CALGARY — Shaw Communications said today it is donating $1 million to Community Food Centres Canada (CFCC) to support food banks and agencies across the country, while also providing two months’ service credit to Shaw Internet customers using the federal Connecting Families program for low-income families.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has affected all aspects of our lives and has significantly increased the demands placed on the organizations that are helping to provide food and resources to the most vulnerable Canadians,” said Brad Shaw, CEO of Shaw Communications, in a news release Tuesday. “As long-time partners of Community Food Centres Canada…
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Canadian communications giant dead at 85
CALGARY – Shaw Communications founder, executive chair and former CEO JR Shaw is being remembered not only as a pioneering cable and telecom builder, but a family man, philanthropist, and a one-of-a-kind gentleman who inspired deep loyalty and unity.
Known throughout the North American communications industry simply as JR, Shaw was a pioneer in Canadian business and a Canadian telecommunications sector visionary. He passed away in his sleep Tuesday at the age of 85.
“My family and I are at a loss for words and are deeply saddened at JR’s passing,” said Brad Shaw, CEO of…
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By Greg O’Brien
ALL ACROSS THE COUNTRY, millions of Canadians are working from home, or sadly just staying home after their job was placed on indefinite hold. Students don’t know when they will go back to class and seniors are being told going for groceries is dangerous because of the deadly Covid-19.
Politicians of all stripe are telling us to stay home – a call which most of us are thankfully heeding – and one which we will need to obey for some weeks to come to try and slow the spread of the virus.
We’ve hunkered down at home with our…
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TORONTO – Long time Canadian cable executive – and the first CEO of what is now Rogers Wireless – George Fierheller, died last week. He was 86.
While still chair of Rogers Cable-owned Canadian Cablesystems in 1983, Fierheller led a team backed by investors Philippe de Gaspe Beaubien, Sam Belzberg, and Ted Rogers to win cellular spectrum from the federal government – the first made available for mobile wireless voice services for consumers.
Fierheller then became the first president and CEO of Cantel after gaining the spectrum licences, staying from the beginning (it officially launched service in 1985) until 1993. During…
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TORONTO — With people practicing social distancing, businesses cutting hours and services, Canadians staying home to work or self-isolate while the stock markets slide in unprecedented fashion due to the effects of COVID-19, Scotiabank this week released an analysis of where it sees both negative and positive effects when it comes to the telecom and media spaces.
“Over the past week, the initial COVID-19 concerns have expanded dramatically from global device supply chain issues to an unprecedented level of domestic consumer and business disruptions. The equity sell-off in the sector has been indiscriminate,” reads the research note to investors from…
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TORONTO — With Canadians spending more time at home, Bell’s Crave says it will start issuing weekly alerts highlighting new and noteworthy programming for the week ahead. Scheduling changes to Crave’s programming lineup will also be included in the alerts. Here’s the first one.
Crave’s programming for the week of March 18-25:
Hollywood movies dropping on Crave on Friday, March 20 include: action flick Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw, starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Idris Elba and Jason Statham; and zombie comedy The Dead Don’t Die, starring Adam Driver and Bill Murray.
All-new episodes hitting Crave include: Star…
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TORONTO – It appears Corus Entertainment and a number of other Canadian broadcasters have made their Canadian specialty channels free to the customers of broadcast distribution undertakings (BDUs) in Canada until April 30th.
The companies have not put out a press release or made an announcement saying so, but carriers such as Rogers Communications, Cogeco, Eastlink, SaskTel, Access Communications, Westman Communications and Quadro Communications have announced every one of Corus’ 28-plus channels (from Adult Swim to Food Network to History to YTV) are now free to all customers to watch while they hunker…
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TORONTO — YTV’s Mucho Marcho programming this week includes the introduction of a brand-new host of YTV’s The Zone and Zone Weekend.
Alex Wierzbicki (pictured) made his television debut Monday at 4 p.m., joining hosts Spencer and Tyra as they bring down the house with contests, celebrity interviews, LOL sketches and behind-the-scenes fun facts from favourite YTV shows every weekday from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. in The Zone.
Toronto native Wierzbicki is a recent graduate from Sheridan College’s Music Theatre Performance program. He has appeared in numerous local productions including Sheridan’s Newsies, Oshawa Little Theatre’s Mary Poppins, and Bravo Academy’s…
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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…
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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…
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