CALGARY – Could it be any other way for Shaw?
The company has long been a proponent of deregulation on the broadcast and cable side of its businesses, so it would have been disingenuous for the company to come down on the side of those who want to maintain regulation in Canadian telecom.
On Tuesday, the day after Industry Minister Maxime Bernier’s well-publicized announcement which will see the feds override a CRTC decision and move towards deregulation of the local phone space, the western cableco said it "had reviewed Minister Bernier’s decision to vary the CRTC’s decision on local…
Continue Reading
SOME THOUGHTS ON the TV Policy Review hearings that one day, could grow up to be full-sized columns. ********** ONE OF THE MOST interesting questions at the hearing came late in the day on Monday, December 4th, when Media Awareness Network faced the five-person panel.
MNet, as it calls itself, is a non-profit organization with the laudable goal of boosting media literacy among children. The group promotes media and Internet education through its online programs and resources, working with a number of organizations in Canada and elsewhere. Its sponsors include Bell, Shaw, CTV, CHUM, Rogers, Telus and CanWest Global….
Continue Reading
REGINA – For the first time, a telco TV provider is getting as local as the local cable community channel.
SaskTel Wednesday announced the launch of Max Local On Demand, a unique new service featuring original local community programming, all on demand, something no other Canadian service provider currently offers.
SaskTel, as is its condition of license, has created an Independent Programming Committee (IPC) with representatives from each of the nine districts in which Max serves (Estevan, Moose Jaw, North Battleford, Prince Albert, Regina, Saskatoon, Swift Current, Weyburn and Yorkton) to advise programmers of the new service.
“SaskTel Max…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – World Fishing Network is giving every Canadian a live tank of fish on Christmas morning. But there’s no need to feed these fish or to clean the tank.
The famous Christmas Day Yule Log, familiar to millions of television viewers in the United States and Canada (Shaw Cable has often run a burning fire as its community TV programming over Christmas), is burning up – because now, there’s some competition, WFN said today.
The network will air six uninterrupted hours of a colorful “Festive Fish Tank”, complete with Christmas carols, starting a new tradition on Christmas morning…
Continue Reading
CALGARY – Starting today, residents in areas of Kelowna and Kamloops, B.C. can access Shaw Communications’ voice over IP product, Shaw Digital Phone.
have an opportunity to make their home phone service better with Shaw’s reliable and fully featured digital phone service.
"As demand for Shaw Digital Phone increases, Shaw is dedicated to extending our reach across Western Canada to ensure more Canadians have a new choice for their home phone service," said company president Peter Bissonnette.
"Residents of Kelowna and Kamloops will now be able to join more than 212,000 Canadians who have made the switch to Shaw…
Continue Reading
CALGARY – Shaw Communications has launched a new Internet product for retailers that need an Internet connection for their direct payment terminals and to third party suppliers providing direct payment terminals to retailers.
Initially, Shaw Point of Sale Connect will be rolled out in all major Shaw markets within Western Canada and Northern Ontario.
"With Shaw Point of Sale Connect retail customers will no longer have to make their customers wait for their direct payment machines to dial-in for an Internet connection, and they will never face busy signals," said Shaw president Peter Bissonnette.
Shaw Point of Sale Connect…
Continue Reading
COMPETITION HAS COME to Saskatchewan. The little-big (population-area) province has had competition on the terrestrial video side since 2002 but only recently has a serious voice option come available.
It was quite a lag between the cable companies in the province losing 50,000 video customers and their recent launch of voice over IP. With the largest MSOs in the province: Shaw (Saskatoon, Prince Albert) and Access (Regina and area) now – or about to be – adding VOIP, competition is officially hot.
So how is the provincially-owned telco faring, with still 98% of the local phone lines? President…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – Organizations representing many persistent voices opposed to Canada’s 1999 over-the-air television policy – along with a rare cameo by the Ontario Culture Minister – took the stage Monday for Day 6 of the CRTC’s review of this policy.
The unions and guilds appearing for English and French writers and actors, and for English directors and crew, almost all requested a mix of re-regulation and new rules for conventional broadcasters – a distinct contrast to many broadcasters, who last week called for fewer rules and greater access to revenues.
In what was described as the “first appearance in…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – If the CCTA was still around, it wouldn’t have been able to find consensus among its members for the CRTC’s TV Policy Review either.
While the schisms among the Canadian Association of Broadcasters members meant that association was unable to come up with a submission containing any consensus among its members, some of whom want large carriage fees for broadcasters, some who want small ones and some who oppose them altogether, fractures of opinion exist in the distributor world, too.
Two of the former Canadian Cable Television Association‘s largest members faced the Commission yesterday with diametrically…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – As the so-called softer side of the industry comes to the fore over the next few, final days of the CRTC TV Policy Review hearing, groups like producers, actors, documentary makers and unions are just hoping the Commission pays more attention to them than the consumer media.
Reporters had elbows up in a crowd most of the week as the likes of CTV, Rogers, Shaw, Bell and Global Television faced the Commission – and then the microphones and notebooks right after.
No such problem Thursday afternoon and Friday.
At one point Friday morning we counted 13 people…
Continue Reading
