OTTAWA – If 2006 was the year of local forbearance and the fight over deregulating the wireline phone market, 2007 will be the year newcomers and incumbents wrestle over wireless.
In fact, the lobbying has already begun. Last week, as reported by Cartt.ca, Quebecor Media CEO Pierre Karl Peladeau told Ottawa’s Canadian Club that the cozy oligopoly of existing players keeps prices high, stifles innovation and ensures new wireless applications already available in other countries are slow to market in Canada.
On Monday at the Chateau Laurier Hotel in Ottawa, a large roomful of wireless regulatory lawyers, financial analysts,…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The CRTC has added NASA Television to the list of foreign TV channels eligible for carriage in digital in Canada, despite objections from CTV’s Discovery Channel.
The CRTC noted in Broadcasting Decision 2007-43 that it found “the overlap between NASA TV and The Discovery Channel or Discovery HD is minimal and that NASA TV is sufficiently different in terms of target audience, service orientation, programming genres and programming to be considered neither partially or totally competitive with The Discovery Channel or Discovery HD.”
The request to bring the U.S. channel featuring documentaries, archival programming and coverage of…
Continue Reading
WHILE SITTING IN TUESDAY morning’s IPTV session at NAB 2007 in Las Vegas I was reminded of the Sesame Street song: “One of these things is not like the other.”
You know how the rest of it goes, asking kids to pick out the thing in a group of objects that doesn’t belong. Unlike Sesame Street, during this morning’s session kids wouldn’t have been able to tell by looking, but once everyone started talking, it would have been easy.
The panel this morning, led by Carmel Group’s Jimmy Schaeffler, consisted of executives from Verizon, SES Americom, OpenTV, and Qualcomm….
Continue Reading
LAS VEGAS – Spending a little time listening to some of the people working on IPTV – and among those making IPTV work, you can kind of see why Bell Canada hasn’t yet launched.
Because it already has a “me too” service in Bell ExpressVu, it is in no hurry to rush a terrestrial service to market before it is completely different than what is already out there.
Today during IPTV World at NAB, Microsoft TV’s CTO and general manager of engineering, Peter Barrett provided an overall glimpse at what might be to come from Bell (assuming they’re able…
Continue Reading
A REPORT IN THIS morning’s Globe and Mail newspaper puts to rest any speculation about Shaw Communications being in play.
While the company’s share price has shot north of $45 recently, fuelling speculation in some quarters (again) that the company might be sold, founder and controlling shareholder JR Shaw told columnist Gordon Pitts that neither Shaw Communications nor the media company he controls, Corus Entertainment, are for sale.
Click here for the story.
Continue Reading
CALGARY – Continued customer growth across all its products produced improvements in consolidated service revenue, operating income, and net income at Shaw Communications.
In detailing second quarter financial results, the company also announced a dividend increase of 12% or $0.12 per share for both Class B and Class A shares.
During the quarter ending Feb. 28th, Internet and digital subscribers increased by 40,694 to 1,389,333 and by 28,641 to 725,528 respectively. Digital phone lines increased 41,721 to 292,625, basic subscribers were up 6,625 to 2,220,082, and DTH customers increased 928 to 872,562.
“We are pleased with the performance across…
Continue Reading
HALIFAX and VANCOUVER – Two releases within an hour of each other early Wednesday evening, one from western telco Telus and eastern incumbent Bell Aliant, say the companies have filed for local forbearance in some major metropolitan centres.
While Telus has asked for Vancouver and Edmonton, Aliant has filed for deregulation in Halifax and its surrounding regions of Hubbards, Ketch Harbour, Musquodoboit Harbour, Prospect Road, Sackville, St. Margarets, Waverley and French Village.
Aliant has asked for deregulation in Halifax, where the local cable operator has taken in excess of 35% market share, before, only to be rebuffed by the…
Continue Reading
CALGARY – Nearly all Shaw Cable customers will wake up with more TV channels on Thursday morning – and with their existing ones in different places.
The company said Friday it will be altering its digital and analog lineups to make room for more high definition channels as well as new sports and time-shifted specialty services.
"With more HD content, new sports networks, and additional Canadian Timeshifting channels, Shaw is confident our customers will benefit from these changes," said Peter Bissonnette, president, in the releases. "We have built our reputation of being an exceptional cable provider on solid customer…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – With less than a month before the CRTC hearing into the purchase of CHUM Ltd. by CTV and rumours swirling as to who might emerge as the winning bidder for CHUM’s A-Channels (see below), the NDP says the CRTC has to set up some tough content conditions governing the combined company.
NDP Heritage Critic Charlie Angus said Friday "that if the CRTC is going to give the green light to this unprecedented merging of television media, clear and binding conditions must be laid down."
Angus is calling for enforceable targets for new prime time drama, for example. “Where…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Through their taxes as well as their cable and satellite bills, Canadians will contribute over $242 million to Canadian TV production via the broadcast performance envelope system of the Canadian Television Fund.
More than $242 million will be injected into the Canadian television industry over the next 12 months to support programming including drama, children’s and youth, variety and performing arts and documentaries, in English and French.
The CTF allocates production funding to eligible Canadian productions through its broadcaster performance envelopes (BPEs) and its special initiatives streams. Of the CTF’s total program budget of $265 million, English-language…
Continue Reading
