LOS ANGELES – Full length episodes of Lost, Desperate Housewives, Alias and Commander In Chief will be available on www.abc.go.com for free during a two-month trial, parent company Disney announced today.
Participating advertisers Include AT&T, Cingular, Ford, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Unilever’s Suave, Universal Pictures and Walt Disney Pictures
Current episodes of the four programs – which are also available for purchase on iTunes, will be available for streaming during May and June, marking the first time a broadcast network has made multiple series available for viewing online, free of charge to consumers.
It’s not said in the…
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REGINA – Beginning next Saturday, Access Communications will show the second round of the Western Hockey League playoffs exclusively to its cable customers.
“We know our viewers across the province are passionate about hockey”, said Gursh Madhur, manager of community programming for the cable co-operative, in a release, “and we are excited to be offering this exclusive coverage.”
Round two of WHL playoff action features the series between Moose Jaw and Calgary.
This season’s WHL coverage is a result of a three-year agreement with the WHL and a partnership between Access Communications and Shaw Communications to bring WHL action…
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I FIND CARTT.CA AN EXCELLENT source of timely information about the exciting communications industry in Canada and occasionally we subscribers are treated to one of your humorous diversions, or at least that is what Thursday’s Commentary seems to be. It focuses on what can only be described as the old saying “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic,” Global style.
Last November I learned through your service that the CEO of Global, Mr. Leonard Asper announced, among other things, that “There is a battle coming.” He was also quoted as saying “We know the Commission has some sympathy…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC wants to know more about account stacking before it renders a ruling in a dispute between cable, broadcasters and satellite companies and has called for comments on the issue.
Account stacking is where a BDU treats two (or more, as the complaint mentioned below contends) residences as a single subscription. So, for example, if a Star Choice customer has a dish at his home and cottage, he pays just one monthly fee.
In a complaint filed with the Commission in December and reported on only by cartt.ca here. Videotron has asked the CRTC to…
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TORONTO – By the end of 2006 Canadian cable companies will have 12% (1.57 million) of residential telephone subscribers in Canada and 27% by year-end 2009 (3.35 million), says a new report released today.
This is up from 6% at the end of ’05 (835,000), says the latest installment of The Convergence Consulting Group’s "Battle for the North American Couch Potato: Bundling, Internet, TV, Telephone."
While the inroads traditional cable companies are making in voice are strong, the report doesn’t have a similar forecast when it comes to the traditional ILEC’s push into video. Telcos will have 2% (220,000)…
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GATINEAU – Country music fans in Toronto will have a clearer new choice later this year.
On Wednesday, the CRTC approved an application by Durham Radio to build a new repeater transmitter in Toronto for 95.9 CJKX-FM Ajax (New Country).
The transmitter will be located in downtown Toronto and operate at 85 watts. Durham Radio told the Commission that many of its listeners, from Ajax, Oshawa, east Toronto and York Region, commute to downtown Toronto for work or other reasons and are unable to receive a good quality signal from CJKX-FM in downtown Toronto because of interference caused by…
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CALGARY – Cybersurf, an independent Canadian ISP, announced Monday it would offer free high speed Internet access to customers choosing its voice product.
The company is near completion of its national VOIP and cable high speed service and will use the Shaw, Rogers and Videotron backbones to provide its service.
To BR: branded CIA Local Phone in the Toronto market, Cybersurf’s service is offered as a competitive alternative to Bell and Rogers’ local phone service, and includes E911, 411, free unlimited local calling in the 416 area code, free call features and low domestic and international long distance rates….
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By Greg O’Brien
I REMEMBER WHEN THEN-CRTC broadcasting vice-chair Andrée Wylie told the 1999 CCTA convention in Vancouver that the Commission had no intention of trying to regulate the Internet.
Because of it’s very nature, it’s impossible to regulate the Internet itself (unless you’re China or some other repressive government that deploys some painful cyber-clamps and doesn’t mind tossing people in jail for reading the New York Times or somesuch online), which the CRTC recognized early on. Plus, 1999 was pre tech-bubble and the opportunities of the ‘net seemed endless. Why toss up regulations in front of such potential?
That Commission…
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OTTAWA – In a submission which generally backs a cable company’s request to use the local avail ad time to market its telephony and high speed Internet products along with programming services, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters has also asked the CRTC for more cost clarity.
An intervention filed with the Commission last week mostly supports an application made by Halifax-based MSO EastLink to expand what the broadcast distribution regulations say can be promoted during the so-called "local availability" time on American cable channels. Those channels (like CNN, A&E and The Golf Channel) make two minutes per hour of…
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OTTAWA – It didn’t take long for the Canadian Association of Broadcasters to find someone who knows the ins and outs of the new federal Conservative leadership.
It was announced Friday that Elizabeth Roscoe is joining the CAB as senior vice-president policy and public affairs as of April 10th.
Roscoe’s most recent job in communications and media was as senior vice-president external affairs for the Canadian Cable Television Association, a position she left in 2003 to join Carleton University as executive director, partnership development. Prior to her last stint at the CCTA, she was VP government relations for Shaw…
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