TORONTO – Released on December 4, Shaw Communications’ Global Television App for iPad was the number one free download on the Canadian App Store during its entire week of launch (which is not entirely unusual for new apps featuring high end video content).
The Global App for iPad offers viewers another way to access the network’s library of premium content, including full episodes of House, The Good Wife, NCIS: LA, The Office, Rookie Blue and Survivor.
"We’re always looking for innovative ways for our customers to access content whenever, wherever they want," said Peter Bissonnette, Shaw’s president, in a press release.
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NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, Ont. – Long-time head of the Canadian Cable Television Association, Michael Hind-Smith, died December 3rd from complications due to cancer. He was 80.
Hind-Smith was the longest-serving CCTA president and CEO and oversaw a period of massive growth and change in the cable business during his 15 years (1975-1990) heading the now defunct organization.
“He was such a good representative for the cable industry,” Rogers Communications vice-chairman Phil Lind told Cartt.ca in an interview. “He had some terrific battles with the CRTC (pay-TV, specialty channels, “6 and 5”, pole access) but he kept the association together for a long time….
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OTTAWA – BCE’s proposed tangible benefits associated with its bid for CTV’s television broadcasting assets “falls way short of the mark of what is expected under the CRTC’s tangible benefits policy”, says the Canadian Media Production Association (CMPA).
The organization representing the interests of English-language screen-based media companies in Canada said that it warned the Commission during the Shaw/Canwest proceeding that bending on the tangible benefits policy could de facto establish a new standard.
“It is clear that BCE has mirrored its application to that of Shaw/Canwest,” said CMPA president and CEO Norm Bolen, in a statement. “Bell’s acquisition of CTV is a strategic…
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TORONTO – The future of cable is “outstanding”. Just ask Louis Audet, the president and CEO of Cogeco Inc. and Cogeco Cable.
Speaking with Cartt.ca prior to presenting the company’s 2010 financial results to shareholders in Toronto last week, Audet shared Cogeco’s plans for wireless, why he’s not worried about Netflix, and his thoughts on vertical integration in Canada.
“There are good reasons to believe that”, Audet said about his unshakeable belief in the cable industry’s rosy future. “It’s not a wanton statement.” A perfect example of cable’s ability to evolve is Cogeco’s plans to trial addressable advertising in Canada next year. “This…
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TORONTO – The first ever 3D broadcast of CBC’s Hockey Night In Canada is coming to TV screens across the country.
Viewers with a 3D-ready television, along with the associated pair of glasses, will be able to watch the Toronto Maple Leafs take on the Montreal Canadiens at 7 p.m. ET/ 4 p.m. PT on December 11. The broadcast will be available free to Bell TV subscribers on channel 1933 (satellite TV) and 1208 (Fibe TV); Shaw Direct subscribers on channel 233/333 (Classic/Advanced); Telus Optik TV subscribers on channel 656 and Telus satellite TV subscribers on channel 1933; and to Vidéotron…
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TORONTO – When it comes to content and its distribution, what’s open and what’s closed off can be difficult to define – and what’s freely available to all and what’s behind a walled garden can both work as business plans.
That was part of the messages Monday morning during a session at Toronto’s NextMedia entitled: “Open vs. Closed, Content in the Digital Age”.
While many folks often talk about the preservation of the wide open internet and how individual business interests are interrupting that, those same people freely play inside such closed environments as iTunes, Netflix and Facebook, noted Michael…
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OTTAWA – Canada’s top two communications industry regulators lamented the fact that they don’t have the appropriate tools to deal with a rapidly changing marketplace.
CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein and Helen McDonald, assistant deputy minister at Industry Canada, were speaking on a panel of regulators at the International Institute of Communications annual conference in Ottawa earlier this week (where Cartt.ca was the media sponsor).
McDonald said that for the department to more effectively manage scarce spectrum resources, legislative changes are in order. She pointed to secondary market trading for spectrum as an area that would run much more efficiently…
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Perry Hoffman
OTTAWA – Broadcasters and digital media companies still haven’t yet found the secret formula on how to make money from digital content, the International Institute of Communications Canadian chapter conference heard earlier this week.
Raja Khanna, co-CEO of broadcaster GlassBOX Television, said after years of trying to make money from digital content using a variety of business models, it’s become clear which models don’t work. While some of the business models may have started to crystallize, now “we can, in black and white, see how we’re not going to make money,” he said during a panel session on…
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JAY SWITZER IS ABOUT to find out if Canadians want to accept an invite into his new Hollywood Suite.
That’s the name Switzer, the former CHUM Ltd. CEO, and David Kines, another former CHUM executive (who was EP of the just-wrapped Gemini Awards) have given their new company, which is about to launch four new high definition movie channels: dubbed at their license approvals: Velocity, The Love Channel, Kiss, and Adventure.
The independent broadcaster will officially launch in the coming days, announcing key people, branding and programming, aiming at an April 2011 launch with Canadian carriers.
Switzer and…
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OTTAWA – Well known communications lawyer Chris Johnston died Tuesday at his home in Ottawa. Johnston, 75, was diagnosed with cancer in April this year.
Johnston was appointed as General Counsel of the CRTC in 1974. In 1980, he partnered with Robert Buchan and Charles Dalfen to found the Ottawa-based telecommunications law firm of Johnston & Buchan LLP. That firm merged with Fasken Martineau in April 2007. While he officially retired in 2007, Johnston remained as a consultant to Shaw Communications over the last few years. In addition to Shaw, Johnston also counted WIC, Cancom, TSN, BC Tel, Pelmorex and…
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