GATINEAU – What would have been fun, was a debate.
Day three of the CRTC hearings into BDU and specialty service regulations featured the Canadian Association of Broadcasters and Canadian Cable Systems Alliance, two groups with decidedly different constituents, and points of view, on the future policy direction of the TV industry.
The CAB represents most broadcasters in Canada who together serve basically 100% of the Canadian population. The CCSA, on the other hand, has a far smaller group of members whose companies deliver cable and broadband service to under a million rural Canadians.
While each had their turn…
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GATINEAU – Allarco Entertainment Inc.’s pay-per-view Super Channel will finally be launching on Shaw Communications’ cable systems and on its direct-to-home satellite distributor Star Choice in late April and early May respectively, according to the broadcaster.
The news was revealed following Allarco’s appearance Wednesday at the CRTC’s three-week-long hearing into pay and specialty services and broadcast distribution undertakings – at which executives complained it was proving impossible to get carriage, even though Super Channel had been granted must-carry status by the regulator.
“It’s easy to get a licence, but very difficult to execute it,” said Allarco chair Chuck Allard….
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I’VE HEARD NO END of parallels spun in attempts to explain the complex structure we call the Canadian television industry.
From cars and roads and traffic lights to water bottles and Lake Ontario. A house of cards to yarn and a sweater – and even an airplane ride and airline peanuts. Various parts of the industry are the gears in the car, the pre-and post-processed water, the air pressure inside and outside the plane. The yarn-and-sweater analogy is always “if you pull at one thread, the whole things comes apart.” I can’t repeat without a potential libel suit what…
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IT’S FUN TO PROGNOSTICATE. To try and read the tea leaves and make educated (or not) guesses about certain things. Sports (pro and amateur) is utterly built around such predicting, thanks to the billions of dollars bet on the games every year.
Similarly enormous amounts of money and the fate of our industry are collectively at stake beginning this week when the cable, satellite, telco and specialty broadcasting community take their turn in front of a panel of CRTC commissioners who will largely determine how the broadcast distribution undertaking and specialty services industries will be run for perhaps the…
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TORONTO – CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada will be broadcasting live and on-demand select games of the 2008 Stanley Cup playoffs in Mandarin at CBCSports.ca.
“CBC is committed to providing all Canadians with the most comprehensive coverage of the Stanley Cup playoffs,” said CBC Sports director of production Joel Darling. “This is a great opportunity for us to introduce new audiences to the high-intensity NHL playoffs and CBCSports.ca provides us with an ideal platform to do just that.”
One series per round will be available in Mandarin, with commentary by Jason Wang, who provides the play-by-play for the Vancouver…
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LEAVE IT TO SHAW to not only demand genre protection go away, but to use a lovely incendiary word that broadcasters have long used against cable: monopoly.
When Shaw Communications’ submission to the CRTC on its upcoming policy review on broadcast distribution undertakings and specialty services addressed the Commission’s policy on genre protection (which means there’s only supposed to be one comedy specialty, one short film channel, one preschool channel, and so on), it refers to the protection as a genre monopoly.
“I’m not going to be lectured to by Jim Shaw about being in the monopoly business,” said…
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WITHOUT A DOUBT, THE highest profile issue CRTC commissioners will tackle beginning next week’s policy hearings on broadcast distribution undertakings and specialty services is fee-for-carriage. That is, paying a new subscription fee for over-the-air broadcast stations.
As the rules now stand the regulatory bargain is such that cable and satellite and telco TV must carry conventional local TV stations low in their channel lineups and must substitute Canadian signals over top of American ones when the programming is the same. We’ve come to know that part as simultaneous substitution. In return, distributors have not ever had to pay the…
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INVIDI TECHNOLOGIES CEO DAVID DOWNEY has been long been dining out on John Wanamaker’s now ancient and clichéd quote: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”
It’s been a key portion of Downey’s presentations to investors and industry folks for years. Now Wanamaker, the innovative American department store pioneer (he’s said to have invented the price tag and the “sale”) died in the 1920s, so one would think that we have progressed beyond the late retailer’s ad spend calculations over the century or so since he spoke those words….
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TORONTO – Seven broadcast journalists will be honoured this spring with lifetime achievement awards presented by RTNDA Canada – The Association of Electronic Journalists.
The seven are Doug Collins, Vicki Gabereau, Vern Coop, Mike McCourt, Tom Young, Dan McLean, and Gord Harris.
The awards will be presented at the RTNDA Regional Pro Dev Seminars in Kamloops on April 26th, in Calgary on May 10th, Fredericton on May 31st, and at the Central Awards Banquet June 19th during the RTNDA National Conference in Ottawa.
“On behalf of RTNDA Canada, let me congratulate these exceptional broadcasters,” said Bob McLaughlin, President of…
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OTTAWA – Bell Mobility, SaskTel and Rogers Communications were on the list of applicants intending to participate in the auction for Advanced Wireless Services that was released Friday by Industry Canada.
Earlier in the week, Shaw Communications, Quebecor Media, Eastlink and a consortium that includes Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. (MTS Allstream) indicated they would also be participating.
Shaw appears to have applied under the numbered company 1380057 Alberta Ltd, as it announced Friday that it had filed a $400 million financial deposit with Industry Canada in connection with the auction. That is the same amount listed by 1380057 Alberta…
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