TORONTO – Quebecor’s Sun News was removed from the Bell TV satellite line-up at 10 a.m. this morning (Tuesday, May 3) but it turns out that this is but one of multiple disagreements that the companies have with each other.
While the Sun News channel slot itself remains, the feed has been replaced with text telling customers that the channel “has been taken down at the request of the owners of Sun News."
According to Sun News head of development Luc Lavoie, Bell forced Quebecor’s hand and it had to demand signal removal. “They have carried the signal on their satellite…
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TORONTO – GlassBox Television has named Jennifer Mason as its marketing and communications director.
Mason (pictured) was most recently senior manager of marketing strategy for Shaw Media’s specialty television division. Prior to that, she held roles with Alliance Atlantis, CFC and at CBC. In her role at GlassBox, Mason’s responsibilities include building awareness for the company’s media brands Bite TV, Aux TV and Travel and Escape Channel.
“Jennifer’s extensive marketing experience and success in building strong awareness of specialty brands, together with a great track record of working…
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HAMILTON – The tribute evening for Mountain Cable founder, the late Owen Boris, will take place this Thursday, May 5 at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton from 4-7 p.m.
Boris died of a heart attack at his home on April 9 and the family wanted to plan a celebration of his life in a place that could accommodate the number of people sure to want to pay tribute, as well as celebrate one of Owen’s great loves, flying.
Also this week, the family will be confirming a sizable donation to a Hamilton hospital to launch new research into alcoholism,…
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OTTAWA – Children’s channel BBC Kids has been officially sold to Knowledge-West Communications Corporation (KWCC) after the CRTC approved the transaction Friday.
KWCC is a subsidiary of Knowledge Network Corporation, British Columbia’s educational broadcaster. While KWCC paid $500,000 to Jasper Junior Broadcasting Inc., a division of Shaw Media, for the channel, the Commission agreed to waive any tangible benefits associated with the transaction, noting that the channel “has never achieved profitability” and that its distribution agreements with Canadian BDUs “had either expired or were on the verge of expiration”. The CRTC also acknowledged that KWCC “needs significant cash resources…
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THE INCENTIVES FOR THE great, big vertically integrated Canadian cabletelbroadcellcasters to act unfairly towards everybody else has become too great to ignore and new protections against potential perils are needed, say many companies in their submissions to the CRTC ahead of June’s hearing into vertical integration.
(Editor’s note: This preview originally ran on April 29th. We’re re-running it here as a preview of the hearing, which gets under way Monday in Ottawa with Rogers first up. As usual, Cartt.ca will be there. But if you can’t be there, it will be streamed live on cpac.ca – and available for…
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OTTAWA – Canadian television viewers need protection from the “anti-competitive practices of the large broadcasting companies”, according to Telus.
The telco made the comments Wednesday in reference to the “concentration of content ownership” as a result of the recent mergers of Shaw/Canwest and BCE/CTV. Telus suggested that the CRTC implement safeguards designed “to protect consumer choice and competitive pricing” as the Commission prepares to examine the issue of vertical integration at a hearing scheduled to begin on June 20, 2011.
Telus’ proposed safeguards include:– Distributors should not withhold content from competitors in order to prevent anti-competitive programming blackouts;– Preferential…
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TORONTO – Rogers confirmed Wednesday that it will launch its Long Term Evolution (LTE) network this year and roll out commercial services in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Ottawa. The company then plans to launch in what it described as “the top 25 markets across Canada” by 2012.
"The world is moving to LTE and we’re thrilled to be leading the way by bringing this next generation technology to our consumer and business customers", said Rogers Communications president and CEO Nadir Mohamed, in a statement on Wednesday morning. "LTE is the critical foundation to deliver a world increasingly being defined by connected…
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GATINEAU – There were some pretty big surprises as Canada’s large broadcast groups took the stand one last time during the CRTC’s group licensing proceeding in Gatineau last week.
While it should come as no shock that Bell Media maintained its position on symmetrical regulation of Canadian content spending requirements – 30% on Canadian production expenditure (CPE) and 5% programs of national interest (PNI) – Rogers Media shocked commissioners when it asked to be excluded from the group licensing regime.
For Bell, complying with the new group licensing approach is simple: all large broadcast groups should follow the same…
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MONTREAL – Not surprisingly, Quebecor-owned Videotron was the first TV service provider to trumpet the arrival of the Sun News Network, also owned by Quebecor, which launched nationally Monday afternoon.
Canada’s newest all-news channel, a re-brand of the over-the-air Sun TV in Ontario and simltaneously a digital specialty channel elsewhere, “is poised to shake up the Canadian news media landscape”, according to Videotron’s news release. With a mixture of “hard news” by day and “straight talk” by night, the network features talent such as Charles Adler, Ezra Levant, Theo Caldwell, Brian Lilley, Krista Erickson, Pat Bolland, Alex Pierson and David Akin.
“The network is…
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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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