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 a month with their Kindle e-readers and the free Kindle apps available for personal computers, Apple Inc.'s iPhones and iPads, devices powered by Google Inc.'s Android system, and smartphones equipped with Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Phone software. The service, launched in the United States in July, costs $9.99 US a month....
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 plugs into a television's HDMI port and can access over-the-top streaming services as well as pick up video from a computer or mobile device. CTV Go is free mobile app and online service for Canadians, giving users on-demand access to CTV programming for up to seven days following the original broadcast. Cable subscribers including those from Bell, Shaw...
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 potential be used for Internet of Things connectivity, experts say. Industry Canada said it would put in place measures for the use of television white space, or spectrum designated for over-the-air television signals that is not fully used. A press release said this would bring "super WiFi" service to Canada. Uses of super WiFi include mobile services or home Internet, either for...
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...
David Kleidermacher has been appointed chief security officer of BlackBerry Ltd., the company announced Tuesday. Kleidermacher was previously chief technology officer at Green Hills Software, a maker of embedded operating...
The Canadian government asked Twitter Inc. for users’ personal information 32 times in the last six months of 2014, the social network said on Monday in its latest transparency report. The requests covered 37 different...
Netflix Inc. said Monday it is now offering service in Cuba. "Bienvenida Cuba! Netflix is now available," Netflix said in a Twitter post. The move follows the December announcement that the U.S. government is restoring diplomatic relations with Cuba after more than five decades. Netflix...
There's been a jump over the last year in Canadian marketers using "advanced ad targeting" methods to reach their audiences, which include using information about their purchasing or online behaviour, video advertising platform provider Videology Inc. said in a press release Monday. Videology said 92 per cent...
The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) on Friday asked the CRTC to prohibit Rogers Communications Inc., Shaw Communications Inc. and BCE Inc. from restricting the availability of their streaming...
Ethnic Channels Group Ltd. has filed an application to the CRTC to have a Nigerian TV channel called 1Music approved for distribution in Canada. The company said in a letter posted on the...
The CRTC issued a decision Friday the denied the operator of a Drumheller, Alta., radio station an amendment to its broadcasting licence that requires it make at least 10 per cent of the music it plays “folk or folk-oriented music.” The company, Golden West Broadcasting Ltd., claimed it was initially unaware of this requirement for CHOO-FM, the CRTC said in its summary of the matter. The CRTC, however, said playing this proportion of folk music was specifically proposed by Golden West during a hearing in 2008, and it “was a key factor taken into account in assessing the...
Industry Canada said Thursday it was moving forward with initiatives it says will provide new opportunities for rural Canadians to access "WiFi-like services" through the use of TV white...
Twitter Inc. and Google Inc. have reached a deal that will make posts on Twitter’s social media accounts easier to find through the Google search engine, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. Quoting...
Pierre Karl Péladeau, the controlling shareholder at Quebecor Inc., who was elected a member of Quebec’s national assembly last year, said Wednesday he maintains control of the company, the Montreal Gazette reported....
VMedia Inc. said Wednesday it has become the first independent telecommunications service provider to offer a triple-play bundle of television, Internet and home-phone service in Ontario. The company said its packages start at...
The CRTC said Wednesday that while it found MAtv, a French-language community channel owned by Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron subsidiary, was not in compliance with the conditions of its licence, it would approve a licence application from Videotron for MYtv, the channel's English equivalent. Videotron applied to the CRTC for a licence to launch MYtv, a community channel for Montreal’s English-speaking community, in 2013. That launch was later delayed following a complaint from...
Valnet Inc., a Montreal-based company that owns several information/entertainment websites, said Wednesday it has bought ScreenRant.com, a website for television and movie news. Valnet said in a press release that it "plans to bolster the site's unique and in-depth film and television content with enhanced features, new digital media and...
Canada has agreed to extend the copyright term to 70 years after the death of the author as part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free-trade deal currently under discussion, the Japanese Broadcasting Corp. reported Feb. 2....
Five Canadian senators are going to the United Kingdom this month on a "fact-finding mission" as part of a study on the difficulties faced by CBC/Radio Canada. The Senate's transport and communications standing...
