OTTAWA – CBC/Radio-Canada and the country’s TV distributors are collaborating to make the public broadcaster’s 24-hour news channels, CBC News Network and ICI RDI, more widely available so that as many people as possible can stay up to date on the news surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.
As of Friday, CBC News Network will be available to all subscribers on Bell TV, Shaw, and Cogeco. It is also now accessible on CBC Gem, the CBC News app, and CBC.ca. There will surely be more distributors to follow this week.
UPDATE: Cogeco also added CTV News Network to the list of news channels…
Continue Reading
WHILE THERE WILL surely be more announcements in the coming days, the broadband, telecom and TV industry is responding to the COVID-19 virus in a number of ways.
All have noted in emails their networks are up to the challenge of handling whatever increased traffic that might come from thousands of people working from home rather than the office. During a conference call with financial analysts Thursday discussing its 2019 fiscal fourth quarter, Vidéotron president Jean-Francois Pruneau said, when asked he is “not worried at all about the virus impact on consumption and network capacity.”
Then, on Friday, Vidéotron said it…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA —Canada’s publicly traded television service providers lost a new record number of traditional pay-TV subscribers in 2019, continuing the trend of accelerating TV cord-cutting in Canada, according to new research from Ottawa-based research and consulting firm Boon Dog Professional Services Inc.
The continued launch of new Internet streaming services and the growth of such services in Canada, a slowdown in the growth of IPTV, and continued record losses of subscribers of cable TV all contributed to a record cumulative loss by the big Canadian TV service providers of an estimated 278,000 TV subscribers in their respective 2019 fiscal periods…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
TORONTO – Shaw Communications plans to push Ontario to make mandatory the municipalities’ co-operation with telecommunications service providers to allow access to their infrastructure quickly for network builds, as urgency to lay the groundwork for 5G picks up.
The Alberta-based company registered lobby files with the province last week that reflect the telecom’s intention to bring the case to ministers that there is an urgent need for telecoms to obtain easy access to city infrastructure “to ensure connectivity can be built in a timely manner,” the registration says. It’s unclear how Shaw would like that co-operation to be…
Continue Reading
TORONTO — Evanov Communications Inc. announced last week the company’s founder and president, Vasil William (Bill) Evanov, died on February 28 at the age of 77.
Born in 1942, Evanov was the son of Bulgarian immigrant parents. After learning the business during his tenure with CHIN Radio, working with the legendary Johnny Lombardi, Evanov launched his first radio station, CIAO-AM 530, a multilingual station in the Brampton/Toronto market in 1984. Evanov Communications now operates 19 stations across the country and has several hundred employees. According to the company statement, Evanov’s children, Paul and Kristina, will continue to run the…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The Canadian Chapter of the International Institute of Communications last week announced its keynote speakers for IIC Canada 2020, to be held April 20-21, at the Shaw Centre in Ottawa.
The big names are:
Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Canadian Heritage
Monika Ille, president and CEO, APTN
Grace Koh, U.S. representative and head of delegation to the International Telecommunication Union World Radiocommunication Conference 2019
Pierre Karl Péladeau, president and CEO, Quebecor
Ian Scott, CRTC chair
Catherine Tait, CBC president and CEO
Details of IIC Canada plenary sessions are also now available on the IIC Canada website. The session subjects…
Continue Reading
CALGARY – Shaw Communications announced Thursday it was substantially finished with its total business transformation plan announced in February 2018.
The TBT was focused on “reinventing our operating model to better meet the changing needs and expectations of consumers and businesses,” reads the press release. The program saw a large number of employees leave the company, cushioned by a generous voluntary departure package.
“As part of this journey, we have become a more focused, agile and accountable organization, which has allowed us to drive meaningful productivity improvements in the way we operate and invest so that we can deliver a…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA — On Tuesday, the same day it denied an application by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and the National Pensioners Federation (NPF) to require Koodo Mobile and other wireless service providers to provide paper bills upon request, the CRTC announced a new proceeding looking into the issue of paper billing.
In its decision against PIAC and NPF, the Commission says it found “there was no existing legislature or regulatory obligation that mandated the provision of paper bills and, since the rationale and evidence on the record of this proceeding related largely to Koodo alone, it would not…
Continue Reading
TORONTO — Effective Tuesday, Corus Entertainment appointed three new independent members to its board of directors. Joining the board are Alex Carloss, Stephanie Coyles and Sameer Deen.
“We are thrilled to welcome such a high impact group of individuals to our board of directors,” said Heather Shaw, Corus’s executive chair of the board, in the news release. “They each bring decades of leadership and experience in key areas of opportunity for Corus. Their appointments increase the diversity, knowledge and experience of our board.”
Doug Murphy, president and CEO, added: “This is an exciting new chapter for Corus as we pursue…
Continue Reading
Bitrates will have to be lowered
By Steve Faguy
GATINEAU – Faced with escalating costs amid the coming 600 MHz repack of television stations, Corus Entertainment is proposing an “innovative solution” by using digital TV multiplexing to combine nearby Global TV over-the-air transmitters in eastern Ontario and the Okanagan region of B.C.
The CRTC published applications on Monday to remove seven retransmitters and instead put their programming as subchannels of another Global stations whose signal at least partially overlaps:
CIII-DT-6 Ottawa (Global Toronto) would carry CKWS-TV-2 Prescott (Global Kingston)
CHEX-DT Peterborough would carry CIII-DT-27 Peterborough (Global Toronto) and CKWS-DT-1 Brighton (Global Kingston)
…
Continue Reading
