CALGARY and EDMONTON – CBC broadcasts on its Calgary and Edmonton affiliates shift to high definition starting Friday, the ‘pubcaster said.
Viewers in the two Alberta centres will be able to watch HD CBC programs on Shaw Cable channel 209 starting April 1st, while Telus TV subscribers will have access on May 27 through channel 600 in Calgary and channel 621 in Edmonton.
“With Calgary and Edmonton as Canada’s third and fourth largest English TV markets respectively, we’re really pleased to be adding these important members to Canada’s CBC HD family,” said Alan Dark, CBC’s executive director of media sales and…
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BANFF – Media leaders from five of Canada’s major broadcast media companies will come together to kick off this year’s Banff World Media Festival.
Phil Lind, vice chairman of Rogers Communications; Paul Robertson, group vice president, broadcasting and president of Shaw Media; Kevin Crull, COO at CTVglobemedia; Kirstine Stewart, executive vice president of English services at CBC; and John Riley, president of Astral Television Networks, have been confirmed for the event’s Media Leaders panel.
Moderated by Gordon Pitts, senior reporter for The Globe and Mail, the executives will speak to the issues they find most pressing for today’s media ecosystem, plus…
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OTTAWA – As Bell Canada stole the show with its usage-based billing (UBB) backdown earlier this week, the fact that the cable companies also suggested that billing on an aggregate use basis might be a more palatable approach was overlooked.
Under this type of model, the independent ISP which leases network capacity from a facilities-based carrier would be charged for a pre-determined amount of bandwidth that it could then offer to all of its customers. If the small ISP exceeds this amount, it would be charged additional fees. The current UBB approach contemplates charging independent ISPs on per-customer basis….
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CALGARY – Shaw Communications made its first significant restructuring move under new CEO Brad Shaw on Wednesday, letting more than 500 people go.
“About 150 were VP, director, supervisor, that sort of level,” company president Peter Bissonnette told Cartt.ca. “It was just over 500.” The payroll reduction will result in $30-$40 million in annual savings, he added.
The hardest hit areas were Calgary, where approximately 150 were let go; the Vancouver area, with about 100 cuts (including the closure of the company’s Langley warehouse); and Saskatoon, where a 58-person call centre is being shuttered (traffic to that call centre will…
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OTTAWA – Granted, it’s just another in the thousands of oft-ignored parliamentary committee reports, but a new one released today by the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage wants the CRTC to hold a public hearing about whether or not the likes of Netflix, Google TV, Apple TV, etc., should be contributing funds to the Canadian television industry.
The report, “Impacts Of Private Television Ownership Changes And The Move Towards New Viewing Platforms,” was informed by five fall 2010 meeting days which heard from 21 witnesses representing Canadian media companies (big and small), carriers, producers, Continue Reading
TORONTO – Global TV and ABC will simulcast a new four part miniseries called Titanic in Spring 2012 which will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the tragic event.
Written by Oscar winner Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park) along with producer Nigel Stafford Clark, BAFTA winner for Bleak House, the series will re-tell the Titanic’s fateful voyage from the points of view of several protagonists including a steerage passenger, a waiter, an engineer and a middle class financier. Filming begins this spring on location in Budapest, Hungary.
"Despite its legendary fate, on the whole, the Titanic remains a mystery to most, which explains…
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THUNDER BAY – Add Tbaytel to the list of IPTV providers who credit the Microsoft Mediaroom platform for smoothing the way for the rollout of video services.
After selecting the Calix B6 Ethernet Service Access Node (ESAN) for the launch of its advanced IPTV services to residential subscribers in Thunder Bay, Canada’s largest independent telco added Microsoft Mediaroom-powered TV services to its list of services last November by leveraging VDSL2 and Active Ethernet fibre access technology.
Tbaytel president and CEO Don Campbell told Cartt.ca that the VDSL2 multi-year deployment is well underway, but that it will still take “a couple of…
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TORONTO – Canada’s broadcasters and telcos are rumoured to top the list of suitors interested in acquiring the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan’s majority stake in Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment.
The OTTP confirmed Saturday that it will “explore the possibility of selling” its 66% majority share of the sports and entertainment giant which reportedly includes more than a billion dollars worth of assets ranging from Air Canada Centre to the Toronto Maple Leafs to sports channels Leafs TV, NBA TV Canada and Gol TV.
The Toronto Star published a report last December claiming that Rogers Communications was in talks to buy the…
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CALGARY – Shaw Direct has launched a new on-line video-on-demand (VOD) library allowing customers to watch hundreds of movies and TV shows on their Internet-connected computers anywhere in Canada.
By visiting VOD.SHAWDIRECT.CA, customers may select TV shows from HGTV, Food Network and History Channel; new release movies from Universal Studios, Maple Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (MGM); or music programming from one of 40 on-line channels available on the Galaxie Broadband Player. In addition, customers with Movie Central as part of their TV package can watch its movies and shows at no additional charge.
"The entertainment landscape is changing and more…
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TORONTO – Shaw Media is building a new internal digital sales team after it transitions broadcast sales over from Postmedia Network, the company said Monday. The team will be headed up by Graeme Mackrell, who has been with Shaw Media for over 14 years.
“As digital increasingly becomes an important part of our clients marketing campaigns, we want to ensure that we have strong expertise in-house to work with our Sales and Marketing Ventures teams” said Errol Da-Ré, SVP of sales for Shaw Media, in a statement. “This will allow us to deliver highly integrated solutions across all platforms in…
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