The CRTC said on Thursday it approved a number of licence renewals for stations owned by Rogers Communications Inc. and determined that Rogers qualified for a group-based approach to the licensing of its stations, giving the company more flexibility in its Canadian content spending. The CRTC also revoked licences for Rogers’ OMNI stations and said that it would issue new licences that would “have the effect of aligning the OMNI stations with a two-year renewal cycle along with other Rogers properties.” “The two-year licence terms granted for [the OMNI stations] will...
Rogers Communications Inc. announced Thursday that it has signed a 10-year broadcast deal with wrestling promoter and entertainment company WWE that will make Rogers the exclusive distributor for the company’s pay-per-view events and a new all-WWE premium channel. Rogers said in a press release it will sponsor an application to the CRTC to bring the WWE Network to Canada, and that it will offer a preview of the channel this summer to all cable, satellite, and TV providers for those who wish to subscribe. The WWE Network will offer “pay-per-view events, groundbreaking original...
Quebecor Inc. CEO Pierre Dion announced a corporate reorganization Thursday as his company posted a $50.4 million net less before income taxes in its second quarter, down from a profit of $67.9 million before income taxes in the...
Quebecor Media Inc. announced Wednesday that Benoit Robert will join the company on Aug. 19 as president and CEO of its sports and entertainment group. The company said in a news release that Robert,...
Canada’s biggest television providers are divided over the future of audience measurement via the next generation of set-top boxes. As part of their submissions in the CRTC’s ongoing Let’s Talk TV consultation,...
Users of Netflix Inc.’s Canadian feed who feel like watching a few episodes of 30 Rock, Louie or Les Revenants will find themselves out of luck. But in a world where Canadians know these shows...
Rogers Communications Inc. has cut "several hundred middle management positions" and reduced the number of people working at the level of vice-president and above by 15 per cent, a company spokeswoman said Tuesday. Patricia Trott said in an email the reductions represent a restructuring of the company related to its plan, announced in May, to overhaul the company's operations to improve customer loyalty. "These decisions are never easy," Trott said. "The goal is to become a more nimble, agile organization with much clearer accountabilities. Savings will be...
The CRTC has approved a broadcast licence for a French-language FM radio station in Ottawa that will play Christian music. The commission said on its website that it has approved the application made...
Google Inc., Facebook Inc. and Netflix Inc. must pay Canadian songwriters and publishers for music videos viewed on their services, the Copyright Board of Canada ruled on Friday. The board certified two tariffs from the Society...
Netflix Inc.'s quarterly results, released Monday, showed the lowest level of global subscriber growth in a year. The online video-streaming service said in a letter to shareholders there were 50.05 million subscribers at the...
Over two months, Rogers Communications Inc. has gone from being dead last in Netflix Inc.'s ranking of Canadian Internet service providers' speeds to being sixth out of 16 with an average speed that has nearly doubled. In the latest ranking, released Monday, Netflix said Rogers had an average Internet speed of 2.95...
Amazon.com Inc. said Friday it has launched a monthly e-book subscription service in the U.S., giving users access to all they can read for $9.99 US a month. The product is called Kindle Unlimited, and will provide subscribers...
A deal between Netflix Inc. and Walt Disney Co. that will see Walt Disney Studios’ movies appear on Netflix’s Canadian streaming service as soon as eight months after they hit...
Facebook Inc. said in an online posting Thursday that it has begun testing a feature that allows users to purchase certain products without leaving the Facebook site. The social network operator said the function works...
Official Languages Commissioner Graham Fraser on Thursday warned CBC/Radio-Canada and the federal government about obligations they have to provide programming services in both official languages as...
The Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group, which owns the CFL's Ottawa Redblacks, said this week it has reached a 10-year deal with Telus Corp. to provide, among other things, free WiFi at the Redblacks' home stadium. OSEG said in a posting on the Redblacks' website Monday that Telus is the "official communications supplier" for TD Place, the team's newly renovated stadium. Bernie Ashe, OSEG's chief executive, said in the release that visitors to the stadium, which also hosts the North American Soccer League's Ottawa Fury FC, will be able to "exchange...