Data running on mobile networks in Canada is set to grow an average of 46 per cent a year between now and 2019, resulting in a quantity of data that's seven times what it was last year, Cisco Systems Inc. said in a report...
Solutions Research Group Consultants Inc. (SRG) released results of a survey Tuesday that suggest interest among Canadians in following the National Hockey League declined over the last year. The company said in a press release...
The Pirate Bay filesharing website is back online, website TorrentFreak reported Friday. It said "the look and feel of the site is familiar, and the user accounts are working properly too." The Pirate Bay went offline...
The CRTC has turned down a request from BCE Inc. to meet and discuss the regulator's decision to get rid of simultaneous substitution for the Super Bowl starting in 2017. Last week, the CRTC said it has decided to maintain...
MONTREAL — Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron hopes that producing original content exclusively for its Club Illico streaming service will help the company attract and keep subscribers, said...
New data shows that tablet shipments declined year-over-year in last year's fourth quarter — for the first time in the category’s short market history — though a Canadian trends observer says the cultural impact of tablets isn't going away any time soon. International Data Corp. said in a press release Monday that preliminary data shows global shipments of tablets and 2-in-1 hybrids amounted to 76.1 million in the last three months of 2014, down 3.2 per cent from the same period a year earlier. It said that's the first year-on-year dip since the tablet market was kick-started in 2010 with the release of Apple Inc.'s iPad. IDC said tablet shipments for 2014...
More than half of Rogers Communications Inc.'s and Shaw Communications Inc.’s customers are familiar with their Shomi streaming service, but just five per cent are using it, according to a survey. ...
Google Inc. said in its fourth-quarter results that the average “cost-per-click” for ads on its sites and those of its network members decreased by three per cent over the fourth quarter of 2013. Cost-per-click for...
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s AWS-3 auction ended Thursday, and the regulator announced Friday that it had accepted $41.3 billion US in net bids from 31 bidders for 1,611 spectrum licences. The FCC had...
The CRTC’s ruling on Thursday that BCE Inc. and Quebecor Inc.-owned Videotron can no longer exempt their mobile-TV services from data charges could have implications for the regulation of...
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 spokesman Scott Henderson called “troubling.” The rights to the event are currently held by Bell Media. In an emailed statement, Henderson said that “we are extremely disappointed of course. The government is damaging the future of local television in Canada while rewarding U.S....
Canaccord Genuity analyst Dvai Ghose says concern over hockey viewership is among the reasons he downgraded the stock of Rogers Communications Inc. this week. In a research note Wednesday, the telecom industry analyst pointed to...
BCE Inc.'s Bell Media said Wednesday that Tom Hastings has been named its director of independent production. The company said in a press release that Hastings was already a production executive in this division. He is replacing Trish Williams, who is becoming co-executive producer of the CTV original series Saving...
Montreal-based social-TV audience measurement company Seevibes is opening an office in Toronto, the company said in a press release Wednesday. The expansion comes a year after the company opened an office in France. Seevibes also said it named Franz Fontaine as vice-president of strategic...
Rogers Communications Inc. said it has become the first wireless carrier in Canada to become "Category 6 enabled," meaning it has found a way to aggregate signals on both the 2100 and 2600 MHz spectrum bands. Rogers spokeswoman Patricia Trott said in an email to The Wire Report on Monday that this will allow faster downloads and a higher...
CRTC Chairman Jean-Pierre Blais will speak to the London, Ont. Chamber of Commerce on Thursday morning about “the future of local television in Canada.” “At the event Mr. Blais will announce certain decisions...
Quebecor Inc.'s Sun News Network is close to shutting down, a report on the news website Canadaland said Monday. The report cited unnamed sources as saying negotiations for its acquisition by Moses Znaimer's ZoomerMedia...
The Concordia Student Broadcasting Corp. has been denied permission by the CRTC to put up a new transmitter in downtown Montreal. CSBC had applied for the new transmitter, which would operate at 107.9 FM, so that reception...
Distributel Communications Inc. announced on Thursday its new television service, which is available in markets throughout Ontario and Quebec. The independent Internet service provider had already began offering TV service last...
