WINNIPEG – It’s still early days for high definition in Canada but with costs for broadcast equipment and the sets themselves coming down, it won’t be early for long.
Randall Dark, one of the speakers at the HDTV session Tuesday at the Canadian Association of Broadcasters annual convention in Winnipeg, runs HD Vision Studios and says he sees no reason why the whole industry can’t more quickly move into HD.
In the U.S., where he’s based, it’s taken off “like a rocket ship,” and if broadcasters and the production industry don’t move on HD, “you will lose market share,”…
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CALGARY – Shaw Communications became the first BDU in Canada to add Turner Classic Movies to its channel lineup, both on Shaw Cable and Star Choice.
TCM has actually been on the eligible satellite list for about eight years but because of movie copyright ownership issues, Canadian cable and satellite companies have been reluctant to carry a channel which would then need to be blacked out often.
However, executive vice-president Tom Karsch told www.cartt.ca in an interview on Tuesday that the channel has been working on new deals to gain the North American rights to its classic movies (primarily…
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CALGARY – Shaw Cable has added Wild TV to its on demand lineup.
The category two hunting and fishing digi-net which is available as a full channel on Access Communications and MTS TV, has made its content available on Shaw On Demand.
The move, “makes watching your favorite hunting and fishing show as easy as using your remote,” says the Wild press release.
The independent specialty channel is appealing to fans to make some VOD buys and take in some of Wild TV’s VOD shows and programming segments like, The Moose is Loose, Elk Fever, Bears and Bruins and…
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CALGARY – To the chagrin (but maybe not the surprise) of Canadian broadcasters, Shaw Communications CEO Jim Shaw said Thursday that pushing digital cable is not at the top of the company’s priority list.
During its quarterly conference call with financial analysts to discuss its third quarter results, Shaw was asked why its strategy when it comes to marketing digital cable is so different when compared to Rogers. While Rogers carries just about every channel under the sun and strongly markets digital cable, Shaw has been far more reluctant to add many of the new category two channels…
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CALGARY – Fourth quarter net income of $66.4 million was way ahead (130%) of the fourth quarter of 2004 for Shaw Communications.
Driving that big increase was a $31 million pre-tax gain on the settlement of a forward sale contract related to an investment with Motorola which contributed $21.7 million to net income. Even without that investment boost, net income in the fourth quarter, ended August 31st, rose 54%.
Annual net income was $160.6 million, up from $90.9 million last year.
Total service revenue of $563 million for the quarter and $2.2 billion for the year grew 5.9% and…
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IT’S NOT OFTEN THAT a family-owned cable company will bring in an outsider to run it. Especially a telco guy.
But, when that cable operation is in the middle of turning into a telephone company, too, it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea after all. Until June of this year, John Piercy was working as a consultant to Hamilton’s Mountain Cablevision, working out the kinks in its telephony offering, leading up to this past summer’s launch.
That’s when Owen Boris (Mountain’s founder) and his son Les asked Piercy (right) to come aboard full time as president. Les is…
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TORONTO – Maintaining it’s long-standing support of Bullying Awareness Week, Astral Media’s Family Channel is launching its 2005 "Take the Pledge" campaign.
The week is November 14 to 20, 2005, and its focus is to encourage kids to stick up for each other rather than silently watch if they see someone being bullied.
During the week, special programming will air on Family to challenge kids to take "The Pledge," an empowering statement that exemplifies the Bullying Awareness Week message that bystanders can be part of the solution to the problems of bullying.
Containing such lines as "I can help…
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TORONTO – Asian Television Networks has acquired the exclusive Canadian rights to the Videocon Cup, a twelve game cricket series with India vs. South Africa and India vs. Sri Lanka beginning today and running through to the end of November 2005.
ATN also announced the launch of ATN-ZEE Cinema, a popular Indian movie channel, ATN-ZEE Gujarati, a regional Language channel, ATN-Aastha, a Spiritual, devotional and faith based channel with yoga, fitness, aromatherapy and live telecasts of major festivals of India, and ATN Bangla, the longest running independent satellite channel from Bangladesh.
All three launched October 19th on Rogers Cable.
ATN…
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TORONTO – G4techTV Canada announced today that digital cable and satellite subscribers of Rogers, Cogeco, Shaw, Videotron, Star Choice, Bell ExpressVu and Sasktel will get a free preview of the channel through November – and a chance to win a $5,000 digital makeover.
Viewers can win by spotting the G4techTV contest icon. Every time the icon is spotted, viewers can enter online (www.g4techtv.ca) by naming the show where they saw the icon. At the end of November, G4techTV will pick one lucky winner to win a $5,000 digital makeover for the hottest tech and gaming gadgets. Continue Reading
TORONTO – The Canadian Football League (CFL) announced today that it has signed a two-year programming agreement with Corus Entertainment’s radio division to broadcast the Grey Cup championship game across Canada this year and next. This year, Corus Radio will broadcast the 93rd Grey Cup game from Vancouver’s BC Place on Sunday, November 27th. This exclusive agreement, administered by Deep Sky Sound Marketing Ideas, Corus Radio’s national marketing and programming division, extends Corus’ involvement in broadcasting the CFL as the official rights holder for six of the nine CFL teams.
The Grey Cup game will be covered…
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