Cogeco Cable Inc. said Monday it is now offering its TiVo Inc. service to customers in Quebec. Cogeco Cable Canada CEO Louise St-Pierre said in a Monday news release that the service ensures “there will always be something worth watching.” The company’s partnership with TiVo allows customers to access IPTV content as well as online services such as Netflix Inc., via a set-top box. Cogeco said in the release that the TiVo service features an integrated search function that scans live TV, recorded programs, on-demand and Netflix content to give users options. The Cogeco...
Customers of Rogers Communications Inc.’s Fido subsidiary will receive free access to Spotify AB’s premium music-streaming service for two years, the company said Monday. “Plug in and escape, anytime, anywhere, and listen to anything you're into,” Rogers said in a press release. Spotify’s premium service usually costs $9.99 a month and allows users to listen to music off-line with no ads or restrictions on the songs customers can play and when they can play them, according to Spotify’s website. Rogers spokeswoman Michelle Kelly said in an email that data used in Spotify streaming will count against data caps. Also, Sony Corp. confirmed in a blog post Monday that Spotify is now available on PlayStation 3 and 4 gaming consoles, and is intended to replace a service called Music Unlimited. The...
CBC/Radio-Canada and the Society for Reproduction Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers in Canada (SODRAC) recently argued before the Supreme Court of Canada over whether a tariff on “broadcast incidental...
Apple Inc. is reportedly planning to launch its own music-streaming service, according to the New York Times. The streaming service will be part of a “sweeping overhaul” of the company’s music services, the...
BCE Inc. is asking its shareholders to vote against a proposal at the company’s April 13 annual general meeting that would impose a quota on the number of women on its board of directors....
Nielsen Co., the which measures viewership for TV shows, will start assessing audiences for online streaming services such as Netflix Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.'s Prime this year, according to a Bloomberg report. “That...
A government committee in Quebec is recommending the province study the idea of applying a tax on residential Internet service for the purpose of supporting cultural industries. It's among 71 recommendations from the Quebec taxation review committee, published Wednesday in the province's budget document for 2015-16. The budget also indicated that the government intends to amend the Consumer Protection Act in order to block Internet access to gaming and gambling sites not approved by government-owned Loto-Québec, "who will become the exclusive operator of the online game...
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...
Shaw Communications Inc. has filed a review-and-vary application with the CRTC in an attempt to get higher prices for providing wholesale Internet access to third-party providers. Earlier this month, the CRTC ordered Shaw to...
BCE Inc. is not seeking costs from the Canadian Network Operators Consortium (CNOC) in the early part of the appeals process in relation to a CRTC decision to force it treat data used in its mobile-TV...
The Competition Bureau said Wednesday it will not challenge Postmedia Network Canada Corp.’s purchase of Quebecor Inc.’s English-language Sun Media newspapers. The bureau said in a Wednesday release that the proposed acquisition is unlikely to lessen or prevent competition, citing several reasons including that Postmedia’s broadsheet...
CRTC Chairman Jean-Pierre Blais on Wednesday issued a statement warning about the seriousness of "manipulating news coverage" in the wake of a report that a prominent BCE Inc. executive did...
An Ottawa consulting company says IPTV services aren’t absorbing the exodus of cable customers at the same rate as they used to. TV-industry consulting company Boon Dog Professional Services...
Google Inc. said Tuesday it has appointed Ruth Porat, formerly chief financial officer at Morgan Stanley, as its new chief financial officer. Porat joined the bank in 1987, and led its investment in tech companies including...
The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) said Tuesday it has moved into new headquarters, though it has stayed in Montreal. SOCAN said in a press release that after 25 years in a downtown office...
BCE Inc. has asked the CRTC to approve the U.S-based Africa Channel for distribution in Canada. Currently, the channel is distributed in the United States and the Carribean, the channel’s chief financial officer, Fred Paccone, wrote in a letter included in the application posted on the CRTC's website Tuesday. He said the channel is “a showcase for the African continent’s most outstanding English-language television series, specials, documentaries, feature films, music, soaps, biographies, current business analysis, cultural and historical programs.” He added that...
The Federal Court of Appeal has dismissed a motion by BCE Inc. to extend the deadline by which it has to comply with a CRTC ruling on its mobile-TV service. Bell had asked the court for a...
CBC/Radio-Canada’s English-language conventional TV stations reported a loss of $20.9 million in the financial year ended on Aug. 31, 2014 despite an increase in revenue, which amounted to $799.5 million, according to...
Financial analysts reacting to the CRTC’s new pick-and-pay rules say they don’t expect the decision to have a major impact on the industry, though the broadcasting side of the business is...
