Saskatchewan Telecommunications Holding Corp. announced Monday it has partnered with the University of Regina to deploy new wireless technology manufactured by Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. It said in the press release that the new technology, called heterogenous networks or HetNet, “consists of a variety of technologies and frequencies in various locations that work together to deliver a high quality user experience,” and in order to achieve this, SaskTel utilized LTE products such...
If industry and regulators spent much of 2014 talking about the future of TV in Canada, 2016 will provide the first glimpse of what that future might look like. “If 2015 was the year for announcing changes, I guess 2016 will be the year for actually making the changes and implementing them, because there are a lot of things that the CRTC had put out last year and a lot of them come into effect this year,” 3Macs analyst Troy Crandall said in a phone interview. The biggest of those will be the CRTC’s implementation of the new skinny basic and pick-and-pay rules, which came out of its Let’s Talk TV proceeding on the future of television. By March, TV providers will be required to offer a skinny basic TV package, priced at no more than $25 a month, and either...
The Toronto branch of the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA) announced Friday the appointment of Alistair Hepburn as the new director of independent and broadcast production. It said in the press...
The Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services (CCTS) said in a press release Friday it will be responsible for administering the CRTC's new television service provider code of conduct. The new TV code, which...
Television service providers have another 20 months before they are forced to abide by a new code governing their relationship with customers. The CRTC on Thursday released a finalized version of its television service provider...
Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron announced Thursday it has acquired Fibrenoire, a company that provides fibre-optic connectivity services to businesses, for $125 million. It said in a press release that acquiring the company would help “meet the growing demand from business customers for...
Shaw Communications Inc. on Wednesday began publicizing the first phase in a transformation of its television service that it hopes gives consumers reason to choose its TV service over competitors and over the option of having no TV service at all. It announced the availability of an application called FreeRange TV, which Shaw chief operating officer Jay Mehr said will allow the company's TV customers to get the full range of their TV subscriptions on mobile devices within their homes or while out and about. "We think it's a major step forward," he said in a phone interview. "The ability to take everything you subscribe to on your TV, at no extra charge, onto your...
Netflix Inc. announced Wednesday that its streaming service is now available to customers in more than 130 new countries, tripling its international availability. "Today you are witnessing the birth of a new global Internet...
The Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA) announced Wednesday the appointment of Laurie McAllister as the new director of ACTRA's performers’ rights society and its recording artists’ collecting society. It said in a press release that McAllister joins ACTRA with experience in...
BCE Inc. announced Wednesday it has signed a partnership deal with iHeartMedia Inc. in order to bring iHeartRadio, the free digital radio and music streaming service based in the U.S., to Canada this year. It said in a press...
Cogeco Inc. has sold its Cogeco Métromédia, which focuses on out-of-home advertising in the public transit sector, to BCE Inc.'s media division, Cogeco said in a press release. The release, issued Tuesday, did...
CraveTV will be available online to all Canadians some time this month, a spokesman from BCE Inc.'s Bell Media division said Tuesday, and access did not open up on Jan. 1, which had previously been the announced plan....
BCE Inc. has opened up its battle against the CRTC's plan to ban simultaneous substitution during the Super Bowl on another front. On Dec. 14, Bell filed for leave to appeal against a particular...
Having premium content on linear TV and on over-the-top (OTT) services can cause adverse effects on revenue growth and will cause consumers to expect lower costs for premium TV content, according to a...
BlackBerry Ltd. did not provide figures on smartphone sales for its third fiscal quarter, leaving it undisclosed how well its first smartphones to run on Android software are selling. The Canadian smartphone-maker and...
Financial analysts said Thursday that the surprising move by Shaw Communications Inc. to buy Wind Mobile means any potential merger between Shaw and Rogers Communications Inc. won’t happen any time soon, though some maintained it’s possible in the longer term if the government is on board. Shaw announced Wednesday that it plans to enter the wireless market by buying Wind for $1.6 billion, with executives arguing that strategy was a better bet than if it had bought and deployed spectrum by itself at an earlier date. Canaccord Genuity analyst Aravinda Galappatthige said in a note...