Microsoft Corp. said Thursday it is cutting 18,000 jobs, most of them related to integrating the cellphone division of Nokia Corp., the acquisition of which closed in April. In a letter to employees,...
The CRTC has denied the addition of Arabic-language channel OSN Ya Hala HD to the list of non-Canadian programming services authorized for distribution. The commission said in a decision Wednesday that there was not enough...
CBC/Radio Canada said the 2014 FIFA World Cup was the most watched ever in Canada, with 30.7 million people viewing at least a portion of the month-long tournament. The broadcaster said in a release Monday that the July 13 final...
Time Warner Inc. turned down an acquisition offer from 21st Century Fox Inc., Reuters reported Wednesday. Citing anonymous sources, the news service said the bid was worth around $80 billion US, with 60 per cent in stock and 40...
Penetration of Netflix Inc.’s streaming service among anglophones in Canada is now at 32 per cent, with 28 per cent watching in a typical week, according new report. CBC/Radio-Canada's Media Technology Monitor said in a report released Tuesday that number is up from 25 per cent last year, 13 per cent two years ago and six per cent three years ago. It added that more than a third of subscribers use the U.S. version of the service, which has a larger library of content than the Canadian version. MTM said 80 per cent of Netflix subscribers also have a paid TV subscription, compared...
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...
Scribble Technologies Inc., the Toronto-based provider of technology and services to help companies engage audiences online, said Tuesday it has purchased CoveritLive from U.S. digital content company...
The CRTC has approved a licence application by Telus Corp. to operate a pay-per-view service, the commission said Monday. A letter from Telus to the CRTC to support the application in October last year said the pay-per-view...
Corus Entertainment Inc. was granted amendments to its broadcasting licences for Teletoon, Teletoon Retro, Historia and Séries+ regarding minimum amounts to be spent on Canadian programming. The licences state that the...
LG Display Co. announced a technological breakthrough on Thursday that it says proves it is capable of developing TVs as big as 50 inches that can be rolled up like a yoga mat. The company said it in a press release it has been...
BCE Inc. is sponsoring an application from TV Media Planet Ltd. to have a Ukrainian television channel approved for distribution in Canada. The application appeared on the CRTC's website Thursday. An attached letter from TV...
Television and radio production house Corus Entertainment Inc. on Thursday reported a loss of $30 million in the third quarter of its fiscal year, although revenues were buoyed by its recent TV acquisitions including Teletoon....
BCE Inc. and Rogers Communications Inc. are shutting down their jointly-owned pay-per-view service, Viewer’s Choice Canada. Bell Media spokeswoman Amy Doary said in an email Monday that the service would cease operations by...
Quebec’s superior court has denied a motion for a class action lawsuit against BCE Inc., Telus Corp. and Rogers Communications Inc. Law firm Fasken Martineau, which represented Rogers’ Fido division and its Rogers Communications Partnership, said in a posting on its website judge Michel Yergeau ruled on July 2 that the motion didn’t meet the criteria necessary to authorize a class action. The judge ruled that Inga Sibiga, a customer of Rogers’ Fido brand, did not have sufficient legal interest to bring a case against Bell or Telus, was not an adequate...
Soundview Entertainment Inc. has asked the CRTC to make the Creole-language Haiti HD channel available for distribution in Canada. In a letter to the regulator, it described the channel as “a niche-interest Creole-language...
Canadian television broadcasters' revenues fell 1.3 per cent to $7.5 billion last year, with the decline affecting “every segment of the industry, except specialty television,” Statistics Canada said Monday....
Many companies are still trying to find the benefits in adopting the latest in machine-to-machine (M2M) communication technology, yet those that do see significant returns of their investment,...
