CALGARY – The Western Hockey League and Shaw Communication announced today that 26 WHL 2005-06 regular season games will be broadcast throughout Western Canada beginning in January, 2006 on Shaw Cable.
In addition to the 26 regular season games from the junior hockey league, one full series in each of the four rounds in the 2006 WHL playoffs will also be broadcast throughout Western Canada on Shaw TV, says the press release.
The WHL games on SHAW will be broadcast primarily on a province-wide basis and will feature key rivals in the WHL’s Canadian based B.C., Central and East…
Continue Reading
WINNIPEG – Shaw Communications announced on Friday it will hire 100 new employees to staff a new national call centre in Winnipeg.
The call centre will serve as a national overflow centre to handle customer calls and inquiries from across Western Canada. The company didn’t say when the hires will be made or when the new call centre will be ready.
"Winnipeg is a natural fit for this new call centre; it is an important and competitive market, it is a strong economy with a skilled workforce, and we are proud to make this significant investment,” said Peter Bissonnette, president…
Continue Reading
CANADA’S CABLE AND SATELLITE companies want one thing when it comes to high definition television: More.
More HD channels. More HD content. More HD Canadian content. In the larger markets at least, HDTV set owners are increasingly tuning to their HD channels only, taking advantage of their big, bright, new toy. They, in turn, are beginning to apply some pressure on their cable company or satellite provider to make more channels available.
“Demand is high,” says the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance’s legal counsel Chris Edwards. “Everyone is looking to get as much high def as they can get.” The…
Continue Reading
CALGARY – Shaw Digital Cable customers on Vancouver Island can now order video on demand content through their set top boxes, the company announced Monday.
While the company has offered VOD to the market for over two years now, customers had to order movies on line and be Shaw high speed Internet customers to access the ordering portal.
They can now use their remote controls to do it.
www.shaw.ca
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Global Television’s new dramatic series Falcon Beach will air in HD beginning in January.
The company announced its marketing rollout plans on Monday and later in the day made the final decision to air the program in high definition, www.cartt.ca was told.
“(T)he steamy 13-episode young adult series about life inside a waterfront resort town is at the centre of one of the most exciting, aggressive marketing campaigns by the network to date,” says today’s press release.
Featuring the appropriately irreverent tagline, "It’s Hot", the multimedia rollout is currently underway. (At right are actors…
Continue Reading
CALGARY – Shaw is keeping the home fires burning for the holidays again. Yesterday it put its virtual fireplace on screen on Shaw Digital Digest, and analog customers can cozy up to the TV fire starting Dec. 24.
The tradition began in 1999 at its operations in Victoria, which put the image of a wood-burning fire as a sort of screensaver on one channel. When it was removed to make way for regular programming, the cableco was flooded with calls from viewers who missed its warm fuzzy feeling. The fire soon spread to Shaw operations across Western Canada.
"The…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – The outlook for Canada’s traditional fixed-line telecom industry in 2006 is poor, while things are looking better for wireless services and the cable industry, according to the latest credit ratings report by Standard and Poors.
Competition for wireline business will hurt incumbent telcos (Aliant, Bell Canada, Manitoba Telecom Services, and Telus) as the cable operators and other players enter the telephony market, the report says. Likewise, though, the cablecos (Cogeco, Rogers, Shaw, and Videotron) will face more competition from telephone operators providing video services via DSL. “The blurring of boundaries between wireline, wireless, and cable will continue,”…
Continue Reading
LAST WEEK’S ANNOUNCEMENT of BCE’s divestiture of all but 20% of its ownership holding in Bell Globemedia left one enormous burning question.
What is the company going to do with the $1.3 billion in proceeds from its sale of control of one of Canada’s largest media companies? BCE CEO Michael Sabia told an analyst conference call last week that the company won’t be announcing what it plans to do with the money until February.
Here, in no particular order, is the www.cartt.ca Top 10 List of things BCE could do with its new pile of money, when it…
Continue Reading
CALGARY – Shaw Communications announced this morning that it is resigning from the Canadian Cable Telecommunications Association ("CCTA") effective today.
“As the telecommunications and broadcasting industries evolve, it is becoming increasingly clear that the member companies of the CCTA have divergent interests and differing strategic objectives making it difficult to build industry-wide consensus on various issues. Shaw believes that it will be better served by pursuing its own strategies and developing its own objectives without the added burden of seeking industry consensus,” says the Shaw release.
It’s not immediately known at this point what the long-term future is for…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – CHUM Limited and the Waters family today announced the death of company founder and Canadian broadcasting pioneer Allan Waters. He was 84.
As chairman and president until 2002, Waters (right) laid the foundation for CHUM Limited’s growth to its current place as one of Canada’s premier media companies, with radio and television stations across the country. “His vision for CHUM was rooted in fostering strong connections with the communities it serves, while staying true to his own guiding principles of respect, honesty and fair dealing,” said the company’s press release.
“Allan Waters’ contribution to…
Continue Reading