Four of Canada's biggest wireless carriers are fighting a recent Federal Court decision that found that although a tariff charged for cellphone ringtone downloads is invalid, the carriers that paid it are not owed their money...
Quebecor Media Inc. said Friday it has upped its stake in TVA Group Inc. to more than 68 per cent from about 51 per cent. Quebecor Media, which is three-quarters owned by Quebecor Inc., said in a press release it bought 17.3 million Class B, non-voting shares in TVA for $97.9 million, raising the proportion of Class B shares it holds to 65 per cent from 41 per cent. The company said it bought the TVA share "for investment purposes and QMI has no present intention of acquiring additional securities of TVA."...
Streaming accounted for 27 per cent of U.S. music industry revenue last year, up from 21 per cent in 2013, the Record Industry Association of American (RIAA) said in report released Wednesday. The...
GATINEAU, Que. — While the public will generally back the CRTC's decision to require TV service providers to offer pick-and-pay to customers by the end of next year, they don't understand the full consequences for the Canadian TV industry, one media consultant said in the wake of Thursday's announcement....
BCE Inc. announced Wednesday it has extended its deal with the French Tennis Federation to broadcast the French Open through 2024. TSN and RDS will remain the exclusive Canadian home of the tennis Grand Slam tournament, the...
Sony Corp. said Wednesday it has launched a new online video-streaming service in New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. PlayStation Vue streams video from the Internet though PS3 or PS4 gaming consoles, Eric Lempel, vice-president...
BCE Inc.’s media division said in a press release Wednesday that its streaming service, CraveTV, is now available to customers of four small TV providers in Ontario. Bell Media said Hay Communications Co-operative Ltd.,...
The Competition Bureau on Wednesday disputed a report that a decision on an investigation it has been conducting into Google Inc.'s search and advertising businesses could be coming later that...
The CRTC’s decision last week up to eliminate an agreement governing contracts between independent producers and large broadcasters has angered and surprised the Canadian Media Production...
Nintendo Co. Ltd. said Tuesday that it was launching to joint venture with DeNA Co. Ltd. to produce video games for smartphones and tablets. Nintendo said it would work with DeNA, a company involved in mobile games and Internet...
The CRTC said Tuesday it is reviewing applications for licence renewals from three radio stations that have been cited in the past for not complying with licence terms. The commission said in a notice posted on its website that all three stations were identified for non-compliance in previous terms and were operating on shorter-than-usual licence renewals, which expire Aug. 31, so that an earlier review could take place. The stations in question include CPAM Radio Union.com Inc.'s CJWI, an ethnic radio station in Montreal, which had been identified of not living up to commitments for...
Jeffrey Orridge, former head of CBC/Radio-Canada’s sports division, has been named the new commissioner of the Canadian Football League. Orridge takes over for Mark Cohon, who served in the position for eight years....
The CRTC said it will be announcing a decision on Thursday afternoon related to its review of the television industry that focuses on "measures to maximize choice for Canadian television viewers." It's expected that the decision will address whether consumers have the right to pick their own channels in TV...
The number of Canadian broadband subscribers among the major publicly traded telecom service providers exceeded television subscribers for the first time in 2014. Data compiled by The Wire Report shows the overall number of TV subscribers at these companies, as recorded at the end of their last fiscal years, fell by almost...
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...
The Canadian Network Operators Consortium (CNOC) filed papers with the Federal Court of Appeal Monday asking that BCE Inc.'s appeal of a CRTC decision banning the way it bills for mobile-TV services be dismissed. CNOC said in its submission that Bell has failed to demonstrate that its Mobile TV app should not be subject to the Telecommunications Act because it is a broadcast service. CNOC said in its memorandum of fact and law the "the CRTC logically held that Bell Mobility’s transport of the Service to end users is subject to the Telecommunications Act." CNOC also...
Rogers Communications Inc. and the Competition Bureau announced Monday that they had reached an agreement to end legal proceedings against the carrier in relation to so-called premium texting services...
OTTAWA — The CRTC introduced a new category for video-on-demand services Thursday that allows them to offer content exclusive to certain TV service providers and operate under the digital-media exemption order, as long as they also offer that content online to all Canadians, though the consequences for Shomi and CraveTV remained unclear. In...
International Data Corp. has lowered its forecast for tablet and 2-in-1 hybrid shipments in 2015 following previous figures that showed the first ever year-on-year decline for this market in the fourth quarter of last year. IDC...
A new report from Ericsson AG suggests Apple Inc.’s upcoming Apple Watch could address a market that's far larger than what current wearable sales would indicate. In a worldwide study of...
