OTTAWA – Personalized media will take centre stage at next month’s Canadian Association of Broadcasters annual convention in Winnipeg, November 6 to 8.
This year’s plenary sessions examine the industry’s “big picture” issues, including the prospects for regulation in a broadband universe, and the future of advertising in a digital environment.
The concurrent sessions tackle such hot-button issues as the impact of new personal media devices; the prospects for Canadian HDTV; the new marketing imperative for broadcasters; the upcoming CRTC review of the Canadian radio industry; and the future of news.
On Tuesday November 8th, the ever-popular closing plenary…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – Not every intervention filed with the CRTC over the four new pay TV license applicants were negative. Many were overwhelmingly supportive.
As reported previously, four groups are vying for new must-carry pay TV licenses from the Commission and will face a hearing on October 24th.
The applicants are: Spotlight TV, a bid led by former Alliance Atlantis executive George Burger (backed by Insight Media and now Bell ExpressVu); One from Allarco (backed by the Allard family, the former owners of WIC Broadcasting); another from a division of Quebecor Media for BOOM TV, and a unique…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The Canadian cultural and broadcasting communities say that the new wireless video services now in the market from Rogers Wireless, Bell Mobility and Telus are certainly a form of broadcasting and as such, should be subject to regulation under the Broadcasting Act.
Phase I and II comments were filed recently with the CRTC by all parties and while the wireless providers insist that the service falls under the CRTC’s 1999 New Media Exemption Order, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, its members, and cultural groups like SOCAN, CIRPA and even the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union all say…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Canadian cable companies can look forward to adding millions of voice customers says a report out today from Convergence Consulting Group.
According to the company’s oft-cited and comprehensive Battle for the North American Couch Potato: Bundling, Internet, TV, Telephone report, by year-end 2007 Canadian cable companies will have 16% of residential telephone subscribers (or 2.1 million – of which 70% will be VOIP). By the end of 2009, MSOs will have 27% (3.8 million). This is up from the end of this year, where the report says cable will have 6.5% or the telco market, or 850,000…
Continue Reading
VANCOUVER – The B.C. Government and Service Employees’ Union (BCGEU) is stepping up its support for locked-out members of the Telecommunications Workers’ Union (TWU) by urging its members who are Telus customers to switch internet providers.
“This is a warning to Telus that this lockout is more than just an attack on TWU members. It’s an attack on all working people,” said George Heyman, BCGEU president, in a release. “We are mobilizing our 57,000 members to send a strong message to Telus: get back to the bargaining table and negotiate fairly with your employees or you will risk your…
Continue Reading
CHICAGO – Canadian VOIP provider babyTEL is expanding into the United States market to offer regional cable companies, Internet service providers, network integrators and others its VoIP services and products, the company announced this week.
“It is still early, but clearly the beginning of mass adoption of VOIP (voice over Internet protocol) services by consumers and business is here,” said Stephen Dorsey, babyTEL president and CEO. “Regional cable companies and ISPs must offer their customers VOIP or risk losing them to others who will.
“As a ‘provider of providers’, babyTEL has built a robust VOIP network that has already…
Continue Reading
THE CABLE INDUSTRY MIGHT not like reading this, heading into the local forbearance hearings next week, but residential phone choice seems pretty real to me.
If there was any doubt about it, my local newspaper, The Hamilton Spectator, delivered ample evidence last Wednesday. In the mess of inserts I curse about that usually flutter out of the thing, three glossy direct marketing pieces caught my eye: One from Primus; another from Rogers; and the third from Direct Energy.
Primus was a pure low-cost sell. “Get TalkBroadband and save big on your home phone service,” it said, beside a garish…
Continue Reading
BURNABY, B.C. – The Telecommunications Workers Union says that business analyst Michael Levy, while on Bill Good’s CKNW radio program yesterday, told listeners that Telus CEO Darren Entwistle is out to break the union.
According to a TWU press release, Levy said senior Telus managers have contacted him to express their willingness to enter into non-binding arbitration with the union, and also that "the big guy on top" has his sight on breaking the union.
"This confirms what we already knew. There is one insurmountable barrier to settlement – the intractable position of Telus CEO Darren Entwistle,” said TWU…
Continue Reading
VANCOUVER – Telus announced Friday that Darren Entwistle, the company’s president and CEO, has exercised his vested Telus share options, using the entirety of the net after tax gain to increase his Telus share ownership by 15,600 common shares and 110,711 non-voting shares.
Including his investment in January 2005 of 76,333 non-voting shares, Mr. Entwistle now owns 39,131 common shares and 283,947 non-voting shares for a combined total of 323,078 Telus shares.
During the last six years Entwistle “has consistently accumulated Telus shares, by: investing after tax net gains from exercising share options; reinvesting variable pay; investing from personal…
Continue Reading
THIS IS A BIG JOB. No wonder Rogers Communications Group’s president and COO Nadir Mohamed doesn’t want to talk about succession. He’s got lots on his plate to worry about now, rather than what his next job might be.
Besides, last week’s National Post Business article beat that story to death (and then some) last week.
What we wanted to know is where the company’s priorities lay. What’s job one for him rightnow? How is he going to bring together two disparate groups (cable and wireless, together a $5 billion business), two completely different technological platforms, into a cohesive,…
Continue Reading