The economics of entering Canada’s wireless market through the acquisition of Wind Mobile today are better than past opportunities Shaw Communications Inc. has had to enter the mobile sector,...
Video-streaming service Shomi is temporarily doubling the length of its free trial offer to new subscribers to two months, it said Wednesday. Shomi, which is jointly operated by Rogers Communications Inc. and Shaw Communications...
BCE Inc.’s Bell Media said Wednesday that Kristie Painting will be its new vice-president of digital sales as of Jan. 4. It said in a press release that she was most recently vice-president of sales for Checkout 51, a...
The Jim Pattison Group announced Wednesday in a press release it has appointed Ross Winters as its new director of programming. It said in the release that Winters will support program directors who are responsible for programming and content on the company's 43 radio stations in Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan...
In a survey of Canadian adults, 57 per cent said they are most likely to notice an advertisement while watching TV, compared to 13 per cent who said they were most likely to do so while listening to the radio and only two per cent who said they were likely to do so watching video content on a mobile device, according to a new survey conducted by Thinktv Inc. that was released Wednesday. Thinktv, which recently changed its name from the Television Bureau of Canada, is an industry association that promotes television advertising. The report said among millennials specifically, or adults aged...
The CRTC has denied a request by BCE Inc.'s Bell Media division to delete a condition of licence for its French-language specialty channel Vrak.TV that requires it to show 104 hours of original,...
DHX Media Ltd. said Wednesday that it has reached a long-term deal with toymaker Mattel Inc. to produce and develop content based on brands such as Bob the Builder, Fireman Sam, Little People and Polly Pocket. DHX said in a news...
Rogers Communications Inc. announced Wednesday a new portfolio of cybersecurity solutions for Canadian businesses to detect and prevent global cyber-attacks. It said in the press release that the service will provide business...
The CRTC has denied TekSavvy Solutions Inc.'s request for interim relief in a situation where Rogers Communications Inc. is slated to replace some legacy cable in a Toronto neighbourhood with...
Netflix Inc. is re-encoding its entire library of content in order to provide customers with a better experience for watching content while using less bandwidth to process it. The company said in a blog Monday that the...
The Television Bureau of Canada, which represents Canada's commercial TV industry, has rebranded itself as ThinkTV. Its old name and logo had been in place since the organization started in 1961, it said in a press release last week. “As a resource for advertisers and agencies, [Thinktv]...
Cision, a multinational provider of media-intelligence services, announced Tuesday it has reached a deal to buy PR Newswire from UBM PLC. Cision said in a news release that PR Newswire, which operates a website for hosting news releases and other materials from various organizations, is "the largest distribution...
Channel Zero Inc. said Friday that it has restructured the news operations for CHCH-TV, the Hamilton TV station it owns, and that the company that produced news for the channel, Channel 11 L.P., has filed for bankruptcy. Channel Zero said in a press release that the changes, which include fewer hours of news programming, were made so that the...
Cogeco Cable Inc.’s Canadian cable division has appointed Daniel Boisvert as vice-president of marketing and innovation, and Antoine Shiu as vice-president of business solutions sales, it said in a press release Monday. Cogeco said in the release that Boisvert will provide leadership on rolling out products and services, as well as being in charge of launching a “new brand expression,” for Cogeco Cable Canada in the Ontario and Quebec regions. The release said that Shiu will be responsible for growing the business customer base by developing offerings to match the needs of...
BCE Inc. announced Monday that subscribers of Bell’s Fibe TV and Bell Alliant’s FibreOP TV will have access to their Netflix Inc. account directly from their TV receivers. It said in the release that all Fibe TV...
Blue Ant Media Inc. announced Monday it has partnered with Smithsonian Networks, a joint venture between CBS Corp.’s Showtime and the Smithsonian Institution, to create Blue Skye Entertainment,...