Competitors will be harmed if BCE Inc. is not forced to comply with an April deadline in a CRTC directive to stop exempting its mobile-TV app from data caps, according to the Canadian Network...
Patrick Pichette, the Canadian chief financial officer of Google Inc., said in a web post Tuesday he will retire in the coming months to spend more time travelling with his wife Tamar. Pichette, who is from Montreal, according to...
The amount of video watched on smartphones and tablets doubled in 2014, according to a sub-sample used for Ooyala Inc.'s quarterly index. The online-video management company said in a report released Wednesday there had been...
Quebecor Inc. on Wednesday reported a net loss for the fourth quarter resulting largely from non-operational factors, while indicating major gains in its wireless operations' revenue and subscriber base. The company said in a...
Telus Corp. is spending $100 million to provide access to a fibre optic network to 90 per cent of the homes and businesses in the British Columbia communities of Kelowna and West Kelowna, it said Tuesday. It said in a press release that work began on the project in the fall and it expects the final premises to be connected by the spring of 2016. Telus said the connections will provide Internet speeds of up to 100 Mbps. It said the advanced network will help sectors such as health care, education and technology, and it will provide more reliability for home-based entertainment, alluding to...
The chief executive of the Royal Bank of Canada says his company is on a “collision course” with technology giants such as Apple Inc. and Google Inc. as the act of making payments with...
The Ontario government spent months preparing its position on regulating streaming services like that offered by Netflix Inc., according to documents cited in a blog by University of Ottawa law...
Apple Inc. unveiled new details about its upcoming Apple Watch on Monday, saying the wearable device will be available on April 24 in Canada and eight other countries. The watch will have 18 hours of...
A tariff on downloaded ringtones for cellphones has been declared invalid, but the wireless carriers who challenged it were denied the $12 million in paid royalties they were seeking back from the...
BCE Inc.’s appeal of a CRTC decision to ban the use of simultaneous substitution for the Super Bowl in future years could be a sign of more conflict and court challenges to come as the broadcasting industry awaits further decisions from the CRTC’s Let’s Talk TV review, some experts are warning. The Super Bowl decision is the second CRTC directive Bell has challenged at the Federal Court of Appeal in recent weeks, following its February challenge of a ruling that compelled it to treat video streamed through its mobile-TV app like any other data, broadcasting consultant...
OTTAWA — The retransmission of U.S. networks in Canada is the equivalent of Aereo, the service ruled illegal by the U.S. Supreme Court last year, Kevin Crull, president of BCE Inc.'s media...
OTTAWA — Kevin Crull, president of BCE Inc.'s media division, said Thursday that monetization is currently his organization's biggest challenge, given the usage of over-the-top (OTT)...
New data shows an overall drop in the share of English Canadians subscribing to TV services over the last year. MTM, a project of CBC/Radio-Canada, released a report Thursday that showed the...
BlackBerry Ltd. CEO John Chen said he's open the idea of having the company produce another tablet, according to a report by CNet. "It's not in the works, but it's on my mind,"...
BCE Inc. is asking the CRTC to extend the March 31 deadline for incorporating its Bell Aliant subsidiary’s services into the National Public Alerting System (NPAS). The company said in a Feb. 26 filing posted to the...
BCE Inc. is launching a court challenge of the CRTC’s ban on the use of simultaneous substitution during the Super Bowl. Bell Media spokesman Scott Henderson said in an email Monday that “the CRTC erred in law,...
A survey done for BCE Inc.'s Bell Media showed most Canadians support broadcasters' rights over the ability to watch U.S. commercials during the Super Bowl. According to polling results released Monday and conducted by Nanos Research for Bell, which holds the Canadian rights to the game, 69 per cent said supporting...
Ottawa-based networking technology company Mitel Networks Corp. said Monday it has reached a deal to purchase Texas-based Mavenir Systems Inc., a provider of software for mobile operators. Mitel and Mavenir said in a joint press...
Google Inc. said Thursday that it will start giving mobile friendliness more weight in terms of how websites are ranked in Google searches. It said on its Webmaster Central Blog on Thursday that the change will take effect April 21 and "will have a significant impact in our search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices." It also said that, starting immediately, search results will give higher priority to information for online apps for users that have installed and are signed into those...
Rogers Communications Inc. said Friday that David Purdy, its senior vice-president of content, did not call on government to ban virtual private networks (VPNs) during a media-industry conference in Toronto on Thursday, despite...
One of the executives behind the newly announced Bloomberg TV Canada news channel says that there are no plans to seek a broadcast licence that would compel broadcast distributors to offer the channel to customers. New York-based...
