TAGGED AS GORD HENDREN
New OTT offerings pose threat to BDUs, opportunity for producers
Media | 08/17/2017 4:47 pm EDT
A proliferation of new streaming TV competition in Canada is set to benefit content producers even as it causes problems for the country’s broadcasters and TV service providers through fragmented audiences and higher content costs — though it doesn’t yet signal an...
Millennials driving OTA growth in Canada: report
Media | 07/20/2016 8:52 pm EDT
The over-the-air (OTA) market has been slowly growing over the past three years, according to data collected by Media Technology Monitor, a trend industry observers said doesn’t come as a surprise. According to a report released Wednesday by the CBC/Radio Canada research project, eight per cent of English-speaking Canadian adults indicated in a spring 2016 survey that they watched TV over-the-air. This was an increase from the seven per cent who said the same in the fall of 2015 and from six per cent in the fall of 2014. In the three years prior to 2014, the number remained stable at...
Sports now make up 50% of top 10 grossing channels: CRTC
Media | 06/23/2016 10:02 pm EDT
Sportsnet One and TVA Sports are, for the first time, in the top 10 highest-grossing TV channels, according to the CRTC’s latest stats on Canadian programming—and of those top 10, five are...
Exec cites ‘tipping point’ in customer demand as Sportsnet goes OTT
Media | 03/31/2016 10:46 pm EDT
Rogers Communications Inc. will begin offering its Sportsnet channels without a TV subscription for $24.99 per month, the company announced Thursday. Scott Moore, president of Sportsnet and NHL...
HBO deal bolsters CraveTV against Shomi, Netflix: experts
Media | 11/20/2015 10:15 pm EST
BCE Inc.’s move to acquire exclusive rights to HBO programming on all platforms and become the sole operator of HBO Canada will make its CraveTV over-the-top (OTT) service more competitive...
Telus among first to use new Ericsson TV interface
Media | 09/10/2015 8:37 pm EDT
Ericsson AB announced on Thursday that its cloud-based TV platform, MediaFirst, is now commercially available to operators and content providers, noting that Telus Corp. will be utilizing the service to enhance service for its TV...
Videotron 4K box seen as cord-cutting prevention
Media | 08/11/2015 8:58 pm EDT
Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron announced Tuesday it will be releasing an ultra-high-definition (UHD) set-top-box for its customers, making it the first Canadian telecom provider to commercially release such technology. Videotron said in a press release that the set-top-box processing speed will be 12 times faster than what is currently available in the market, allowing customers to navigate through content choices four times faster, record eight shows simultaneously, and store about 320 hours of standard HD content or 115 hours of UHD content. Manon Brouillette, CEO of Videotron, said in a...
Sports channels drive specialty-channel revenue boost: CRTC
Media | 06/04/2015 8:50 pm EDT
In recent years, it has almost become conventional wisdom in the industry that sports content is a good way for broadcasters to buffer themselves from trends toward cord-cutting and online video, and...
Rogers’ hockey content brings Sportsnet neck-to-neck with TSN
Media | 06/02/2015 9:22 pm EDT
Rogers Communications Inc. and BCE Inc. both used Numeris data Tuesday to proclaim their sports channel is No. 1 in the market, a virtual tie that Rogers said was enabled by its hockey content....
Rogers enjoying playoff boost, but benefits hard to quantify
Media | 04/17/2015 7:54 pm EDT
Having five Canadian teams reach the NHL playoffs for the first time in more than a decade is set to translate into a winning season for Rogers Communications Inc. as it completes the first...
News channels face funding challenges after CRTC decision
Media | 04/01/2015 8:22 pm EDT
Canada’s national news channels face new obligations from the CRTC even as the regulator is taking away their place on basic cable, raising questions about their future finances. Last month, as...
Proposed BDU code inconsistent with unregulated OTT: consultant
Media | 03/26/2015 9:04 pm EDT
The CRTC’s proposed new code of conduct for television service providers is at odds with the commission’s stance that it won’t regulate over-the-top (OTT) services, according to...
CRTC dismisses Bell’s complaint against Rogers’ hockey app
Media | 03/16/2015 8:32 pm EDT
The CRTC has dismissed a complaint by BCE Inc. against Rogers Communications Inc.’s GamePlus service, ruling that Rogers could offer the NHL hockey app exclusively to its own customers because the content wasn’t produced primarily for traditional television. The regulator said in the decision that the CRTC...
Bell Media ‘extremely disappointed’ by Super Bowl simsub decision
Media | 01/29/2015 2:27 pm EST
The CRTC said Thursday that it would prohibit the use of simultaneous substitution for the Super Bowl, but would otherwise keep the practice in place, in an approach BCE Inc.’s media division...
Live sports, the lynchpin of traditional TV, making inroads to OTT
Media | 01/08/2015 10:16 pm EST
As new over-the-top (OTT) services continue to be launched both in Canada and the United States, online alternatives for live sports have also been increasing. But in a world where live sports...
CRTC decisions, new streaming services top TV agenda for 2015
Media | 12/17/2014 12:50 pm EST
It seems all eyes are on the two newest services in the Canadian TV industry. This fall, the country’s biggest telecom and media companies launched streaming services meant to compete with Netflix Inc.’s, and how they end up performing in the coming weeks and months is “the thing that everyone’s watching,” said broadcasting consultant Peter Miller. The industry will be looking at how Rogers Communications Inc. and Shaw Communications Inc.’s Shomi and BCE Inc.’s CraveTV develop, and “whether they do what proponents of those...
What happens to VOD in an OTT world?
Media | 11/28/2014 4:50 pm EST
The launch of new streaming services from Canada’s biggest TV providers adds yet another option for viewers who want to catch up on or try out a new show, raising the question of whether they will complement — or...
TV-everywhere not on public’s radar: study
Media | 11/19/2014 12:19 am EST
Canadian broadcast distributors need to do more to increase awareness and usage of their TV-everywhere products, according to Gord Hendren, president of Charlton Strategic Research, which produced a report on the subject....
Montreal’s Aldea capitalizes on sports’ international appeal
Media | 07/15/2014 4:00 pm EDT
MONTREAL — Over the past month, 32 soccer teams played 64 matches in Brazil while millions around the world tuned in. As those transmissions were reaching their destinations around the globe, many of those signals were monitored through an unassuming office building near the Pierre Elliott Trudeau airport in...