The CRTC shouldn’t try to regulate Internet-based services the same way it does traditional broadcasting, Netflix Inc. said in an intervention submitted as part of the commission’s review of the future of television. The provider of over-the-top (OTT) streaming video services said the existence of video on the Internet and of TVs that...
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada is taking a close look at Facebook Inc. after the social network announced it had manipulated users’ news feeds for a study on emotional responses. “We will be contacting Facebook to seek further details related to this research and have been in touch with some of our international counterparts about the matter,” spokeswoman Valerie Lawton said in an email on Thursday. The study, done in conjunction with researchers from Cornell University and University of California and published in June, changed the content seen by 690,000 users for one week in January 2012 in an effort to measure the impact seeing emotionally-charged stories can have on ensuing Facebook posts. Earlier this week, Facebook chief operating officer...
Sierra Wireless Inc. chief financial officer David McLennan has been named to the board of the Canadian Media Fund (CMF), a public-private parternship that provides money for Canadian media producers, the group said in a press...
Google Inc. has bought Songza Media Inc., the music-streaming service said on its website Tuesday. "Today, we’re thrilled to announce that we’re becoming part of Google," Songza said in the online notice,...
Canada's major wireless carriers' have dismissed an argument from the collective representing music writers and publishers that if the Federal Court finds the collective owes $12 million in tariffs collected for ringtone...
BCE Inc. wants to see over-the-air (OTA) transmitters shut down and local stations move to a model it called “local specialty,” under which they would negotiate wholesale fees with cable, IPTV and satellite-TV...
In interventions submitted as part of the CRTC’s review of the future of the television, both BCE Inc. and Rogers Communications Inc. said they supported a pick-and-pay television system, though...
Telus Corp. has ended an 18-year relationship with Taxi, the advertising agency that created marketing campaigns featuring a variety of cute animals including monkeys to hippopotamuses, the Globe and Mail reported on Friday. The...
CBC/Radio-Canada’s re-focusing of its priorities on its digital and mobile presence is “not a very logical thing to do,” said Barry Kiefl, president of Canadian Media Research Inc....
BlackBerry Ltd. said Thursday it has launched a new website to "hold our competitors accountable for what they say, when what they say is wrong." Mark Wilson, BlackBerry's senior vice-president of marketing, said on the company's official blog that the company has to defend itself with the facts. "As we’ve been...
Shaw Communications Inc. said Thursday its third-quarter earnings took a hit as its television subscriber base continued to decline and its media division took in less money. The company said in a press release that net income for the three months ending May 31 was $228 million, down from $250 million a year earlier. Revenue was up 1.2 per cent to $1.34 billion, the company said. By division, Shaw said revenue was up 2.4 per cent in its cable business to $845 million, satellite operations took in 0.9 per cent more at $220 million, while the media division's revenue declined two per cent to $301 million. Its quarterly summary showed that cable-video subscribers were down 12,075 over the quarter to 1.98 million, satellite-TV subscribers were down 5,608 over that time to 887,229, Internet subscribers grew by 12,399 to 1.92 million and...
OpenMedia.ca said Thursday it is going to meet negotiators of the Trans-Pacific Partnership when they convene in Ottawa in early July, and it is inviting the public to provide input into various related issues, including Internet...
Google Inc. is extending its Android operating system to cars and television sets, the company said Wednesday during its Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco. Customers can use the Android Auto service to connect...
The U.S. Supreme Court has sided with broadcasters in their case against Aereo Inc.’s TV service, ruling that the service violates the U.S. Copyright Act. U.S. studios and broadcasters had challenged Aereo’s use of...
SnapSaves, a Toronto-based company that makes an app for receiving cash back on certain purchases, has been bought by Groupon Inc. Users of SnapSaves take pictures of the receipts from their purchases to claim cash on certain products. The photos are uploaded with the company's app, SnapSaves explains on its website. Customers can request cheques...
