The CRTC on Wednesday said it had denied requests by both BCE Inc.’s Bell Media division and CBC/Radio-Canada to calculate local-programing hours for their conventional TV stations differently. Both are generally required to have 14 hours a week of local programing in metropolitan areas, and seven hours a week in smaller communities, in English-language markets, the CRTC notice said. Bell, which owns the CTV network, and CBC were asking that these quotas be averaged quarterly to provide flexibility around covering special events and providing programing during the holidays when there...
George Burger wants to give Canadians a more streamlined television experience, yet analysts say the high-tech Internet-protocol TV offerings from his VMedia Inc. might have limited appeal. The IPTV service from VMedia now includes a cloud-based PVR, the company announced last week. Through a proprietary set-top box that includes traditional broadcast and cable channels as well as over-the-top content such as that from Netflix Inc., VMedia offers a “smooth, seamless interface" for watching multiple streams of content through one interface, Burger, director of VMedia, said in a...
GATINEAU, Que. — Other conventional television stations in Canada could soon be affected by the same factors that have led to a “financial crisis” for Rogers Communications...
The federal government on Tuesday announced it has introduced the new Digital Privacy Act in the Senate, which, among other things, proposes fining companies up to $100,000 for not informing Canadians when their personal data is...
The president of a collective for Canadian music performers and recording companies wants the federal government to revoke an exemption radio stations have on paying royalties for the music they broadcast. Ian MacKay from Re: Sound Music Licensing Co. made the pitch Tuesday in front of the House of Commons heritage...
More job cuts are expected at CBC/Radio-Canada as CEO Hubert Lacroix is scheduled to address all employees at a town hall meeting Thursday, according to a report by the Financial Post. An article that appeared on the Post’s...
An annual report from Convergence Consulting Group Ltd. says Canadians are increasingly moving away from television subscriptions, and the trend is accelerating this year. The report’s summary, on the company’s website, said that TV subscriptions in Canada were up by about 2,000 in 2013, down from a gain of 37,000 the year before. A compilation by The Wire Report from earnings reports of Canada biggest publicly traded telecom companies showed they lost about 8,500 TV subscribers in their last fiscal year, compared to a gain of 95,000 the year before. Convergence said it expected...
The CRTC announced Monday it has approved national broadcast licences for two third-language niche television channels from the same company. Ethnic Channels Group Ltd. was granted a licence for a channel called South Asian Food...
The CRTC has sent out a series of questions to be answered by telecommunications service providers at the centre of a complaint over undue preference in providing mobile-TV services for flat fees. In a questionnaire sent Friday,...
A document released by Industry Minister James Moore Friday that outlines the government’s long-promised digital strategy includes “nothing new and nothing bold,” according to...
Rogers Communications Inc. made it clear Thursday that there was a connection between the several billions of dollars it spent separately on National Hockey League content and wireless spectrum in...
GATINEAU, Que. — The reviews the CRTC will be holding over the coming year, which include proceedings covering wholesale access to wireless and fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) networks, the future of...
Online retail giant Amazon.com Inc. announced a new television set-top box at an event in New York on Tuesday, pledging to improve the over-the-top (OTT) experience for customers frustrated by the limitations of rival offerings...
Cisco Systems Inc. announced Wednesday it is investing $1.6 million in a video network to bring educational and health services to Canada’s North. The project is called Connected North, and uses high-definition, two-way video, along with other technology, Cisco said in a press release. Cisco said that a pilot project that began in September...
OTTAWA — Canada’s regulatory environment doesn’t promote technological innovation in the music industry, and that’s part of the reason why streaming services here are lagging...
Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron unit said Thursday it has launched a new app that allows users of Apple Inc.’s iPhone 4 or 5 access content through its Illico program for online video content. It noted in a press release that this launch coincides with the recent availability of iPhones on Videotron’s mobile network, though the Illico app works on phones with any carrier. Illico service had previously been available to users of phones powered by Google Inc.’s Android software, Android tables and iPads, and directly over the web via a personal computer....
Blue Ant Media Inc., a Toronto-based media group, said Tuesday it has struck a partnership with Omnia Media, which it said is the third-largest largest music-focused network on Google Inc.’s...
Communications lawyer Bram Abramson has joined Teksavvy Solutions Inc. as chief legal and regulatory officer. Abramson left McCarthy Tétrault, a Toronto-based business law firm, where he specialized in telecommunications and regulation. Abramson received his law degree from McGill University in 2007, according to his LinkedIn page....
A complaint against Quebecor Inc. subsidiary Videotron Ltd.’s French-language community channel MAtv is holding up the launch of its English-language equivalent, MYtv. Peggy Tabet, Videotron’s senior director of...
BCE Inc.’s TSN sports specialty network on Monday said longtime executive Al Banks has been appointed its group director of sales. At this position, Banks will report directly to Nathalie Cook, TSN’s vice-president of...
