HAMILTON – Cable industry veteran Owen Boris died Saturday night at his home in Hamilton after suffering a heart attack. He was 79.
Boris founded Hamilton’s Mountain Cablevision in 1959 and remained principal owner of the successful cableco for half a century before selling the business to Shaw Communications in July 2009. At that time, Boris told Cartt.ca that he felt that the time was right to retire and to “pass this great history on to someone with more financial muscle.”
Fellow industry veteran JR Shaw described Boris as “truly one of a kind”.
“There’s no one else in the…
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CALGARY – Beginning April 6, Shaw Digital Cable and Shaw Direct customers will be able to access live 3D coverage of the 2011 Masters.
"In the past year, we’ve brought a number of best-in-class sports programming to our customers in 3D including the World Cup, Heritage Classic and Winter Classic," said Peter Bissonnette, president, Shaw Communications, in a press release. "As entertainment continues to trend toward larger than life screens, we’re able to stay ahead of the curve in being able to deliver world-class High Definition quality to our customers."
(No word though on how many – or few – Shaw…
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TORONTO – Now that the largest Canadian broadcast and specialty networks are owned by the big four distributors, look for them to start to push harder at monetizing their online presences – while trying not to negatively impact their traditional TV advertising revenue and access provider programming fees – which totalled about $6.23 billion in 2010, says a new report from Convergence Consulting.
As it currently stands, online does little to improve broadcast and specialty networks’ bottom line, says the report, the latest instalment of the company’s ongoing “Battle for the North American Couch Potato” series. Most private Canadian broadcasters…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC must give broadcasters the flexibility to compete against over the top (OTT) competitors such as Netflix, Google and Hulu, Shaw Media told the CRTC during the third day of the group-based licence renewal hearing.
“The threat today from over-the-top television is alarming,” said Paul Robertson, group VP of broadcasting and president of Shaw Media. “It stems from major structural shifts in technology and rights exploitation that are permanently reshaping the global broadcast landscape.”
Emerging OTT services have maintained that they aren’t competitive with existing broadcasters, but Shaw says nothing could be further from the truth….
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GATINEAU – Rogers Media’s proposed Canadian program expenditures and programs of national interest spending drew the ire of the CRTC during the second day of hearings into the group-based licence renewals.
“When I listened to what you both said on CPE and PNI, you are really asking for a policy change. That’s as simple as that. It’s like a review and vary application, saying we like what you did but we want you to change it so it fits better to ,” said CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein. “I don’t understand why you feel we should change the basic…
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GATINEAU – Corus Entertainment must be included in the group-based licensing regime so as to better compete with its fellow broadcasters, the company said during its licence renewal hearing on Tuesday.
John Cassaday, president and CEO of Corus, explained that despite the fact it only owns a couple of small local broadcasters (CHEX Peterborough and CKWS Kingston) the group approache enables the primarily pay and specialty company to more flexibly spend money where needed.
“What this group-based licensing approach would allow us to do is to allocate our programming to those areas that have either the greatest strategic need or the…
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OTTAWA – Canadian independent producers and the country’s major private broadcast groups reached an agreement in principle over terms in trade on Monday.
The framework deal, which is still subject to final approvals, will apply to the entire life cycle of a show – from first pitch, through to development, production and broadcast on all platforms, the Canadian Media Production Association (CMPA) said. Once fully executed, it will apply to all independently produced projects developed and commissioned by Astral, Corus, CTV, Rogers and Shaw Media.
“Terms of Trade will bring greater clarity and certainty for both broadcasters and independent producers in…
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TORONTO – Public Mobile launched new rate plans on Friday, plus confirmed that it will begin offering data services later this month.
The wireless upstart rolled out an unlimited province-wide calling plan in Ontario or Quebec priced at $15 per month, which it is positioning as an alternative to landlines and prepaid calling cards. It is also offering national roaming rates at 15< per minute, a $5 per month email service, and teased the arrival of its first data-capable wireless phone, referred to as ‘the Buzz’, that is scheduled to arrive in stores in April.
The company also announced a new community initiative…
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MONTREAL – Shaw Direct has become the latest operator to offer the Galaxie on-line music player to its customers.
Available now as part of Shaw Direct’s new on-line video-on-demand (VOD) library, the service allows users to stream their choice of the same 40 Galaxie channels currently available on Shaw Direct, view the album cover art of the current, next and previously played songs, or check a list of the songs played in the past 24 hours.
“Galaxie has been the preferred source of music for Canadians for more than 12 years and every day our listeners ask us how…
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TORONTO – Shaw Media’s new Global Video app is now available at the iTunes store for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.
The free app offers Canadian viewers access to some of Global Television’s prime time content, including full episodes of House, The Good Wife, NCIS: LA, The Office, Rookie Blue and Survivor, plus previous broadcasts of Global National and 16:9:The Bigger Picture.
"To date, with our Global Video App for iPad, users have viewed more than one million shows”, said Shaw president Peter Bissonnette, in the announcement. “By carrying our content over to iPhone and iPod, we are extending our…
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