While singing competition reality shows have been a mainstay on network television for the past decade, their newest iteration could offer an indication of the direction in which social-TV strategies are heading. Rising Star, which premiered on Sunday night and airs in Canada on BCE Inc.’s CTV network, allows viewers to vote — in real time — on which singers will stay in the competition, while contestants perform in front of a giant screen made up of viewers’ social media profiles. The interactive elements of the show are the next step in the evolution of social TV,...
The CRTC said Monday it is extending the deadline for submitting comments in the third phase of its Let's Talk TV proceedings until Friday. The deadline had previously been set for Wednesday. A...
CBC/Radio-Canada will unveil a five-year strategic plan to employees and the general public on Thursday, outlining how it intends to move forward in an era of increasingly limited financial resources. France Bélisle,...
The CRTC has renewed the broadcast license of a radio station in Salt Spring Island, B.C., though it warned that if the station does not comply with its regulatory requirements its license could be suspended or revoked. On...
Twitter Inc. has acquired the online video platform SnappyTV, which allows “live clipping, editing and distribution,” Twitter said in a blog post Thursday. “As we continue to invest in video, it’s...
Amid the many challenges television service providers were already facing, along came an Ottawa company making devices with digital recording capabilities and electronic-guide functionality for those...
Cisco Systems Inc. on Thursday announced it would put $150 million toward innovation and technology development in Canada over the next 10 years. The U.S. technology giant said in press release it was establishing the Cisco...
BBM Canada has changed its name to Numeris, the broadcast audience measurement company said Thursday. It also announced a new logo and slogan, “Audiences Count.” “Building on the foundation we have developed as...
The CRTC has the backing of the general public if it decides to get into regulating the prices people pay for television service, according to a new survey. A poll done by Forum Research, released in advance to The Wire Report,...
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and BCE Inc. on Wednesday said that CIBC's mobile payment app will be available in the coming weeks for certain mobile phones on the Bell network. In a joint press release, the companies said the app will be available for Samsung Electronics Co.’s Galaxy S4, Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II, HTC Corp.'s One (M7), and BlackBerry Ltd.'s Q10, Z10 and Bold 9900. It will be downloadable from Google Inc.'s Play store or BlackBerry World, depending on the device being used. In an article last November, The Wire Report reported that...
BlackBerry users will gain access to several applications this fall, including Netflix, as a result of making Amazon.com Inc.'s Appstore part of the BlackBerry 10.3 operating system that becomes available this fall, BlackBerry...
OTTAWA — The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) said in a recent Federal Court filing that there is "no remedy" should the court find that it owes wireless carriers $12 million for tariffs they paid for ringtones used between 2006 and 2012. SOCAN made the case that the...
Heritage Minister Shelly Glover announced Tuesday that Quebec lawyer Yves Dupras was returning as a commissioner of the CRTC. A press release from Heritage Canada said Dupras would start a five-year term as a full-time designated...
Stingray Digital Group Inc. said Friday it has reached an agreement to purchase an Amsterdam-based owner of music-related television services. Stingray, a Canadian-based company that provides music services such as Galaxie to...
TORONTO — Rogers Communications Inc. CEO Guy Laurence says the telecom industry has wasted Canadians’ time. He said in a speech to the Canadian Telecom Summit Monday that complexity in pricing plans, whether it be eligibility criteria, handset offers or usage rules, has meant consumers are wasting the precious time their devices were supposed to save. “We wanted to offer our customers solutions uniquely tailored to them,” he told the crowd at the Toronto Congress Centre. “However, we have gone too far and created complexity which increasingly isn’t valued...
Tom Wheeler, chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, said Friday that his organization is looking into whether Internet service providers are purposely diminishing, for their own benefit, the flow of content from...
A House of Commons heritage committee report on the music industry released Thursday said the government should look at how long the Copyright Board, which sets the rates for use of copyrighted...
Canada's lobbying commissioner says attempts to convince the CRTC to grant a broadcast licence do not have to be registered under the Lobbying Act, The Lobby Monitor reported Thursday. The article (subscribers only) said...