The Canadian Media Fund (CMF) said Thursday it would provide $8 million to finance 31 digital media projects, as part of the second round of its "experimental stream" for 2014-15. CMF said in a press release that 23 companies received $6.2 million to “to develop three applications, one eBook, seven interactive platforms, 11 games and one social media platform,” while $1.8 million went toward marketing support for eight interactive digital media projects. In December, the CMF awarded $11.8 million to 24 projects....
BlackBerry Ltd. CEO John Chen said the battle for net neutrality in the United States should not only focus on service providers' traffic management practices, but should also include companies,...
MONTREAL — NDP Leader Tom Mulcair is promising, if elected, to reverse funding cuts imposed on CBC/Radio-Canada in recent years, though political observers do not expect the Conservative...
Canadian video streaming service Shomi said Thursday it has secured the Canadian rights to original content made for Amazon.com Inc.'s Prime streaming service in the U.S. Shomi, a joint venture of Rogers Communications Inc....
VMedia Inc. said it has secured its first specialty-TV channels for the cloud-based PVR service it makes available to IPTV customers. The company said in a news release Thursday that it has reached a deal to include Blue Ant...
Shaw Communications Inc. said Thursday that TMN Go is now available to its cable customers in northern Ontario and satellite-TV customers throughout Eastern Canada, allowing them to watch The Movie Network, HBO Canada, Showtime and TMN Encore content on-demand on televisions, computers, tablets and smartphones. The availability is limited to Eastern Canada customers because BCE Inc.'s The Movie Network does not have broadcast rights in the West, Bell Media spokesman Scott Henderson confirmed. Shaw said in a press release that the TMN Go app is available for Apple Inc.'s iOS devices...
The CRTC on Thursday said on its website that it had denied an application for a commercial ethnic radio station in Winnipeg due to concerns it would hurt an existing radio station in that market....
Documents indicate Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. is still interested in buying device maker BlackBerry Ltd. despite denials from both companies that a deal was in the works, the Financial Post...
Millennials, those between the ages of 18 and 34, are using newer technology such as the Internet and smartphones more and traditional media such as television and radio less than older generations, according to a report released Wednesday. The Media Technology Monitor, a project of CBC/Radio-Canada, broke millennials into two subgroups: generation Z,...
On Wednesday Microsoft Corp. announced two new devices as well as more details about the latest version of its Windows operating system, which will be the first to run cross-platform on desktops, tablets and mobile phones....
Netflix Inc. can expand to pretty well everywhere in the world while staying profitable over the next two years, the company said in a letter to shareholders Tuesday. “Acceleration to 200 countries is largely made possible...
The telecommunications services sector should weather the storm of economic uncertainty facing Canada right now, though some negative effects are likely, Canaccord Genuity telecom analyst Dvai Ghose. Following the Bank of Canada's interest rate cut Wednesday and its downward revision to its economic forecast for the...
Automated vehicles are about to become the most disruptive near-term technology in the average person's life, the Conference Board of Canada said in report released Wednesday. The research group said the impact of driverless...
In the past six months, Canadians’ usage of streaming music services seems to have jumped, in a trend that’s not only good news for streaming services, but wireless companies as well. Nielsen Co. only began...
The Canadian economy saw an economic benefit of about $5 billion US last year thanks to Facebook, according to a new study by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd. commissioned by Facebook Inc. That's out of a global impact from Facebook of $227 billion US, which "enabled" 4.5 million jobs around the world, the study said. It said about 80 were in Canada. "[Facebook] is a catalyst for economic activity in ecosystems composed of marketers, app developers, and providers of connectivity," the study said. Deloitte's research indicated that most of Canada's Facebook-generated economic contribution was in area of marketing, where $3.3 billion US worth of activity happened that supported 50 jobs. The study added that $1.1 billion US of activity was generated in the...
Rogers Communications Inc. announced Monday that Dirk Woessner, formerly of Deutsche Telekom AG, has been appointed to head the consumer side of its business. Rogers CEO Guy Laurence reorganized the...
In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter published Jan. 15, Voltage Pictures LLC president Nicolas Chartier detailed the motivations behind his company’s ongoing efforts to sue those involved in file sharing. According...
