TORONTO – The CEOs of BCE and Rogers say they are more than happy to offer access to their upcoming online subscription video-on-demand services to other TV providers, and at least one of those other providers is eager to sign up.
At the annual BMO Media and Telecom investors’ conference in Toronto on Tuesday, Rogers CEO Guy Laurence said Shomi, a joint project with Shaw that is set to launch in November, was to have other partners (as Cartt.ca first reported earlier this year). But they decided to launch without them because they “couldn’t get their…
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TORONTO – Bell Media and Corus Entertainment have inked a multi-year, multi-platform deal with HBO for the exclusive Canadian rights to the entire past-season library of every HBO scripted series currently on air. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The deal includes the rights to more than 700 episodes from past seasons of current programs, in addition to the 300+ episodes of HBO series that are already available (Ed note: so take that, shomi and Netflix). Starting this fall, past seasons of hits like Game Of Thrones, Girls, Boardwalk Empire, and True Detective will also made available to…
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SOMETHING’S NOT RIGHT. Especially if I’m quoting Macbeth.
We have analyzed the hell out of the CRTC’s TV Policy Review which is set to begin Monday in Gatineau, but there’s something ungraspable about the whole thing. Is there too much on the table? Probably. Is the Regulator looking to solve problems it has no chance of fixing – or trying to solve some where none exist? Yes, and yes, certainly.
This is a hearing about all things English Television, or English language video. Yes I know it’s supposed to be about all things television in Canada, but let’s be honest here;…
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VANCOUVER – Telus Health has acquired electronic-prescription technology ZRx Prescriber from Quebec-based ZoomMed, making it the first Canadian healthcare technology company to offer insurance coverage validation nationally at the moment of prescription.
ZRx Prescriber is an intuitive web-based prescriber that allows physicians to use a mobile device to quickly and accurately write and deliver prescriptions for patients while accessing the patient's insurance coverage information directly at the moment of prescription. The technology will also allow physicians to prescribe within the patient's plan parameters when possible, speeding up the insurance claim and improving the patient's experience during the dispensing process.
This agreement,…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The federal government said that it will force the communication industry to abandon paper bill charges after the country’s biggest companies failed to commit to doing so at Thursday’s CRTC review into the practice.
Industry Minister James Moore said Friday that charging extra fees to customers who receive paper copies of their bills, a practice known as pay-to-pay billing, was “unfair”, and promised that the government would introduce legislation to end it in the telecommunications sector. He did not say when such legislation would be tabled.
"More and more Canadians are finding a new charge appearing on their monthly…
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TORONTO – Telus has launched a new cloud-based mobile device management (MDM) solution to help Canadian businesses keep their mobile devices secure and embrace the growing Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend.
MDM Made Easy leverages industry-leading technology and services from AirWatch and Vox Mobile to create a turn-key MDM solution that drastically simplifies the support and enhances the security of mobile devices for Canadian businesses, reads the company’s news release.
Built to be customized, MDM Made Easy allows businesses to quickly deploy a feature-rich MDM solution without investing in infrastructure. This cloud-based solution eliminates the need for on-premise hardware, while…
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GATINEAU – A group of Canadian television viewers and consumer-oriented organizations says that it’s time for the CRTC to change the way it regulates the broadcasting system; this time, by putting Canadians, and not a specific industry, front and centre.
“The broadcasting system – and its business and regulation – must move back towards one that serves Canadians,” reads an intervention by the Groups for the Public Interest to the Commission’s Let’s Talk TV Conversation with Canadians.
The Public Interest Advocacy Centre, Consumers’ Association of Canada, Council of Senior Citizens Organizations of British Columbia, National Pensioners Federation, Option consommateurs and Canadian…
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TORONTO – Bell, Rogers and Videotron have some explaining to do over the way that they charge customers for live and on-demand television programming on mobile applications.
According to a Globe and Mail report, the CRTC has asked the three big providers a series of questions about their respective apps, such as how many subscribers the services have, how much data they tend to use, and how exactly the content is delivered.
The report raises the issue of net neutrality, noting that the apps allow viewers to use their smartphone or tablet to watch up to 10 hours per month of…
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PRINCE GEORGE, BC – Telus said Tuesday that it has invested more than $2.5 million to build four new wireless sites bringing service to more than 40 kilometers of Highway 97 just north of Prince George for the first time.
The final site in the first series is now live, providing coverage to Highway 97 near Augustine Lake. The other three sites were built over the last six months near Summit Lake Road, Salmon River Road and Salmon Valley, respectively, and the company said that it anticipates that the second series of sites, currently under construction along the same highway,…
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GATINEAU – Rogers Communications and Corus Entertainment have told the CRTC that it must reconsider the usefulness of Terms of Trade (ToT) agreement between broadcasters and independent producers in creating independent Canadian programming. On the other hand, the Canadian Media Production Association (CMPA) argues that in a new broadcast environment with greater pick and pay options ToT will become increasingly important.
In their respective interventions to the Commission’s Let’s Talk TV Conversation with Canadians, Rogers and Corus claim that ToT (a deal hard-fought for by the CMPA and others which was developed and demanded over a number of years) is…
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