The Department of Canadian Heritage said Wednesday that the Audiovisual Coproduction Treaty between Canada and India takes effect July 1. A press release from Canadian Heritage said the agreement will allow producers in both...
Twitter Inc.'s chief operating officer, Ali Rowghani, has resigned his position, a move that has been linked with slower-than-expected growth the company has seen lately. Rowghani posted on Twitter Thursday morning: "Goodbye Twitter. It's been an amazing ride, and I will cherish the memories." A story published a day earlier on...
BlackBerry Ltd. said Thursday it has reached a three-year deal with a consortium comprised of Canada's three incumbent wireless providers to support financial transactions conducted through...
Amazon.com Inc. announced Thursday the launch of a new music-streaming service in the United States. It said in a press release that the product is called Prime Music and is available at no extra cost to existing U.S. customers...
The number of “interactions” about television on social networks operated by Facebook Inc. or Twitter Inc. increased 12 per cent in the past year, according to a report from social TV...
The number of anglophone Canadians who are streaming television content on their smartphones increased 71 per cent from a year earlier, according to a new report from Media Technology Monitor (MTM). In 2013, 12 per cent of respondents reported watching TV on a smartphone, up from seven per cent a year earlier, according to MTM, a project of CBC/Radio-Canada. “While smartphone TV streamers watch less traditional TV on a TV set, they more than make up for that time streaming TV,” said the report, released on June 5. The number of users who stream video on their smartphones rose...
The CRTC has approved an application by a Thunday Bay, Ont., broadcaster to disaffiliate from CBC/Radio-Canada. Thunder Bay Electronics Ltd. said in a Feb. 28 letter filed with the CRTC that it was seeking the disaffiliation...
Google Inc. said Tuesday it had reached a deal to buy satellite company Skybox Imaging Inc. and hopes it can help it improve Internet access in some areas. Google said in a press release it is buying Skybox for $500 million US in...
Data transmitted over Internet protocol networks with devices in Canada will be about 2.4 times more in 2018 than what it was last year, according to a new report from Cisco Systems Inc. Highlights...
A recent report from PwC showed Internet advertising revenue in Canada surpassed television ad revenue last year for the first time. The report found Internet advertising was worth $3.75 billion last year, compared to $3.52...
Rogers Communications Inc. climbed out of the bottom ranking among 14 Canadian ISPs measured in latest speed index from Netflix Inc. Rogers had an average speed of 2.52 Mbps, according to Netflix's index for May that was posted Monday. That was up from an average speed of 1.67 Mbps in the April ranking. Netflix said in a blog that Rogers had the biggest improvement of any Canadian service provider measured. It moved to 12th place from 14th in April. Company spokesman Joris Evers said in an email that the scores represent average speeds for Netflix content during primetime viewing. Bell...
BCE Inc.'s Bell Media division said Monday that its TSN Radio network will have the radio rights to the FIFA World Cup that starts this week. Bell said in a press release that TSN Radio's coverage would kick off on...
CBC/Radio Canada on Monday said Sally Catto has been named its new general manager of programing for CBC Television. The public broadcaster said in a press release that Catto had been its executive director of commissioned and scripted programming, where she oversaw dramas, comedies, children's shows and some...
The Canadian Media Production Association said Jamie Brown has been appointed the organization's chairman. Brown is the founder and executive producer of Frantic Films, the CMPA said in a press release issued Saturday. The...
A report appearing on the CRTC's website Friday indicated that Canadian television service providers are offering more choice and flexibility than ones in the United States in selected markets....
MONTREAL —Videotron’s new iPad application, which allows users to access live TV, free and paid video-on-demand (VOD) content and programming stored on a personal video recorder (PVR), in...
In a blog post on its website Wednesday, Verizon Communications Inc. accused Netflix Inc. of "misleading" consumers about the source of buffering issues that viewers may have experienced. The post from David Young, Verizon's vice-president of regulatory affairs, cited a Twitter posting showing a...