Google Inc. said Thursday it will stop selling the Explorer Edition of its Google Glass wearable product after Jan. 19. The company said in a statement on the Google+ social network: "January 19 will be the last day to get the Glass Explorer Edition. In the meantime, we’re continuing to build for the future, and you’ll start to see...
Electronics maker and retailer Sony Corp. is closing all of its Canadian stores. Robin Powell, a spokesman for Sony Canada, said in a phone interview that all 14 Sony outlets in Canada would shut down over the next six to eight...
Canadian marketers are looking to unify their approach to online and television advertising, according to a new report. Video advertising company Videology Inc. says in the report 85 per cent of marketers surveyed said that “holistic planning and buying” of advertising will soon “become the new norm.” The same proportion said that “planning for online video and linear TV will merge within the next three years.” Videology added that 52 per cent or respondents said they were "likely to merge their TV and online video buying groups within that timeframe.” The results were based on online surveys with 104 Canadian marketers, conducted by Marketing Magazine and Rogers Communication Inc.’s market research and client services division...
It became illegal Thursday to install software on another person's computer, smartphone or other device without their consent, the CRTC said. The commission said in a press release that the new rules are part of anti-spam...
Shaw Communications Inc.'s first-quarter financial figures showed its consumer network and media businesses bringing in less money than a year earlier, while there was some growth in its business-services operations. The company said in a press release Wednesday it had overall revenue of $1.39 billion in the three...
Quebecor Inc.'s Videotron has been sending out copyright-infringement notices to customers, as directed by federal government's new notice-and-notice copyright requirements, that falsely tell users that the rights holder that has alleged a breach cannot be identified, University of Ottawa professor Michael Geist...
The federal government will spend about $100 million to bolster the security of its computers in order to safeguard against breaches like last year's hacking of the National Research Council,...
Corus Entertainment Inc. said Tuesday its revenues in the three-month period ending Nov. 30 were $227 million, up from $226 million in the same period a year earlier. It reported profits of $93.28 million, compared to $92.28...
Sirius XM Canada Holdings Inc. on Monday reported higher profits, revenue and subscriber numbers for its first fiscal quarter ended Nov. 30. The provider of satellite radio service said in a press release that earnings for the...
After "significant" investments in time and money to prepare for the notice-and-notice regime that went into effect this month, independent Internet service providers Teksavvy Solutions Inc....
After a decade of consumers being the trendsetters in the adoption of emerging technology, the enterprise sector will take on a bigger role in 2015 as leaders in the use of cutting-edge IT products,...
CBC/Radio-Canada announced Monday that Mary Kreuk has been hired as the public broadcaster’s new executive director of multi-platform media sales for Toronto and Western Canada. Kreuk was previous a sales executive at BCE Inc.’s Bell Media subsidiary, where she served as vice-president of brand partnerships for the last 12 years, according to a news release....
The federal NDP issued a statement Friday calling on the government to prohibit false claims in copyright infringement letters sent under the new notice-and-notice regime. “The Conservatives...
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...
U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler could be hinting toward a net-neutrality policy along the lines of what President Barack Obama has suggested, categorizing broadband...
While a majority of senior anglophone Canadians have cellphones, a minority have smartphones, according to a new report from Media Technology Monitor (MTM). The report, released Wednesday, showed 63 per cent of anglophone...
Apple Inc. is raising prices for applications sold through its App Store in Canada due to the declining value of the Canadian dollar, the Canadian Press reported Thursday. The CP article cites an email Apple sent to software developers Wednesday, saying price increases would take effect within 36 hours in Canada, Norway and European Union countries. The exchange rate was cited as the reason for the price hike in Canada, the article said. The Canadian dollar closed at 84.6 cents US on Wednesday. Statistics on the Bank of Canada’s website show the highest close for the loonie in the last...
Copyright infringement monitoring company Canipre Inc. says it will be using new “notice-and-notice” measures in the Copyright Modernization Act to have those who pirate content online...
Canadians are now spending more time accessing the Internet from mobile devices than from computers, the Canadian Press reported Wednesday, based on the latest data from ComScore Inc. A CP article...
TiVo Inc. said Wednesday it is widening availability in the United States of a PVR for capturing over-the-air programing, a product it released on a limited basis in the fall. The TiVo Roamio OTA is meant for people who do not...