The CRTC on March 12 will announce most decisions related to its Let's Talk TV consultation, but it won't be about whether to force TV-service providers to unbundle channels. The Canadian Club of Ottawa will host a lunchtime presentation by CRTC Chairman Jean-Pierre Blais on that day. CRTC spokeswoman Patricia...
Advocacy group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting say a television ad was turned down by Canada’s largest broadcasters, yet at least one company says it has no record of the denial. In the...
Google Inc. said Wednesday it has a developed a program that will help utilize Android devices for business purposes in a way that ensures security for employers. A blog post from Google said the technology is called Android for Work and will help "businesses bring more devices to work by securing, managing and innovating on the Android platform." Google said the new program will allow for the creation of separate work profiles on Android devices where apps approved by a company's IT department exist securely, alongside personal apps that remain inaccessible to company...
Users of Apple Inc.'s iPhone 6 Plus are using twice as much data as those with the iPhone 6, according to a report from Citrix Systems Inc. The U.S. provider of workplace mobility technology said...
Google Inc.'s Android and Apple Inc.'s iOS operating systems "inched closer to total domination of the worldwide smartphone market" in the fourth quarter of 2014, International Data Corp. said Tuesday. The technology research company said in news release that the two operating systems powered 96.3 per...
Newly released results from a Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) survey show the availability of online video content is a factor for four in 10 Canadian Internet users who do not subscribe to cable TV. The data,...
Telus Corp. announced Tuesday it is partnering with Internet of Things (IoT) platform provider Jasper Inc. for its own IoT platform, the Telus Control Centre. The new platform “simplifies the deployment and management of...
BCE Inc. is seeking to recover legal costs from a range of parties — including an advocacy group representing senior citizens, private individuals and companies in the telecommunications sector...
Apple Inc. said Monday it will spend 1.7 billion euros ($2.4 billion Cdn) on two data centres in Europe that are expected to be operational in 2017. The company said in a press release the facilities will each be 166,000 square...
The CRTC has suspended the proceeding initiated the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and Consumers' Association of Canada (CAC) against video-streaming services CraveTV and Shomi. CRTC dispute resolution manager Tandy...
Snapchat Inc., the maker of mobile apps for picture and video sharing, is being valued at as much as $19 billion US in current talks to secure a new round of funding, Bloomberg reported this week. An article Tuesday said the...
CBC/Radio-Canada is considering selling its headquarters in Toronto, according to a report in the National Post. An article published Thursday said a consultant has been hired to determine whether it should sell the million-square-foot building. Fred Mattocks, general manager of media operations for CBC's English services, is quoted as saying it only needs one-third of the space there, though it would like to remain a tenant. Mattocks is also reported as saying such a transaction would help free more money for spending on content, something Heather Conway, CBC's executive...
The next generation of health technology is slowly rolling out in Canada, but experts say more government leadership is needed to bring innovations such as remote health monitoring and personalized...
BCE Inc. on Thursday reiterated its position that a complaint from the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and the Consumers' Association of Canada (CAC) about its CraveTV streaming service is...
A new study from the C.D. Howe Institute says the "competitive value" of music in Canada is two and a half times what is actually paid through copyright tariffs. The report, authored by economist Marcel Boyer, came to this conclusion based on an analysis of conventional radio, for which he said established...
A coalition called Canada's Premium Audience Exchange (CPAX) said Thursday that four new companies have joined the exchange, which allows website operators to sell digital advertising in real time. CPAX said in a press...
BCE Inc.'s online TV-everywhere service, CTV Go, is now available to customers of Rogers Communications Inc. and four other TV service providers, CTV said Thursday. The network said in a press release that other broadcast distributors added include Bell subsidiary Northwestel Inc., Access Communications Co-operative Ltd., Cable Cable Inc. and Nexicom Systems Inc. CTV said its CTV Go service, available though Apple Inc.'s iOS and Google Inc.'s Android apps or through web browsers, is now available to 90 per cent of English Canada. Other TV distributors already offering CTV Go...
The Copyright Board of Canada has produced a report outlining a number of changes it is considering in order to make its processes "more efficient and more productive." Recommendations included in a working document posted on its website include: improving the way it communicates proposed tariffs; requiring...
BlackBerry Ltd. is seeking an injunction against the latest version of a keyboard add-on made by Ryan Seacrest's Typo Products LLC for Apple Inc.'s iPhones, Reuters reported Tuesday. The article said BlackBerry claimed in...
