THE SESSION ON WHAT TV distributors think of content and its changing place in their business plans was a popular session at the Canadian Film and TV Producers Association annual Prime Time conference in Ottawa three weeks ago.
As we noted in part one last week, the great big elephant not in the room was a cable company. Moderated by Peter Lyman, senior partner, Nordicity Group, the panelists included Chris Frank, vice-president, programming and pay-per-view, Bell ExpressVu, Michael Hennessy, vice-president, broadband and video policy, Telus (and former head of the Canadian Cable Television Association); Tom Laird, general manager, digital…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – A new mobile video clips service is now available to customers of Rogers Wireless, Telus, and Bell Mobility from Score Media.
It will also be available on Amp’d Mobile (which runs on the Telus network) upon Amp’d’s launch in Canada tomorrow, March 14th.
The new service (available by subscription or on a pay-per-clip basis, depending on the carrier) will give viewers access to Score programming, packaged specifically for mobile viewing in two-to-three minute clips.
Score Mobile Video will feature exclusive mobile coverage of the NCAA March Madness tournament, which begins today, including previews, in-game highlights, features and…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Second quarter subscriber numbers released by Canadian Satellite Radio says XM Canada had 237,500 subscribers at the end of February.
And, "in an effort to align our definitions more closely with industry norms, our subscriber numbers now include vehicles factory-activated with the XM service whereby automakers have agreed to pay for a portion or all of the trial period service," says the XM release.
The results trail competitor Sirius Canada’s results, which said a month ago it passed the 300,000 customer mark.
"We have experienced exceptional growth in our subscriber levels this quarter," said Stephen Tapp, president…
Continue Reading
CANADA’S BIG THREE wireless carriers have been repeatedly quick to say that they expect a minimal impact on their businesses when wireless number portability takes effect on March 14th.
The Bell-to-Bell free calling deal announced last week by Bell Canada is meant to mitigate the negative effects, as are the myriad contracts that Telus, Rogers and Bell force customers to sign for terms of up to three years.
So while they are all expecting some increased churn, on the surface Canadian wireless executives seem pretty calm about the removal of the most significant barrier preventing customers from switching providers…
Continue Reading
PALM BEACH, Fla. – Unless the federal government deploys some "artificial measures" there appears to be little opportunity for a fourth national wireless carrier to spring forth when Industry Canada performs its next spectrum auction, expected sometime in the first half of 2008, said Rogers Communications president and COO Nadir Mohamed on Tuesday.
Responding to a question posed during his appearance at the Bear Stearns 20th annual media conference (which was webcast) about the spectrum auction and the potential for another wireless company to start-up and compete with Rogers Wireless, Bell Mobility and Telus, Mohamed dug into the recent…
Continue Reading
ENTITLED "BDU CONTENT Strategies: Can Cable and Phone Companies Do Their Own Thing?", the session on what TV distributors think of content and its changing place in their business plans was a popular session at the Canadian Film and TV Producers Association annual Prime Time conference in Ottawa two weeks ago.
The elephant not in the room, however? A cable company. But one former cable guy spoke for the industry anyway. Moderated by Peter Lyman, senior partner, Nordicity Group, the panelists included Chris Frank, vice-president, programming and pay-per-view, Bell ExpressVu, Michael Hennessy, vice-president, broadband and video policy, Telus; Tom…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – Canadian Women in Communications held its annual awards gala evening on Tuesday in Ottawa.
The CWC Annual Awards recognizes the accomplishments of four outstanding women in the communications industry and one communications organization that has nurtured the aspirations of its female employees.
The event is attended by over 600 VIPs to publicly recognize the achievements of communications industry role models. The following CWC Annual Award Winners were honoured at this year’s event (pictures are below):
* Karen Radford, executive vice-president and president, Telus Quebec and partner solutions, Telus – CWC Woman of the Year Award Recipient
* CanWest MediaWorks Inc….
Continue Reading
VANCOUVER – After a storm of negative publicity largely concentrated out west, Telus has decided to shelve its pay-per-view mobile adult content service.
Since its January 8th launch (which was first reported by Cartt.ca) the company signed on thousands of customers who downloaded adult photos and videos for $3 to $4 each. The service was an age-verified one so that no children could access the content, which was limited to nudity. No sex acts were shown.
But, the company also fielded several hundred complaints and faced the wrath of the Vancouver Catholic Diocese which threatened to cut off…
Continue Reading
CANADA’S ILEC’s SURE hope so. They need it to be.
Every quarter, when telco CEOs face industry analysts, one or more of them invariably ask whether the telcos’ rebuild strategy of only bringing fibre to a neighbourhood node, within a kilometre or so of a group of homes, will provide enough bandwidth to make them competitive in the broadband video world.
They also invariably point to U.S. telco Verizon, which is building fibre to the home (or curb or the premises, whatever you’d like to call it) so that it can deliver on its aggressive rollout plans for its…
Continue Reading
VANCOUVER – Fourth quarter revenue jumped 8% to $2.25 billion at Telus compared to Q4 2005, the company said today.
Thanks to strong wireless and data growth, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) increased 20%, too, aided by the absence of expenses from the labour disruption in the fourth quarter of 2005.
Telus achieved or exceeded four of five consolidated financial 2006 targets set more than a year ago, reports the western telco. "This result was largely driven by the national wireless business and wireline data growth, which included our non-incumbent operations in central Canada. The 2006…
Continue Reading