BlackBerry Inc. said Wednesday from the CES technology trade show in Las Vegas that it launched an Internet of Things (IoT) platform, and that it will make its BBM service available on smartwatches. The IoT platform, which the...
Recently released results of a survey for the Pew Research Center showed U.S. workers ranked landline phones as more important for their jobs than cellphones but less important than email and the...
WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum said on a Facebook post Tuesday that the service now has more than 700 million active monthly users, up from 450 million when Facebook Inc. announced its intention to purchase the mobile-messaging-app company...
Sales revenue in the United States of "new" and "emerging" consumer electronics is predicted to grow by 108 per cent, year-over-year, in 2015, the Consumer Electronics Association said Tuesday. The organization, which is responsible for the ongoing International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las...
Verizon Communications Inc.'s CEO on Tuesday denied it is interested in purchasing AOL Inc., despite a report suggesting it was exploring this option. Several news agencies reported Lowell McAdam denied such speculation...
Quebecor Inc.'s broadcasting unit TVA Group said last week that its purchase of TV production company Vision Globale has closed following approval from the federal Competition Bureau. TVA CEO Julie Tremblay said in a Dec. 30 press release that the acquisition "will enable us to diversify our revenue streams, which are heavily dependent on the advertising carried by our over-the-air television network." The Competition Bureau issued a press release the same day that said "this transaction is unlikely to result in a substantial lessening or prevention of competition due to,...
Dish Network Corp. is launching an over-the-top (OTT) television service that will allow subscribers to access 12 specialty channels for $20 US a month. The U.S. satellite-TV service provider said in a press release Monday...
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission will vote on a net-neutrality proposal in February, the Washington Post and other news outlets reported late last week. The Post said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler told other commissioners...
The CRTC said Friday that it has denied an application by 2188301 Ontario Corp. to renew the broadcasting licence of CFAO-FM in Alliston, Ont., because the station has been off the air since 2009. “As a result, CFAO-FM is...
Kosiner Venture Capital Inc. has asked the CRTC to approve HuffPost Live, a television channel operated by AOL Inc.’s Huffington Post, for distribution in Canada. About 60 per cent of the...
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...
Export Development Canada (EDC), a federal Crown corporation that loans money to foreign companies doing business with Canadian companies, said Tuesday it has loaned $850 million US to British-based telecommunications service...
Global patent filings were up nine per cent in 2013 from the previous year, while double-digit growth in first-place China widened its lead in patent filings from the United States and other countries, according to the World...
The Copyright Board of Canada has maintained a levy of 29 cents each on sales of blank audio CDs that will go to a collective representing music copyright owners. The board issued a decision Friday, saying this rate will apply...
Greater consumer interest in wearable technology, growth in over-the-top (OTT) television subscriptions and greater prominence of the Internet of Things (IoT) are among the top trends in technology expected for next year in...
The website Isohunt.to has uploaded a copy of the Pirate Bay, the torrent-sharing website taken offline last week after a raid by Swedish police investigating illegal file-sharing. “We, the Isohunt.to team, copied the...
Small Internet service providers looking to provide TV service should hold off on investment because of the uncertain future of the broadcast television market, according to 3Macs analyst Troy Crandall. At the recent CRTC...
Nancy Chapelle has been named as the new executive director of the Bell Fund, effective Jan. 5, the fund said in a press release issued Thursday. Chapelle was previously the managing director of content and programming at Ontario public broadcaster TVO, it added. The fund directs money contributed from BCE Inc.’s operations to independent...
Some shareholders in Quebecor Inc.’s TVA Group have filed an “investigation request” with the financial market regulator in Quebec, according to a press release issued Thursday....
CBC/Radio-Canada is making changes to its news operations across Canada, cutting back on the length of its evening TV newscasts and introducing new French-language digital content. The public broadcaster said in a Thursday press release that its 90-minute local English TV newscasts will switch to either a 60-minute or a 30-minute format, and that it will begin televising its local Radio One morning shows. There will also be new “local hourly news breaks” on television throughout the day, CBC said. The schedule and duration of local radio programs will not be affected, according...
