IT WAS A LUCKY DAY to be in Vancouver, what with the announcement by Shaw that it’s launching VOIP here and that Telus is spending $15 million on a shiny new headend.
So, we took the opportunity to have a short visit with Fred Di Blasio, vice-president consumer product marketing (he’s in charge of the Telus TV rollout, among other things) to get a bit more than what was in the press release on Wednesday.
What follows is a conversation between Di Blasio and www.cartt.ca editor and publisher Greg O’Brien at the Telus Learning Centre in Burnaby, B.C….
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VANCOUVER – Not wanting to let Shaw have the news all to itself this week, Telus announced today that it will build a brand new $15 million digital headend north of British Columbia’s Fraser Valley.
The headend, which will be operational by this summer, will deliver Telus TV to subscribers in B.C. and Alberta.
It will initially provide Telus TV customers with more than 200 video and audio channels once it is fully operational – growing to well over 300 channels within a year. In addition to eight satellite dishes, with room for three more, Telus is installing Internet…
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CHUM WILL BE SOLD. Shaw, too. Telus will buy Bell. Foreign ownership rules will be abolished. CRTC regs, too.
Now those are some seriously fearless predictions for the new year. They’re all poppycock, too. Made ’em up (although a couple could happen).
The slowdown time during the 14 days or so around Christmas and New Years (and Hanukkah, too), coupled with the fact that a new year is beginning, spawns all sorts of lists and predictions and reviews in the media. I didn’t want to be left out, but I didn’t want to try to add to the M&A…
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JUST IN TIME FOR Christmas, www.cartt.ca has given away a 42” HDTV. We did the draw Friday evening and the winner is Nigel Fuller, regional vice-president, CHUM Television Ontario (right).
Second prize, the iPod nano, is going to Rick Fraser v-p marketing at Access Communications.
As for the 50 winners of signed copies of the children’s book M is for Maple. They are:
Brad Phillips, Citytv Vancouver Gordon Lee, CTV Specialty Victor Haddad, Milk River Cable Club, Georgina Schnubb, Masset-Haida TV Society Steve Ward, Grand Bend Cable TV Brett Manlove, CanWest MediaWorks Sam Fiander. Ramea Broadcasting Richard French, CRTC Glenn O’Farrell, CAB…
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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…
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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…
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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,”…
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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…
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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…
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IF YOU WANT AN EARLY look at what the communications infrastructure in Canada is going to look like, it might be worth studying Saskatchewan.
The incumbent telco, SaskTel, has embarked upon an ambitious, aggressive, costly push to modernize its network, driving fibre deep into its communities, taking dead aim at the two large cable companies in the province with its MAX high speed Internet and digital television service.
The reason why this might offer a glimpse into the future is that this is a province where the “normal” economic guidelines the rest of the communications companies in Canada are…
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