TORONTO – While saying the business environment and financial performance of companies across Canada are likely to be adversely affected by the ongoing recession and the relative scarcity of financing, advertising-sensitive companies in the newspaper and television broadcasting sectors are likely to be most affected, according to Moody’s Investors Service.
"The recession will adversely affect advertising revenues and EBITDA will decline," said Moody’s vice-president – senior credit officer Bill Wolfe, "and this temporal matter may have lasting implications for these two struggling sectors."
While telecommunications and cable companies are unlikely to experience revenue or cash flow declines and their…
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TORONTO – Praise was near universal for the brand new Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers Canadian Summit, which wrapped up Wednesday afternoon at the Toronto Congress Centre.
The final registration number for delegates has not yet been tallied as there were a large number who registered on site, but the show was very well attended with delegates from across Canada – from the Territories to Regina to Newfoundland – and all points in between.
If there were any complaints, it’s that the show wasn’t big enough (and that it snowed too much on Tuesday…). The 40 vendor tables sold…
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TORONTO – Peer-to-peer file sharing is no longer the number one concern for cable company engineers managing their IP networks as web surfing – thanks to the growing popularity of streaming video – has taken over as the top consumer of bandwidth.
Shaw Cable’s director of Internet systems engineering, David Wodelet, during a session Tuesday morning on Internet capacity management at the SCTE Canadian Summit at the Toronto Congress Centre, noted that “P2P is on the decline… web traffic has now exceeded P2P,” thanks to the likes of YouTube, Google Video and myriad other sites where high quality video…
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OTTAWA – Canadian wireless companies say they will be ready for the CRTC’s new deadline for the launch of phase two of wireless emergency 911 service.
The Commission said today the deadline for wireless carriers to upgrade their technology – so that people can more easily be found in an emergency – is February 1, 2010. A combination of GPS or radio triangulation will be deployed and the Commission has mandated the technology be precise enough to be able to say where a handset is, within a radius of 10 to 300 metres.
Right now, emergency operators rely on…
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EXTON, PA and TORONTO – The inaugural Canadian Summit of The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) will be held in at the Toronto Congress Cente next week, February 3 – 4, 2009.
It is designed to facilitate the exchange of technical information specific to Canada among engineering professionals. Cartt.ca is the media partner for the event.
Speakers will include Dermot O’Carroll and Tony Faccia of Rogers Cable, Chris MacFarlane of Cogeco Cable, Dennis Steiger of Shaw Cablesytems, Pierre Roy Poretta of Videotron, Steve Irvine of EastLink, Preston Gilmer of Sigma Systems, Oleh Sneizko of Aurora Networks, Scott Atkinson of Shaw…
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CALGARY – Just in time for the Super Bowl, CTV said officially today it is broadcasting a high definition signal in Calgary.
(Which may not be good news for fans of American Super Bowl commercials… more on that below)
CTV HD Calgary is now transmitting from CTV Calgary’s Patina Rise headquarters and is the only broadcaster now transmitting over-the-air in HD in Calgary. CTV is also the only one to have HD transmitters in all three markets metered by BBM Nielsen Media Research, Vancouver and Toronto being the other two.
CTV HD Calgary can be accessed by viewers with…
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HALIFAX – EastLink and its programming partners from across Canada will provide over 65 digital channels to EastLink Digital Cable customers to view at no additional charge during the month of February, the company announced this morning.
“The February Freeview will provide programming from Canadian media companies such as Alliance Atlantis Communications, CanWest Media Works and Shaw. Programming highlights include action, sports, music, movies, lifestyle, education, and more,” reads the press release.
www.eastlink.ca
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THE FINAL PUSH IS on for the inaugural SCTE Canadian Summit, to be held at the Toronto Congress Centre February 3-4.
The conference promises to be a key date in the engineering calendar for Canadian cable telecommunications engineers, technicians and vendors looking to share information and broaden their knowledge on challenges like switched digital, DOCSIS 3.0 and other myriad network issues.
While vendor tables have long been sold out, registration for the conference is still open and can be accessed by clicking here. As well, the deadline for nominations for the first-ever young Canadian Engineering Professional of the…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has sided with CTV in finding that Shaw Cablesystems and Bell TV did not perform simultaneous program substitution for the network’s HD broadcast of the 2008 Super Bowl last February. Star Choice was also named in CTV’s complaint, but was found to be in compliance.
While the Commission accepted Shaw’s explanation of technical difficulties, it has directed the cable company to resolve the issues in time for the 2009 Super Bowl broadcast. Bell TV has also been ordered to comply, and both BDUs must provide “written assurances” within the next two weeks to the CRTC and CTV, or…
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YORKTON, SK – The Yorkton Short Film and Video Festival has opened the nomination process for the 2009 Golden Sheaf Awards competition and is including community cable productions in 2009.
The Festival offers 21 category and three craft awards, plus the newly announced ‘Global Issues Award’ and the ‘Ruth Shaw Award’. Awards for community cable productions and student productions have also been added this year.
Entries for the 62 year-old festival will be accepted until February 1, 2009. Nominees will be announced in March, and the Golden Sheaf Statues awarded at the gala on May 23, 2009 in Yorkton, SK….
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