TORONTO – Shaw Media and production partner Insight Productions have sold the worldwide format rights for the original series Canada Sings to Endemol, the largest independent television and digital production company in the industry.
Canada Sings challenges Canadians to form glee clubs with their co-workers and compete in a head-to-head battle against another workplace glee team for their charity of choice. Global and Insight Productions recently announced season two of the one-hour series.
Under the deal, Endemol will sell the Canada Sings format internationally and draw on its network of production companies to produce locally adapted versions of the show in major…
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TORONTO – With subscriber additions at Wind Mobile, Public Mobile and Mobilicity well below what many had hoped, is the model failing?
That’s what Canaccord Genuity telecom analyst Dvai Ghose asked on Monday in a research note to clients. Noting the departure of Mobilicity CEO Dave Dobbin is the second new entrant CEO to leave over the past six months, Ghose wrote what many have been saying for some time now: This isn’t how is was supposed to be.
“Independent new entrant subscriber growth has been weak — WIND only added 41k net subscribers in Q3/11, down from 45k…
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LAST YEAR AT THIS time, Kevin Crull was into week three of his transition from long-time telecom executive to the leader of the largest Canadian broadcasting company.
Now president of Bell Media, the company which owns the CTV and CTV2 conventional TV networks, 29 specialty channels including market leader TSN, 33 radio stations and the Sympatico.ca portal, Crull came over from Bell Canada’s telco side, having run Bell Residential Services for five years. For a decade prior to that he was a senior executive with AT&T and US West.
One of his final projects at Bell Canada was writing the business…
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GATINEAU – Rather than picking one system over another, the CRTC has chosen to give the large Internet providers the choice in how they charge small competitors who use their networks. The commission has, however, rejected Bell’s bid to charge on an aggregated volume basis, instead opting for a capacity-based approach.
In its much-anticipated usage based billing decision, the Commission chose capacity as the proxy over an aggregated volume method. Bell Canada and Rogers Communications Inc. advocated for the latter approach.
Bell suggested during the hearing that a capacity-based approach would result in independent ISPs keeping traffic volumes high resulting in…
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GATINEAU – Cartt.ca reporter Perry Hoffman will be in the media lockup this afternoon at 2:30 prior to the CRTC release of its latest decision on wholesale Internet usage-based billing.
Whatever the decision, brace yourselves for waves of misinformation on what the decision means, especially since the decision will likely take time and a lot of number crunching to figure out what it all means. The decision is the result of a re-think of the Commission’s prior wholesale UBB decision, which federal cabinet made many noises about forcing the Regulator to re-visit after enduring a substantial public outcry.
However, in the end, the…
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READERS MIGHT HAVE sensed with my column Thursday that I am taking the issue of getting broadband to low-income families very seriously. I called the fact that we have nothing in Canada to help the poor get broadband in their homes embarrassing, especially when compared to the ambitious and comprehensive Connect 2 Compete program that was launched in the United States this week by the Federal Communications Commission, numerous cable companies and other firms.
Then, reporter Peter Nowak reports today that Canada is the ONLY country in the G8 with no assistance…
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OTTAWA – Industry Canada should open up the TV white spaces spectrum in the broadcast band below 698 MHz on an unlicensed-basis, many companies are telling the department in its consultation on the as-yet used spectrum.
Earlier this summer, the department kicked off a consultation seeking input on the best ways to make the spectrum available. Cartt.ca reported on SMSE-012-11 in September. Companies tell Industry Canada that making white space spectrum licence-exempt will benefit consumers because of its ability to increase communications options.
Shaw Communications, which recently abandoned plans to deploy a mobile…
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TORONTO – National Geographic Channel has kicked off a new national advertising campaign highlighting the 125-year-old yellow frame synonymous with the brand.
The campaign, which began this week, replaces the letter ‘O’ with the yellow frame in the words “whOa,” “mindblOwing,” “heartpOunding” and “explOsive” in the creative. A combination of visuals and captions promotes the channel’s fall lineup which includes series such as Locked Up Abroad, Frontier Force, The Indestructibles, Rocketmen and Mad Scientists.
The marketing elements include print advertisements in the Vancouver Sun, Calgary Herald and the Edmonton Journal plus an online buy on specific life and entertainment-centric websites. A 30-second promotional commercial…
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GATINEAU – The chairmanship of the CRTC is often said to be a thankless job, so, many of the leading regulatory folks in Canadian telecom set about to change that this week, getting together to thank outgoing CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein for his yeoman’s work these past five years.
When he came on board as chair in 2007, von Finckenstein promised an open, accountable and transparent Commission. With dozens of public proceedings and many new ways to include the public in the debate launched under his watch, we got that in spades under von Finckenstein, who oversaw his final…
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TORONTO – Rogers Communications said Tuesday that it will try out a leaner basic programming package that it claims will provide its cable customers with the choice and flexibility that they have been asking for.
Available November 8 as a trial in London, ON, the Rogers Digital Starter Pack will offer a standard set of 86 core TV channels, including government mandated channels, for a base price of $20.29/month excluding taxes. Customers can order the Digital Starter Pack and may then choose any additional 15, 20 or 30 channels from more than 100 options, starting at $26.38/month, plus taxes. The Digital Starter…
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