TORONTO – Retiring CTV CEO Ivan Fecan worked in TV all of his life. He was a producer, director and executive at a number of levels. As CEO, he knows all there is to know about how TV in Canada works.
The background of the new CTV CEO-to-be is far different.
Kevin Crull, president of residential services at Bell Canada (CTV’s new parent, pending regulatory approvals) was appointed COO today. He takes the job January 1st and will become CEO once Fecan retires when the Bell acquisition is closed sometime in early 2011.
While Crull knows he’s going to have…
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OTTAWA – Quebecor Media Inc. surprisingly revealed yesterday that the company was no longer going to seek “must carry” status for its Category 2 English language all news specialty channel Sun TV News.
The revelation marks a stunning reversal from previous statements that the channel required must carry status to be able to compete with the other specialty news stations, CTV Newsnet and CBC Newsworld (the company’s last application to the CRTC said without must-carry, the business case couldn’t work). Now the company says it will work within current CRTC rules, which will require Quebecor to negotiate carriage…
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TELUS WILL ADD 800 new employees to its operations in the Philippines next year, according to a report on GMANews.TV.
Telus International Philippines Inc. has facilities in the cities of Pasig, Taguig, and Quezon, which combined employ almost 9,000 in that country. Telus spokesperson Shawn Hall confirmed to Cartt.ca that most of those employees, whom he said are well paid in "good working conditions", serve the company’s U.S. and offshore customers.
“If a U.S. resident orders a pizza, calls an electrical utility with a bill question, dials 411, or calls the 1-800 number on the back of their game console for tips on…
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GATINEAU – Despite the fact that when compared to the likes of Rogers, Shaw, Bell, Telus, Videotron and Cogeco, Bragg Communications (EastLink) is pretty small, the CRTC told the company in a letter this week that it won’t be exempted from the CRTC’s requirement to file a public version of its aggregated annual return.
“In Broadcasting Regulatory Policy 2009-560 the Commission determined that the disclosure of the public version of the aggregated annual return filed by the large ownership groups, including Bragg, was in the public interest, and that any harm that would result from such disclosure did…
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Perry Hoffman
GATINEAU – Canadian cable operators do not believe that a local-into-local signal carriage regime imposed on DTH companies would be disastrous for the operations of Bell TV and Shaw Direct.
Bell TV and Shaw Direct say in their submissions on 2010-488, the review of the direct-to-home satellite distribution policy they don’t have the capacity to carry all local over-the-air (OTA) signals, and despite technological improvements in compression coming online in the future complying with a local-into-local regime will be problematic.
Both say that if forced to carry all over-the-air (OTA) stations, they will have no choice but to remove specialty…
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GATINEAU – Canada’s public and private broadcasters are urging the CRTC to implement a local-into-local signal carriage regime for the country’s direct-to-home (DTH) broadcast distributors, saying the time has come to force them to comply with the provisions in the Broadcasting Act.
Private broadcasters Canwest and CTVglobemedia acknowledge in their submissions to the Regulator for 2010-488, the review of the direct-to-home satellite distribution policy, that Shaw Direct and Bell TV have capacity constraints, but this doesn’t take away from the fact the TV stations are harmed financially when they aren’t carried.
“Unfortunately, where a local television is not…
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TORONTO – While more and more Canadians opt for smart phones like BlackBerry’s, iPhones and Android-powered devices, increased competition in the market is going to hurt the incumbent wireless operators’ bottom lines, says a new report.
Toronto’s Convergence Consulting forecasts a Canadian wireless service ARPU decline of 1% for 2010 (ARPU saw a 3% decline in 2009), driven by a 7% drop in voice ARPU (2009 saw a 9% voice ARPU drop). While data service ARPU will grow by 26% in 2010, the company estimates, that will not be enough to counter overall ARPU decline according to its report ‘Canadian Wireless 2008-2014:…
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TORONTO – As the CRTC considers Shaw’s proposed purchase of Canwest Global’s TV assets, one industry analyst specualted on the implications of content providers making their content proprietary.
In a note to investors on Tuesday, Dvai Ghose, the managing director and head of Canadian research for Canaccord Genuity, said that companies like BCE and Rogers “see content ownership as an essential bargaining chip when negotiating content deals”, which, he continued, could make it difficult for companies who do not own content, naming TELUS and MTS as examples, to compete in the broadband, TV, and wireless segments.
“This does not seem to be in the interest…
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PART OF THE RATIONALE behind Bell Canada’s purchase of CTV is that the mobile and broadband spaces are unregulated – and that content exclusives will be part of the game when attracting and retaining subscribers who want to see their video content on their iPads, BlackBerrys or PCs, as well as their TVs.
Bell CEO George Cope told us as much when we asked him about it during the press conference announcing the deal last week.
However, to paraphrase what Telus has been saying for a while now: “Not so fast, consolidators.”
The Bell/CTV deal was excellent timing for the…
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“One cannot manage change. One can only be ahead of it.” – Peter Drucker
By Bill Roberts
NOW THAT WE HAVE TWO major mergings of BDUs and large national broadcasters underway, plus an inclination to enhance non-Canadian ownership potential, perhaps there is just cause and fair reason to review the recent 9.1.h. decision by the CRTC.
This is especially critical for the diverse voices and ownership structures of the smaller and independent broadcasters within the Canadian broadcasting system.
In the first instance – and seeing now how fast the landscape morphs – the extent to which the CRTC makes rules to be…
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