Yahoo Inc. announced Thursday the launch of its Yahoo Video Guide mobile app for customers in the United States to search for video content across multiple services they have installed on their devices. The company said in a blog...
The Canadian Media Production Association (CMPA) announced Friday it has agreed on terms for a new three-year agreement with the Directors Guild of Canada (DGC). It said in a press release that the renewed agreement, which will...
The CRTC on Friday approved requests from BCE Inc. to delete many genre-related terms on its licences for three different specialty channels, but it was denied in all three instances its requests that the requirement that 25 per cent of Canadian programming, other than news, current affairs and sports, come from independent production companies. That applications related to Bell Media's Book Television, MTV2 and Fashion Television channels. Consistent with its decision last March in which it eliminated most conditions of genre protection for specialty channels, the CRTC approved...
Rogers Communications Inc. announced Friday that its customers will now have access to its customer care service on Facebook Inc.’s Messenger. It said in a press release that the service is available for all consumer...
Canadian millennials, defined as individuals aged 18 to 34, spend 31.8 hours a week on the Internet and are more likely to watch TV and video content online than those aged 34 and above, who...
The CRTC announced Thursday new measures for informing Canadians about charges associating to long-distance calls made from a payphone. The regulator said in a press release that Canadians will be provided with detailed information regarding the costs that come from making such calls when using a credit card or other forms...
DHX Media Ltd. announced Thursday it has been commissioned by BBC’s children's broadcasting arm, CBBC, in the U.K. to produce two seasons of Airmageddon, a new TV show for kids that features competitive radio-controlled...
Amazon.com Inc. announced Tuesday it is launching an over-the-top (OTT) streaming subscription program for video providers to reach out to Amazon Prime members, and will also allow Prime members to add other video subscription...
Three board members of Powermat Technologies Ltd., a maker of wireless mobile-device chargers, are suing the company and CEO Thorsten Heins, accusing them of unauthorized operations that threaten the...
Otono Networks Inc. announced Wednesday it is launching next year in the U.S. a new prepaid wireless mobile service specifically for parents that will include two free lines for their kids. It said...
OTTAWA — Extending copyright terms from 50 to 70 years after the death of the author is necessary to boost investment in creative industries, Robert Hutton, executive director of the Canadian...
A Quebec TV station that focuses on disseminating public-safety and police-related information has filed a complaint against BCE Inc. for its impending exclusion of carriage of the channel, though the CRTC has ordered Bell to keep ADR.TV (Avis de recherche) available for subscribers at least until the matter is sorted out. According to a filing that appeared on the CRTC website on Tuesday, ADR is accusing Bell of several regulatory violations, including undue preference. ADR said in its application that by not carrying ADR, Bell gives an advantage to its own Canal D Investigation channel, which focuses on police investigations. ADR also said that Bell is acting against an order made by the CRTC at the time of its takeover of Astral Media that it not force TV channels it is negotiating carriage with to accept terms that are "commercially...
DHX Media Ltd. announced Tuesday it has signed a five-year deal with DreamWorks Animation LLC to produce, broadcast and distribute content across several channels. DHX said in the press release that it will be co-producing 130...
Verizon Communications Inc. would consider buying Yahoo Inc.'s core Internet business, which includes its email, news and sports sites, as well as its advertising technology, according to a report...
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has agreed to pay Apple Inc. more than $548 million US as determined in a court decision earlier this year related to an earlier ruling that Samsung infringed certain...
Yesterday's actions can have a profound influence on tomorrow. Such a notion might apply to a couple of decisions Shaw Communications Inc. has made in the last half-decade. The first of those was its 2010 move to spend $2 billion to purchase the broadcasting assets of Canwest Global Communications Corp., which included...