The CRTC said Monday it has granted Ethnic Channels Group Ltd. a broadcasting licence for a specialty channel focusing on cricket. The commission said in a decision posted online that ECGL Cricket TV would be a “national, English-language ethnic specialty Category B service … devoted to cricket matches and programming related to the world of cricket,” and other sports of interest to Canada’s South Asian community. The CRTC also said the channel would be able to devote half of the 12 minutes per hour in which it can air advertising to local and regional ads....
BlackBerry Ltd.’s fourth-quarter earnings show the company is a getting smaller proportion of its revenue from hardware and a bigger slice from services. Results released in a press release...
OTTAWA — The CRTC’s head of broadcasting says radio revenue does not appear to be suffering as a result of competition from Internet-based streaming services. Scott Hutton, the commission’s executive director of...
More than three out of every four anglophone Canadian adults are consumers of online video, according to report released Thursday. Media Technology Monitor (MTM), a project of CBC/Radio-Canada, said 76 per cent of respondents in...
Winnipeg radio station Jewel 101 FM is asking the CRTC to change its frequency from 100.7 to 100.5 in order to be less of a “loser,” the station wrote in a filing released on Thursday. The station, owned by Evanov Communications Inc., said over the past nine years it has performed consistently poorly with...
The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) is calling on governments to do more to protect people from companies that offer so-called free online services. In a press release issued Wednesday, it said consumers have little...
As Canadian television providers have rolled out their TV-everywhere strategies, aimed at fighting off over-the-top (OTT) competition by making content easier to access online, customers can be...
Facebook Inc., in announcing the purchase of a pioneering virtual reality company, said this kind of immersive technology is "a strong candidate to emerge as the next social and communications...
Italian eyewear maker Luxottica Group S.p.A. said Tuesday that it has reached a deal with Google Inc. to collaborate on making its Google Glass wearable technology. The company said in a press release that its main brands,...
Telus Corp. and Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. have fulfilled their regulatory obligations by adding the Sun News Network to their TV-service channel lineups. In December, the CRTC said news channels Sun News and Le Canal Nouvelles (both owned by by Quebecor Inc.), CTV News Channel (owned by BCE Inc.), and CBC/Radio-Canada’s CBC News Network and Réseau de l'information (RDI) would have to be made available to all TV service subscribers by March 19, and on an à la carte basis by May 20. Telus spokesman Chris Gerritsen said in an email Monday that Sun News has been...
Google Inc. and Viacom Inc. have settled a copyright lawsuit relating the uploading of content owned by the latter on Google’s YouTube platform, the company’s said in a joint news release issued last week. Terms of...
Netflix Inc. CEO Reed Hastings said in a blog post on the company’s website Thursday that a stronger sense of net neutrality is needed to prevent situations like the one that has his company...
The Canadian Media Production Association said Marguerite Pigott will become its vice-president of outreach and strategic initiatives. The CMPA said in a press release Thursday that Pigott will start her position in early May and...
Blue Ant Media Inc. has officially launched its international distribution arm, the company said this week. The Toronto-based distributor of television content said in a press release Thursday that its new division is called Blue...
A French-language, photography-focused documentary channel has been approved by the CRTC, the regulator announced Thursday. The channel, Le réseau de la photographie (RDP) will broadcast feature-length and short films about photography, as well as films that have won an honourable mention for photography at a festival, according to a CRTC release. It will also include other photography content such as coverage of photography festivals or exhibits, photography workshops and films that were shot on DSLR cameras. The new channel is owned by Pierre Marie Victor Salomon. It will be a...
Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron unit said Thursday that Pierre Bonin is its new vice-president of information technology. It said in a news release that Bonin has almost 30 years of experience in IT and telecommunications...
A research group studying the demographics of Canadians who follow the National Hockey League said Rogers Communications Inc., which has exclusive national rights to NHL broadcasts as of next season,...
The Movie Network said Thursday that its TMN Go app is now available for smartphones and tablets running on Google Inc.’s Android software. The network, which is owned by BCE Inc., said in a news release that the app is for...
Shaw Communications Inc.’s media division on Wednesday said it has become the first private-sector Canadian broadcaster to offer closed captioning for television programming accessed online. It said in a press release that...
A majority of Canadians taking part in a survey, for which results were released Tuesday, said having more choice and control over what they watch on television is an “excellent” or “good” idea. The...
The CRTC has approved Newcap Inc.’s acquisition of five radio stations from BCE Inc.’s media subsidiary for a purchase price of $112 million. The commission said Tuesday that it had...
Rogers Communications Inc. had the ear of some of the highest officials in the federal government in early February, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Harper communicated with Rogers on Feb. 5, according to information in...
BCE Inc.’s Bell Media division on Tuesday announced the release of two new applications that will bring live breaking news video to smartphones and tablets. Apps for CTV News Go, featuring content from the national news...