Broadcast commercial radio remains popular in the face of competition from online streaming services and satellite radio because it’s a “point of connection” for listeners rather than just a music-delivery service, says analyst Jeff Vidler. The latest figures from the CRTC, released Tuesday, showed...
Rogers Communications Inc. on Tuesday announced the launch of an online streaming service and mobile application for Sportsnet programing. The company said in a press release the service is called Sportsnet Now, and for the time...
A Finnish company that works with mobile operators to provide users with app-based data plans said Tuesday it has been bought by Facebook Inc. The company, Pryte Ltd., said in a message on its website: "Today, we are delighted to announce that our team will be joining Facebook. Since we launched Pryte we have worked to reimagine the way mobile data works in an app-driven world, by enabling partnerships between app and content providers, and mobile operators." Financial details were not released. Pryte's website says it works with mobile services providers to provide their...
Quebecor Inc. subsidiary Videotron will announce an application that it says “will change TV forever” later this week. The company said in an invitation to media Monday that Videotron president and CEO Manon...
At its Worldwide Developers Conference Monday, Apple Inc. revealed new software for Mac computers that, among other things, will allow iPhone calls and texting to be facilitated through a computer. Apple said in a press...
When the World Cup begins in Brazil in two weeks, 3.2 billion people around the world will tune into the tournament, according to FIFA’s estimates. And while many of them will cheer on their team through a high-definition...
OpenMedia.ca said Friday it has sent a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper — on behalf of itself and other advocacy groups — protesting his nomination for a new federal privacy commissioner. OpenMedia, which...
The Jim Pattison Broadcast Group said Friday it has made Mark Rogers its vice-president of sales. The company said in a press release that Rogers has more than 39 years of experience in broadcasting, and since 1999 had been the general sales manager at CJJR-FM and CKPK-FM, two Vancouver stations currently owned by Pattison. Rogers will remain based in Vancouver, the company said....
BCE Inc. and Shaw Communications Inc. announced Friday, in separate press releases, that mobile applications for each of their conventional television networks are now available to subscribers of the other's TV-distribution services. Bell Media's CTV network said that its CTV Go application for Apple Inc. mobile...
Former prime minister Brian Mulroney has been nominated to be chairman of Quebecor Inc.'s board of directors, according to a corporate filing the company made on Wednesday. Mulroney would replace Françoise Bertrand,...
OTTAWA — Industry Minister James Moore said Wednesday that he is not concerned that the government’s Digital Privacy Act will, as critics as have charged, open the door to copyright...
Two non-profit organizations applied to launch radio stations on the 88.7 FM frequency within 40 kilometres of one another outside of Halifax, and the CRTC on Wednesday said it approved the bid from...
Rogers Communications Inc. on Wednesday announced a six-year sponsorship agreement with Scotiabank for its various hockey programs in the upcoming season, which the broadcaster said is the first sponsorship agreement related to...
Carol-Ann Kairns is the new general sales manager at Corus Entertainment Inc. The company said in a press release Tuesday that Kairns would oversee advertising sales and revenues for Corus’ Historia,...
Broadcast distributors across the country are likely to pay for a big chunk of the billions of dollars for which Rogers Communications Inc. is on the hook as a result of the deal it struck for 12...
Twitter Inc. has entered into a two-year, $230 million mobile advertising deal with holding company Omnicom Media Group, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. The deal will integrate Twitter’s mobile advertising...
BCE Inc.’s media subsidiary has signed an agreement with Alliance des producteurs francophones du Canada (APFC), which represents French-language independent producers across Canada, the company said in a press release Tuesday. The five year agreement, which is renewable, “details the general principles of a trade agreement,” Bell said, and applies to its specialty and pay TV channels. The agreement aims to “significantly reduce the administrative and legal costs of transactions between Bell Media and independent producers and streamline the process...