Audio and video traffic — or real-time entertainment — now accounts for more than 70 per cent of download traffic on fixed Internet networks during peak periods in North America, with Netflix Inc.'s share now 37.1 per cent, an increase from 36.5 per cent a year earlier, according to a report released Monday from Sandvine Inc. Sandvine said in the report that other real-time entertainment sites also showed gains in their download traffic, including Google Inc.’s YouTube accounting for 17.85 per cent, Amazon.com Inc.’s Amazon Video making up for 3.11 per cent and Hulu representing 2.58 per cent. According to the report, real-time entertainment traffic during peak...
MONTREAL — A panel discussing discoverability of content at a CRTC event Thursday stressed the importance of recommendations and curation as strategies to help viewers find content in an environment with more options than ever. “Algorithms are necessary but not enough,” said Jean-François Gagnon,...
Worldwide wearable shipments rose 197.6 per cent with 21 million units shipped in the third quarter this year, up from 7.1 million units in the same period a year earlier, according to a new report released Thursday...
Google Inc. is folding its music-streaming service Songza into a new ad-supported, free tier of Google Play Music. Wendy Manton, a Google spokeswoman, said in an email that this is happening everywhere Songza had been available,...
Shaw Communications Inc. announced Wednesday that all customers who are subscribed to its Internet 30, or any broadband Internet plan above that, will have access to download speeds six times faster when connected to any of the...
The CRTC is asking Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron to answer 16 questions regarding its Unlimited Music service, including why it chose to launch a zero-rating service rather than increase data caps....
The Canadian Media Production Association (CMPA) announced Wednesday it has appointed Marcia Douglas as the new director for business affairs and digital initiatives. CMPA said in a press release...
Rogers Communications Inc. announced Wednesday it has signed an agreement with the Centre de services partagés du Quebec (CSPQ) to continue its wireless services for up to 10 years with the...
The use of data analytics to build a global audience steered much of the discussion around content discoverability at an event hosted by the CRTC in collaboration with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). The panel of experts...
The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) has granted Eric Baptiste another five-year term as CEO. SOCAN said in a press release that the reappointment will extend Baptiste's tenure with the group until 2021. SOCAN spokesman Andrew Berthoff said in an email that the next term goes from May 2016 to May 2021. It said since Baptiste was first appointed CEO in 2010, the collective has increased its membership by 30 per cent to more than 130,000 and the number of businesses licensed to use music that members have rights to has increased from less than 42,000 to...
Global tablet shipments will be down 8.1 per cent for 2015 overall, though tablets with detachable keyboards are expected to see strong growth for this year and in 2016, according to International Data Corp. The technology...
Wind Mobile announced Tuesday it is partnering with Lifeline Syria, a non-profit organization that helps Syrian refugees with the relocation process in Canada, to provide incoming refugees with mobile phones and wireless service...
Rogers Communications Inc. announced Tuesday it has acquired Internetworking Atlantic Inc., a Halifax based communications technology company that offers a range of IT products and solutions to government agencies, institutions...
BlackBerry Ltd. said Monday that it will stop operating its BES enterprise servers in Pakistan as of Dec. 30 due to the insistence of the Pakistani government that it get "unfettered access" to communications on the servers. A blog post by Marty Beard, BlackBerry's chief operating officer, initially said BES...
OTTAWA — Canada's major TV service providers argued before the Copyright Board of Canada on Monday that they should pay less for distant-TV signals because these channels are losing value as more viewing options become available to consumers. It was the fifth day of a hearing scheduled to last until Friday, along with final arguments slated for Jan. 26 and 27. Before Monday, collectives representing broadcasters, producers and others holding the rights to programming had been arguing that the rate TV service providers pay for each subscriber who receives one or more out-of-market...
OTTAWA — David Purdy, senior vice-president of content at Rogers Communications Inc., said Monday that he will leave the company and that an official announcement will be issued later this week. Purdy told the Copyright Board of Canada, during a hearing to set the royalty rates that TV...
As the Canadian TV industry approaches an era where customers have more choice over the channels they subscribe to, large broadcasters should “pick their winners” and consolidate into a...
