TORONTO – CanWest has received court approval to expedite the appeal made by Goldman Sachs challenging the sale of its TV assets to Shaw Communications.
In documents filed in an Ontario court Wednesday, CanWest said that the appeal is creating uncertainty around its restructuring efforts and for its 1,700 full time employees, and that it could negatively impact the acquisition of programming for the upcoming Fall season. Ontario Court of Appeal Justice Harry Laforme agreed with CanWest and granted the request.
In other documents filed Wednesday, Goldman said that “it does not oppose expedited treatment” of the motion for leave or the…
Continue Reading
IF YOU TALK TO ANYONE under 20 they will consider it quaint to hear tales of phones that were connected to walls; notes that were sent with a stamp; and televisions that were housed in large cabinets offering four channels, if you were lucky, accessible with the turn of a dial.
Online and offline; wired and wireless, the world is a dramatically different place than it was 19 years ago. Yet the Canadian media market is still governed by broadcasting legislation from 1991 at a time when urgent action is needed to bring regulation in line with technology to meet…
Continue Reading
ST CATHARINES, ON – Grace TV is one step closer to its goal of doubling its broadcast coverage within Canada in two years, after joining Shaw’s digital cable lineup.
Formerly known as the Christian Channel, the network was renamed Grace TV last September after it was purchased by World Impact Ministries. Grace TV is focused on creating a strong spiritual voice of goodwill and friendship, the company said in the announcement.
CEO and president Peter Youngren said that he is committed to continue to build a viable Christian television channel in Canada, and that Grace TV will be available on additional providers in the…
Continue Reading
EDMONTON and CALGARY – Telus hopes to give Shaw a run for its money right in its own backyard.
The Vancouver-based telco said Wednesday that it will invest $650 million in Alberta this year to extend the reach and speed of its advanced wireline and wireless broadband services – including Telus TV.
"This massive commitment to the province is enabling one of the world’s leading wireless networks and the widespread availability of high definition Telus TV”, said president and CEO Darren Entwistle, in the announcement. “This year’s capital investment continues Telus’ longstanding commitment to providing Albertans with access to some of…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Score Media is giving its coverage of the annual NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball tournament the full court press.
Running from March 16 to April 5, the U.S.-based championship featuring 65 teams will be available on sports network The Score, with highlights and coverage also available on its website, its mobile app ScoreMobile and its Hardcore Sports Radio channel on Sirius satellite radio. Select games will also be available via Rogers’ and Shaw’s on demand platforms, and on Sun TV.
"For three weeks straight, fans will be hooked on NCAA March Madness and we’ll be right there guiding them…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – This year’s SCTE Canadian Summit boasted significant increases in both attendance (up more than 17%) and vendors (nearly 75%) over last year’s figures.
In addition to a diverse program agenda, highlights included the designation of Arris’ Moxi whole home media gateway as the ‘technology most likely to be deployed’ in the inaugural Innovation Showcase; and a first-ever pre-conference ‘Frontliners Night’ that was designed to broaden the industry knowledge of customer-facing personnel. The conference closed with a session on the advantages of implementing ‘green’ technologies.
“The substantial growth in attendees and exhibitors indicates a real understanding that today’s technology…
Continue Reading
LONDON, ON – CBC Hockey Night in Canada’s annual street hockey tournament ‘Play On!’ will take to a street near you starting this May.
Open to boys, girls, men and women of all ages and skill levels, the event bills itself as the “nation’s largest annual sports festival”. Since its inception in 2003, more than 300,000 Canadians have taken part across the country through one of the thirty-five events held to date.
This year’s events will be held over the full course of a weekend in St. John’s, NL; Halifax, NS; Moncton, NB; Montreal, QC; Ottawa, ON; Oshawa, ON; Toronto, ON; Hamilton,…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Goldman Sachs is appealing an Ontario court’s decision to allow Shaw Communications to proceed with its takeover of debt-laden CanWest Global.
The move means that the bid put forth by Toronto-based investment fund Catalyst Capital, the Asper family and former Rogers execs Rael Merson and John Tory, is still in play.
In documents filed in court this week, Goldman Sachs, which financed CanWest’s purchase of specialty channels from Alliance Atlantis back in 2007, appears to be pulling out all the stops to protect its investment, while accusing the new buyers of trying to pick up the…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Although they were hard pressed to admit it, cable operators at Wednesday’s SCTE Canadian Summit acknowledged that customer complaints to their call centres are often the best measurement of the quality of digital service being provided by their networks.
It isn’t that these cable ops are lacking network monitoring platforms, or don’t use the resultant diagnostic data to address problems detected by those tools. The bigger issue is that many of the existing measurement and diagnostic tools on the market tell only part of the story, said the speakers who took part in a panel discussion on digital quality issues.
Michel Lapointe, senior…
Continue Reading
GIVEN WHAT HAS now happened since the value-for-signal/fee-for-carriage hearing, an alert reader reminded us of something CRTC commissioner Timothy Denton pondered as the folks from Shaw Communications appeared in front of the Commission panel.
Back on November 20th, the now infamous hearing visit by CEO Jim Shaw featured a lot of, well, interesting exchanges. In the official transcript the word “Laughter” appears 23 times, more than on any other day.
It also featured the word “woosa”, which we thought was something misheard by the official transcribers – until we looked it up. It means, according to urbandictionary.com, “to calm down and…
Continue Reading
