CCR Update

Rogers renews agreement to carry Astral Television’s The Movie Network, Super ÉcranAstral Television Networks and Rogers Cable Inc. have signed a long-term affiliation agreement for the continued carriage of Astral’s The Movie Network and Super Écran on all Rogers systems in eastern Canada. As is usually the case, terms of the agreement were not revealed. More details. Bell ExpressVu adds channels to digital lineupBell ExpressVu LP has added a number of local TV channels to its Locals package. The direct-to-home satellite TV distributor has added CITL-TV and CKSA-TV Lloydminster, owned by Midwest Broadcasting, to its offering in the Lloydminster broadcast areas, which includes Bonnyville, St. Paul, Cold Lake, Wainwright, Provost and Meadow Lake. CFTK-TV Terrace-Kitimat, owned by Standard Radio, has been added to ExpressVu’s Locals package in British Columbia’s Northwest region, which includes Terrace, Prince Rupert, Smithers and area. As well, CJDC-TV Dawson Creek is now available to ExpressVu subscribers in British Columbia’s Peace Country communities, which includes Dawson Creek, Fort St. John, Chetwynd, Hudson Hope, Taylor and Pouce Coupe. Bell ExpressVu renews agreement to offer NHL gamesBell ExpressVu LP has renewed an agreement with the National Hockey League to offer its subscribers more than 1,000 hockey games this season as part of its NHL Centre Ice package. The NHL and ExpressVu signed a four-year deal that will see NHL Centre Ice deliver up to 40 hockey games each week from regional, national and U.S. locations, and select coverage of the first two rounds of the Stanley Cup playoffs. A free preview of the service will be offered to ExpressVu customers from October 9-15. The package costs $199 per season, with a discounted rate of $179 available if purchased before October 8. More details. Access to use ICTV software to offer interactive servicesCable operator Access Communications has inked a deal with California-based ICTV to use its HeadendWare software platform to offer its digital cable subscribers in Regina interactive services, most immediately Internet on TV. More details. CBC Edmonton operations to move downtownThe Canadian Broadcasting Corp.’s television and radio operations in Edmonton will move downtown to a new, modern, digital broadcast facility at the Edmonton City Centre. The move is partly in response to the public broadcaster’s need to increase its visibility and interaction with the community. "At the same time, bringing our operations under one roof will lead to more cohesive, efficient and streamlined operations, and to corporate-wide synergies," says CBC president and CEO Robert Rabinovitch. Currently, the CBC occupies 70,000 square feet at the TV Building on 75th Street, and 48,000 square feet at the Radio Building on 51st Avenue. Both the radio and television divisions will occupy 38,700 square feet at the Edmonton City Centre beginning in November 2003. The CBC has an overall plan to centralize its French and English operations and its radio and television divisions under one roof in central locations of major cities across Canada. More details. CTF provides 30 per cent of funding for distinctly Canadian programmingThe Canadian Television Fund (CTF) contributes on average about 30 per cent of the financing required to produce distinctively Canadian shows, according to the latest activity report released by the fund on September 30. Last year, the CTF contributed $241 million to the creation of 583 television and film productions. The CTF’s annual activity report includes statistical analysis, figures, trends and commentary on the state of distinctively Canadian television programming. Galaxie adding 15 new music channels to lineupThe Canadian Broadcasting Corp.’s commercial-free digital music service Galaxie is adding 15 new channels in 2003. According to Galaxie GM Alain Pineau, the new channels will soon be available over ISP provider Telus Corp.’s network. Broadcast distributors will add the channels once they have the capacity, he adds, indicating that in Bell ExpressVu’s case that won’t be until the Nimiq 2 satellite is launched in the first quarter of 2003. The new channels include a Celtic one, which is currently being offered on Aliant’s Music on my PC service (CCR, Sept. 12/02), and other channels aimed mostly at the younger and senior demographics. For example, a new hip hop channel is aimed at youth, while a channel featuring the likes of Frank Sinatra is targeting a much older crowd. CRTC suspension of Vidéotron’s request for deregulation continues to standThe CRTC’s suspension in mid-August of Quebecor Media’s request for deregulation of basic cable rates in its CF Câble TV inc. cable system in Montreal and its Vidéotron ltée systems in Chicoutimi and Sherbrooke will likely stand until Vidéotron complies with a CRTC ruling regarding affiliation payments to Le Réseau des sports inc. (RDS) (CCR, Sept. 26/02). Following objections to the deregulation request by NetStar Communications Inc., RDS and Les Chaînes Télé Astral, the CRTC asked Quebecor for an auditor’s report on how subscribers in multiple dwelling units are counted. Cablecos can apply for basic rate deregulation if they can prove a 5% drop in their subscriber base (CCR, May 24/01). More details. Sales of CSI: Miami could buoy Alliance AtlantisAlliance Atlantis Entertainment Group announced robust sales of the second installment of the company’s CSI franchise – CSI: Miami. Sales have already been closed for the television series in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia, Latin