Blue Ant Media Inc.’s international division announced Friday it has made sales of more than 175 hours of content from its catalogue of factual, factual entertainment, nature and wildlife, lifestyle and documentary series to...
The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with the Society for Reproduction Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers in Canada (SODRAC) in a dispute with CBC/Radio-Canada over whether the latter should pay for “broadcast-incidental copies” of musical works for television or Internet productions CBC had been...
On-demand viewing delivers “bonus audiences for programs,” since the number of people watching on-demand programs amounts to five to 10 per cent of the original broadcast audience,...
BCE Inc.'s Bell Media division said Thursday that the top five entertainment specialty programs in Canada this fall were all on its channels, according to data from viewership tracker Numeris. Bell Media said in a press...
The University of Northern British Columbia said Thursday that former industry minister James Moore has been named its next chancellor. The Prince George, B.C.-based school said in a press release that Moore, who was industry...
Leslie Church, head of communications and public affairs at Google Inc.’s Canadian division, is Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly’s new chief of staff. She said on Twitter Thursday that she was “very...
Television remains the main source of news for most anglophone Canadians, though the Internet is becoming increasingly used as individuals' primary way of getting news, according to survey results released Wednesday. Media Technology Monitor, a project of CBC/Radio-Canada, released a report that indicated that 34 per cent of anglophone news consumers, 18 years of age or older, considered the Internet as their main source of news. This was out of the 97 per cent per cent of respondents who said they accessed a news source within the previous month. This was based on surveys taken in the...
BCE Inc.'s challenge to the CRTC's decision to ban mobile-TV plans where data used does not count against customers' data caps will be heard before the Federal Court of Appeal on Jan. 19. A notice in the case file on the court's website indicates the hearing will be held in Toronto. Telecom researcher Ben Klass, who launched the...
OTTAWA — Rights holders of programming shown over distant TV signals are seeking to at least double the amount of money they receive from TV service providers, on a per subscriber basis, for...
The CRTC approved an application by Torres Media asking for permission to acquire, from Radio Express Inc., and continue operating CKOD-FM, a French-language radio station located in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Que., about an hour...
Saskatchewan Telecommunications Holding Corp. announced Tuesday it is introducing new roaming rates and five new roaming add-on plans for customers traveling outside of Canada. It said in a press release that the new rates, part...
Blue Ant Media Inc.’s international division announced Tuesday in a press release that it has signed a multi-year, exclusive distribution deal with Cream Productions Inc., an international factual content creator based in Toronto. “Blue Ant International’s non-fiction catalogue continues to grow exponentially and adding Cream Productions’ top-tier content to our offering emphasizes our promise to deliver a reliable pipeline of high quality content,” Solange Attwood, senior vice-president at Blue Ant International, said in the release. “Cream...
The Canadian Media Fund (CMF) said Monday it providing $2.5 million for 10 productions as part of its diverse languages program. CMF said in a press release that the funding will support productions that reflect Canadian diversity and are in languages other than English, French or Aboriginal languages. The 10 productions...
Stingray Digital Group Inc. has appointed Tom Pentefountas as senior vice-president of sales for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. A press release Monday said that the former vice-chairman of broadcasting for the CRTC...
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...
Rob Farina has resigned as vice-president of content with Rogers Communications Inc.'s media division, the company has confirmed, following a report he called for a boycott of a record company he...
BCE Inc.’s media division said Thursday that it is now the sole operator of HBO Canada, and that it has reached a deal with Time Warner Inc.’s HBO that will give it exclusive Canadian rights to all HBO programming on...
When Channel Zero Inc. announced the launch of its Bloomberg TV Canada channel this week, it listed every TV-service provider that was carrying it and absent from that list was Canada's biggest provider of TV service. Channel...
Most Canadians who subscribe to TV services do not intend to scale back their TV packages after the CRTC starts requiring $25 skinny-basic packages and pick-and-pay options next year, according to a new survey. Survey results released Thursday by the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing's Canadian...
