TORONTO – "This year’s second quarter EBITDA is greater than the full EBITDA of 1996… the six months EBITDA is higher than the full year in 2002," Rogers Communications CEO Ted Rogers said this morning in unveiling the company’s second quarter results, for the three months ended June 30th.
Consolidated revenue grew 29% to $2.24 billion in the quarter and consolidate operating profit increased 31% to $742 Million.
As for individual customer figures, wireless postpaid ARPU grew 6.9% and postpaid Churn fell to 1.27%. Residential and business local telephony lines have passed 735,000
All three of the company’s operating…
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CALGARY and AUSTIN, TX – Shaw Communications subsidiary Big Pipe Inc., which provides data networking and Internet services to businesses, has purchased an OC-192-based U.S. network backbone service from Broadwing.
The 10 Gbps of dedicated bandwidth provided by the upgrade will increase Big Pipe’s capacity on three key routes: Seattle to San Jose, Calif.; San Jose to Chicago; and Ashburn, Va., to New York, says the press release.
"The multi-million dollar agreement builds on the reciprocal relationship established between the two companies in 2004. That agreement provided for Broadwing to supply network services to Big Pipe in the United States…
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TORONTO – The move won’t help Canadian subscriptions to the NFL Network for the next few years, but TSN’s latest programming addition will make more NFL games widely available in Canada.
Today, TSN and the National Football League announced the network has secured exclusive Canadian rights to the NFL’s Thursday/Saturday eight-game regular season broadcast package, beginning this season and continuing through 2008 (which means the games on the NFL Network will be blacked out in Canada).
Stateside, the league has kept these games for itself, and will be airing them on its own NFL Network, which is available in…
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CALGARY – Corus Custom Networks, the division of Corus Entertainment that books and runs ads on Shaw Cable’s TV listings channels, introduced a new format for its TV Listings Channels (pictured) on Tuesday.
The company will roll out the new design (pictured below) in 77 markets across Western Canada throughout the summer. The TV Listings Channels will shift from a vertically-split to a horizontally-split format that displays the TV Listings guide along the bottom half of the screen with the top half split into two advertising blocks.
One block will feature advertising in conventional 4 x 3 broadcast format, enabling…
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CALGARY – Shaw Communications launched its local phone service on B.C.’s Saanich Peninsula (the southern tip of Vancouver Island) this week.
As a primary home line, Shaw Digital Phone offers unlimited local and long distance calling within Canada and the U.S., as well as 1,000 international calling minutes per month to some of the most popular international destinations in Asia Pacific, Europe and the U.K. Also included in the service is a bundle of six popular calling features, such as Voicemail and Call Waiting, plus professional installation, 24/7/365 customer service support, enhanced 911 access, Operator and 411 service
It’s…
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THE TECHNOLOGY IS the easy part. Everything else is maybe just a bit frustrating.
The regulatory landscape for voice over Internet protocol, Vonage Canada’s raison d’etre, may be changing underfoot and the company has had its share of scrapes with incumbent telcos and cable companies. A particularly bitter one with Shaw Communications is still active in the courts and in front of the Commission, as we’ve reported.
Through it all, Vonage’s chief Canadian executive, president Bill Rainey, seems pretty upbeat. The former Group Telecom and Telus executive and manager is convinced he can beat the bundle being…
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TORONTO – Don Iannetta of Toronto will get a $10,000 Sony entertainment system and a free subscription for a year for being Rogers Cable’s one millionth digital cable customer, the company announced today.
The company said its "dramatic growth in digital penetration is evidenced by the 187% increase from December 2003 until the company reached its millionth customer in June 2006.
"Rogers On Demand on channel 100 is fantastic. I’ve been able to watch all kinds of programming and movies whenever I want. My favourite so far was being able to watch all of the FIFA World Cup soccer…
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VANCOUVER – Canadian production company Shavick Entertainment has purchased gay and lesbian digital specialty service OUTtv, but the release touting the sale has a key fact wrong.
The purchase price was not announced and the deal is subject to CRTC approval. This is the second time the category one digi-net launched in 2001 has been sold. The service has had its problems.
It was originally launched and owned by Score Media and named Pridevision. It aired a variety of gay and lesbian programming as well as many hours of adult content late at night. The adult content scared some…
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OTTAWA – After consulting with the space players over the past eight months, Industry Canada today called for applications to fill satellite slots over Canada.
The launch of this licensing initiative to authorize the development of Canadian satellites says that up to 29 satellite licences may be assigned. It will be the largest spectrum licensing initiative ever undertaken in Canada. A comparative competitive licensing process will be used in which applicants will be required to submit proposals to Industry Canada but license winners will be expected to have birds operational in the 2008-10 time frame.
"We need to increase…
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ONE UNINTENDED HAZARD of deregulation is that all other news outlets will be under-reporting the size of the Canadian cable industry this morning.
On Wednesday, the CRTC released the Canadian broadcast distribution industry’s statistical and financial summaries. But the report doesn’t include all distributors.
From 2004 to 2005, revenues, as well as number of subscribers, remained more or less constant for Class 1 cable carriers. However, with growing investments in voice over IP, for example – as evidenced in Shaw Communications’ third quarter report that said capex will rise at a good clip for the next 24 months…
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