America and several Asian countries. The company anticipates that sales will match those of the original series, which is sold in over 150 territories. CSI: Miami premiered on CBS on September 23 as the highest rated one-hour drama debut to air on any network in the past eight years. Alliance Atlantis has cut back on its overall production to concentrate more on its broadcast assets, but president and CEO Michael MacMillan said during a recent financial update that the CSI franchise would net the company large gains in a couple of years when payment for rebroadcast rights comes due. More details.CTV didn’t breach content codes with The Sopranos, Broadcast Standards Council rulesThe Canadian Broadcast Standards Council said October 1 that CTV Inc. did not violate industry content codes in airing the second season of The Sopranos at 10 p.m. during the fall of 2001. But the council did chide the network for failing to provide a classification icon, indicating the show was violent, at 11 p.m. Episodes of The Sopranos broadcast on CTV frequently run longer than the program’s one-hour time slot by as much as ten minutes. More details. O’Farrell to speak to Vancouver Board of Trade prior to CAB conventionGlenn O’Farrell, president and CEO of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB), will discuss the economic, social and cultural impacts of private broadcasting in a speech to the Vancouver Board of Trade on October 17 at the Pan Pacific Vancouver Hotel. The speech is scheduled just prior to the CAB’s convention, running October 20-22, in Vancouver. Gap between low-income and high-income earners’ use of the Internet narrowing: StatsCanThe gap in the level of Internet use at home between lower-income and upper-income families is slowly narrowing, according to figures released October 1 by Statistics Canada. However, the rate of use by middle-income and upper-middle income groups is improving the most. In 2000, 77 per cent of households with the highest 10 per cent of incomes used the Internet, five times the rate of 15 per cent among those with the lowest 10 per cent of incomes. Nonetheless, the proportion of new users coming from households with lower incomes has been increasing. Households in the bottom two income brackets accounted for about 7 per cent of new Internet users in 2000, up from only 4 per cent four years earlier. The data is contained in StatsCan’s latest Household Internet Use Survey. More details. INTERNATIONAL NEWS FCC seeks comment on studies on media marketplaceThe Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is seeking comment on 12 empirical studies on the current state of the media marketplace that it released October 1. Comments received will become part of the regulator’s third Biennial Regulatory Review of Broadcast Ownership Rules. Comments are due December 2, with the deadline for reply comments set for January 2, 2003. The studies include A Theory of Broadcast Media Concentration and Commercial Advertising, by Brendan Cunningham (Department of Economics, U.S. Naval Academy) and Peter Alexander (Media Bureau, FCC), and Broadcast Television: Survivors in a Sea of Competition, by Jonathan Levy, Anne Levine and Marcelino Ford-Livene. More details. Economic slowdown leads to cutbacks in interactive TV sectorInteractive TV players WorldGate Communications Inc. and OpenTV Corp. are laying off 50 and 60 employees respectively as an economic slowdown has cut off investment dollars. OpenTV’s cuts were expected with the inclusion of Liberty Media Group, and will involve the closing of its regional office in Naperville, Illinois. WorldGate plans to cut 50 full-time equivalent positions, and implement structural changes. Cable modem customers top 10 million in U.S.Cable operators in the United States will have topped 10 million high-speed Internet customers at September 30, 2002, according to the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA). According to the organization, high-speed Internet access through cable modems is now available to 75 million U.S. households. More details. More gov’t funding needed for public broadcasters’ conversion to digitalEight lawmakers on the U.S. House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet have suggested that Congress should better fund public stations’ conversion to digital TV. "There’s a great case for assisting public television," New York Democrat Elliot Engel was quoted as saying by Multichannel News. There has been much discussion of late as to whether realistically U.S. broadcasters will be able to make the 2006 deadline for complete conversion to digital. According to the Federal Communications Commission’s latest figures, only 552 of the 1,504 television stations granted digital TV construction permits are actually operating in digital. Some cable industry presentations to the subcommittee: Insight Communications Crown Media United States FCC member opposes taxing broadband to subsidize phone service in remote areasFederal Communications Commission member Kevin Martin says that cable operators shouldn’t have to contribute part of their revenues from providing Internet access to the government fund that subsidizes phone service in remote areas. According to Multichannel News, he thinks putting a levy on broadband would hinder deployment of Internet access. The FCC is considering requiring cable operators to contribute part of their broadband revenues to the fund.

CCR Update

News | 10/02/2002 4:00 am EDT

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