DHX Media Ltd. announced Thursday it has signed a distribution deal for one of its cartoon shows, called Endangered Species, with seven international broadcasters and video-on-demand (VOD) services. It said in the press release...
Blue Ant Media Inc. on Wednesday announced several changes to its leadership team, including the appointment of Jamie Schouela to the newly created position of executive vice-president of Canadian networks. Blue Ant said in a press release that Schouela, who was formerly executive vice-president of marketing and communications, would now be in charge of the company's domestic TV and digital properties, with responsibilities including the implementation of its multi-platform content strategy and overseeing relationships with TV-service providers. It added that Simon Foster is moving from...
A judge has ordered Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron to pay back $6.4 million it improperly billed its customers, plus $1 million in punitive damages. Superior Court Judge Carole Hallée said in a Nov. 11 decision that...
Google Inc. announced Wednesday it is launching in Canada its YouTube app for children. It said in a blogpost that the YouTube Kids app will be a “safer version of YouTube, a family-friendly place for kids to explore...
Demand for affordable devices helped global sales of smartphones hit 353 million units in the third quarter of 2015, up 15.5 per cent from the same period a year earlier, Gartner Inc. said Wednesday. The research company said in a press release that Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. “refreshed its flagship devices,” in order to address...
News anchor Carol Anne Meehan, who has been with BCE Inc.’s Ottawa CTV station for 26 years, is among those who lost their job as part of cuts at Bell Media Tuesday. The Ottawa Citizen reported that Meehan confirmed to the...
Telus Corp. and Cogeco Cable Inc. have filed their opposition to BCE Inc.'s attempt to fight, before the Federal Court of Appeal, the CRTC's wholesale code governing relationships between television stations and TV-service providers. In a memorandum filed Monday, Telus disputed Bell's argument that the CRTC's attempt to impose a wholesale code violates both the Broadcasting Act and the Copyright Act. Telus argued in its filing that the Broadcasting Act gives the CRTC the mandate to determine policies that give Canadians more choice in TV services. "The...
Seven out of every 10 Canadian between the ages of 18 and 34 have a subscription-TV service in their home, while that proportion is 87 per cent for those 35 and older, according to a new report from...
A group that previously battled MAtv, the community channel operated by Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron, is telling the CRTC that MAtv is still violating the conditions of its licence months after a...
The National Hockey League's Ottawa Senators announced Tuesday it has partnered with Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., making the Chinese equipment maker the club's "official smartphone supplier." Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson, who was visiting Huawei's research-and-development facilities on Tuesday, said in a news release issued by the...
Numeris announced Tuesday it has appointed Neil McEneaney as its new CEO. The ratings measurement group said in a press release that McEneaney will be replacing Jim MacLeod, who had announced his retirement in April. Numeris said...
American Express Co. announced Tuesday that Apple Inc.’s Apple Pay is now available for its eligible customers and small businesses in Canada. American Express said that once customers add their American Express card to...
Pandora Media Inc. announced Monday it will be acquiring key assets from music streaming service Rdio Inc. for $75 million US. It said in a press release that it will be acquiring technology and intellectual property, as well as...
DHX Media Ltd. said in its 2016 first quarter results that its revenue in the three months ending Sept. 30 grew 48 per cent to $63.9 million from $43 million during the same period a year earlier. It said Monday that an increase in distribution accounted for 19 per cent revenue growth and "new...
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has directed Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains to increase “high-speed broadband coverage and work to support competition, choice and availability of...
BCE Inc. will cover about 90 per cent of its wireline footprint with fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) in a little less or a little more than a decade, though the issue of whether smaller Internet service providers will get mandated access to such networks will affect the build-out in an unspecified fashion, Bell CEO George Cope said Thursday. "I don't know if it will be eight years, I don't know if it will be 12 years, but we will have glass to 90 per cent of the homes, that being fibre to 90 per cent of the homes," he said during the Scotiabank Telecom & Cable Conference held...
