alberta and B.C. from NetKaster, a division of Northwestel, the companies announced Friday. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
These subscribers will migrate over to Xplornet’s network and packages starting in July.
“This kind of acquisition speaks to our aggressive growth model and follows on other similarly successful acquisitions”, said Xplornet CEO John Maduri, in the announcement. “More importantly, these new Xplornet subscribers will see the benefits of Xplornet’s 24/7 customer service, our coast to coast dealer network and constantly upgraded network. We look…
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OTTAWA – Bell’s decision to repackage Canadian specialty channel The Cave while continuing to distribute its own like-minded service and a comparable foreign service smacks of undue preference and disadvantage, the CRTC ruled Friday.
The Cave (formerly known as Men TV) is a category 1 specialty service controlled by Quebecor’s TVA Group and licensed to Shaw Television. Quebecor filed a complaint with the Commission last December over Bell’s decision to repackage it from the ‘Lifestyle 2’ package, where it had been for the past eight years, to the ‘Variety 3’ package, alleging an undue disadvantage and an undue preference…
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TORONTO – Telus customers will soon be able to use Skype on their smart phones and purchase Skype credits through their Telus accounts. In addition, Telus will launch the first Skype edition smart phone in Canada, the LG Optimus Black, the companies announced Thursday.
Skype is a software application that allows users to make low cost voice and video calls and chats over the Internet. With 663 million registered users as of 2010, the company was acquired by Microsoft for US$8.5 billion last month.
Telus said that its partnership with Skype will allow customers to make unlimited Skype-to-Skype voice calls and instant…
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HALIFAX – Global Maritimes is bringing back Ron Kronstein as its new senior anchor as it overhauls its evening news programs.
Kronstein will host both the New Brunswick Evening News and the Nova Scotia Evening News, which make their debut on June 13 at 6pm AT. Reporter Marie Adsett will move to the anchor chair to helm Global Maritimes’ hour-long News Final program at 11pm weeknights, while anchor/reporter Rebecca Lau will take over responsibility as anchor of the Weekend News while continuing to report during the week.
A veteran reporter, producer and anchor, Kronstein has more than 25 years of television experience,…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC is asking for comments on a proposed code of best practices for access programming on cable community channels.
The code, available here, was submitted by the Cable Industry Working Group which was assembled last August and includes representative from Rogers, Shaw, Cogeco, EastLink, Quebecor and the CCSA.
The deadline for submitting comments is September 6, and replies are due by September 16, 2011.
www.crtc.gc.ca
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CALGARY – Shaw officially unveiled its new broadband plans Tuesday after announcing last month that it planned to boost its bit caps.
The company is offering two new Internet packaging and pricing options. The first allows customers to keep their existing Internet packages and receive higher data levels at no extra charge. For example, customers with Shaw High Speed Internet will see their monthly data levels increase from 60 GB to 125 GB per month.
The second includes new broadband packages for customers who require greater data levels, and can be subscribed to on their own or bundled with phone or…
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TORONTO – Shaw Media has tapped digital media measurement and research company Rentrak to provide on-demand audience measurement services for its Global Television Network and Food Network Canada.
"With on-demand advertising now part of Shaw Media’s broadcast sales offering, the granular data available through OnDemand Essentials will be invaluable as we seek to best understand the performance of our networks on the platform," said Errol Da-Re, Shaw Media’s SVP of sales, in the announcement.
Rentrak will provide daily, census-level on-demand data via its OnDemand Essentials service.
“We are proud to be working with Shaw Media as they utilize Rentrak’s third party reporting to…
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TORONTO – Making a passionate case for greater government support of wireless competition, Globalive Group Chairman Anthony Lacavera lambasted the nation’s three incumbent mobile providers, called for a full set-aside of 700 MHz spectrum for newer entrants and urged that the government ease its current restrictions on foreign investment in Canadian telecom providers.
In a wide-ranging keynote at the Canadian Telecom Summit here Thursday morning, Lacavera lit into Rogers Communications, Bell Canada and Telus for raising legal and regulatory challenges to Globalive’s entry into the Canadian market because of its international investors (wireless giant Orascom). Further, he knocked Rogers,…
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TORONTO – It was no surprise when the last member of the Canadian wireless triumvirate to address this week’s Canadian Telecom Summit made his pitch for an open auction the next time wireless spectrum goes on the block.
As George Cope, president and CEO of BCE and Bell Canada, put it during his luncheon keynote address on the final day of the Telecom Summit: why would the Canadian government put a spectrum auction process in place that would prevent one of the big three incumbent wireless carriers from participating fully in the 700MHz spectrum auction (expected in late 2012)?…
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