Mobile shopping in Canada is growing at a pace that more than doubles the growth of overall online purchasing, PayPal said Wednesday. The digital-payment processing company said in a press release...
BCE Inc. will be among an international coalition of six telecommunications service providers demonstrating what it called a "revolutionary" new integrated platform for machine-to-machine (M2M) communications at next...
Blue Ant Media Inc. said Wednesday it has appointed Kate Blank as director of international sales for the Asia-Pacific Region, German-speaking countries, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. In a news release, the company said...
OTTAWA — CBC/Radio-Canada will emphasize "content over all other expenditures going forward," Heather Conway, the public broadcaster’s executive vice-president of English services, told the Senate's...
Rogers Communications Inc. said Tuesday it has brought its Smart Home Monitoring service to Vancouver and other parts of British Columbia's Lower Mainland. Rogers said in a press release there are multiple packages available,...
About one in three Canadian customers of Netflix Inc. have used a U.S. IP address to access the company's American service because it offers more content than the Canadian version, Media...
The Quebecor Fund, the organization established to distribute project contributions on behalf of Quebecor Inc.'s broadcast distribution operations, on Tuesday announced $635,000 in funding under its event and film production assistance program. The film projects included in this funding round, according to a press release from the Quebecor Fund, were: Les Trois p'tits cochons II, produced by Christal Films Productions Inc. and Bloom Films Productions Inc. and distributed by Les Films Christal S.E.C.; Nitro Rush, produced by Attraction Images Inc. and distributed by Les Films...
Quebecor Inc. said it took Sun News Network off the air early Friday morning due to “a series of barriers to carriage,” while some experts said the long-struggling channel’s...
BCE Inc. is asking the CRTC to dismiss a “frivolous and vexatious” Feb. 6 complaint from the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) against the company’s CraveTV service, arguing that the case has no chance of...
The CRTC has approved an application from Radio Acadie ltée for a new French-language FM commercial radio station in Caraquet, N.B. to replace the company’s AM station. A local French-language community station run...
BCE Inc.’s Bell Media division said Thursday it has reached a 12-year agreement with FIFA for soccer tournaments including the men’s and women’s World Cups. “With this extension, Bell Media’s CTV,...
OpenText Corp. chairman Tom Jenkins was announced by Industry Canada Thursday as the new chairman of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC). It said in a press release that the appointment took effect Feb. 5. Jenkins was president and CEO of OpenText between 1994 and 2005, and had experience with other technology companies and the government before that, according to his biography on the OpenText website. He was credited by Industry Canada as having "pioneered many of the technologies commonly used today to manage digital information to increase productivity and governance." Industry Minister James Moore said in the release: "His over 30 years of experience in innovation and economic development in both the private and public sectors in Canada will be of immense value to the council." This latest announcement...
Amazon.com Inc. said Thursday its Canadian division, Amazon.ca, is making Kindle Unlimited available in Canada. The company said in a press release that Canadians will have unlimited access to more than 750,000 e-books for $9.99...
BCE Inc.'s CTV network announced Thursday that its TV everywhere service, CTV Go, has become the first of its kind in Canada to work with Google Inc.'s Chromecast streaming device. Chromecast is a thumb-sized device that...
Q9 Networks Inc. said Thursday it is launching a new support option for its data centre customers that includes hardware installation and management for the full life cycle of customers’ servers...
Employees of Quebecor Inc.'s Sun News Network expect the channel to shut down operations Friday due to a failure to strike a deal to sell the service to Moses Znaimer's ZoomerMedia Ltd., according to a report Thursday on...
Shaw Communications Inc. said Wednesday it is shutting down call-centre operations in Edmonton, Calgary and Kelowna, B.C., with about 1,600 workers at these locations having a choice of whether to move, assume a different position...
Telus Corp. said Wednesday it will be making services from Netflix Inc. available through its Optik TV set-top boxes in the coming weeks. Telus said in a press release that almost half of its Optik TV customers are Netflix...
Industry Canada’s announcement last week that it is opening up TV white space for the use of "super WiFi" technology could improve broadband availability in rural areas and has the...
International Datacasting Corp., an Ottawa-based provider of technology for the broadcasting industry, said Tuesday it is in talks with an undisclosed party about the sale of the company. International Datacasting said in a press...
The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) said Tuesday that collected a record amount of royalties last year, based on preliminary results. The collective representing songwriters, composers and publishers, said in a press release its total for the 2014 is expected to be $299 million, up eight per cent from $276 million in 2013, which itself was a record. SOCAN said it received $55 million in international revenue, up eight per cent from the previous year after surpassing $50 million for the first time in 2013. Revenue from online streaming surged more than...