Canadians are the most prolific visitors of websites in the world, according the Canadian Internet Registration Authority’s Factbook, released Tuesday. Citing data from ComScore, CIRA said Canadians, on average, visited 3,731 websites per month last year. The United States was second at 3,709 and the global average was 2,278. In terms of hours spent online each month, Canada had an average of 41.3, second behind the U.S. at 43 and well ahead of the global average of 24.6. Canadians were the second heaviest viewers of online video, spending 24.8 hours a week on this activity, second...
The availability of video-on-demand (VOD) titles doubled across Canada’s eight largest TV providers between 2012 and 2013, the CRTC said on Monday, from 44,535 titles available from all eight...
The CRTC said Monday that Oui TV has been approved as a foreign channel for distribution in Canada. An online posting from the commission said it is a 24-hour French-language service featuring drama and comedy programming. The channel originates in the U.S. and its programming is sourced from...
BCE Inc. should not compare itself to companies like Google Inc., Facebook Inc. or LinkedIn Corp. when it comes to tracking and collecting customer information for advertising purposes, the Public...
The CRTC said Friday it has approved the sale of two radio stations in New Brunswick by Rogers Communications Inc. The commission said in an online notice that the sale of CHNI-FM in Saint John to Newcap Inc. has been given the...
One in five Canadians surveyed by U.S. research firm Parks Associates said they downgraded their TV service over the last year. A report from the company said 20 per cent of Canadian households, out of 1,500 with broadband Internet that were part of its online survey late last year, said they had downgraded their TV service within the last 12 months to something cheaper. A presentation from the company said 1,343 of its survey takers answered this question, giving it a margin of error of 2.67 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. The margin was larger for other questions in which fewer...
Analysts from Barclays Capital said there is little risk to Quebecor Inc.’s businesses from former CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau’s candidacy for the sovereigntist Parti...
Industry Canada issued a statement on Friday about rule changes for radio broadcasters first reported by The Wire Report on Wednesday. The amendments to the Radiocommunication Act did away with issuance and reinstatement fees for...
Thunder Bay Electronics Ltd. has put in a request to the CRTC to disaffiliate from CBC/Radio-Canada, the company said in a Feb. 28 letter filed with the CRTC. It said it was seeking the disaffiliation “so that CKPR-DT can...
Quebecor Inc. reported higher fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday on revenue that was slightly higher than a year earlier. Overall revenue for the fourth quarter was $1.12 billion, up 0.5 per cent from a year earlier, Quebecor...
Regulating entertainment content that’s increasingly coming from online sources, funding mechanisms to promote productions and foreign-ownership restrictions in the broadcasting industry are...
BCE Inc.’s media division on Wednesday announced that online streaming of TSN content is now available to those who subscribe to the channel through TV service from either Bell or Rogers Communications Inc. Bell Media said...
Pierre Karl Péladeau’s decision to run for the sovereigntist Parti Québécois in the upcoming Quebec election could cause problems for the company he used to lead and of...
BCE Inc.’s collection of customer data for its targeted-advertising program doesn’t violate the Telecommunications Act, the company said in a filing to the CRTC. The letter, submitted on...
Rogers Communications Inc. on Monday named George Stroumboulopoulos as the next host of Hockey Night in Canada, which Rogers takes over production of next season. Stroumboulopoulos, currently host of CBC/Radio-Canada’s George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight, is taking over the role held right now by Ron MacLean, who will continue hosting Coach’s Corner, along with Don Cherry, during the Saturday night broadcasts, Rogers said in a press release. MacLean is also slated to host the new Hometown Hockey Community Celebration on Sunday nights. Rounding out the lineup of what Rogers called...
Cecil Hawkins, the Toronto executive who heads metal fabricator Canerector Inc., has been appointed to the board of CBC/Radio-Canada, Canadian Heritage announced Monday. Hawkins, president and CEO of Canerector, has been involved...
Pierre Karl Péladeau has resigned from a number of Quebecor Inc. board positions following news that he intends to run as candidate for the sovereigntist Parti Québécois in the upcoming provincial election in...
There were 18 communications between Shaw Communications Inc. and the federal government within the last month, for which company CEO Brad Shaw was listed as the lobbyist, according to the federal lobbyists registry, including one...
Rogers Communications Inc.’s mobile-TV service upholds the Broadcasting Act by making Canadian content available and is not an undue preference, the company told the CRTC Wednesday. Rogers made...
CBC/Radio-Canada announced Thursday that will be adding a subscription-based section to its ICI Tou.tv streaming platform, and a partnership with Rogers Communications Inc. and Telus Corp. will give postpaid subscribers to services of those companies free access to the new content. Radio-Canada said it will add a section to its French-language, multi-platform video service, Tou.tv, called Extra, which will include about 400 exclusive titles for premium customers while a further 1,200 titles...
OTTAWA — CBC/Radio-Canada has been at the vanguard of changes the broadcasting industry has faced due to the emergence of digital media in recent years, Scott Hutton, the CRTC’s executive...
Independent Canadian broadcaster Channel Zero Inc. will have to answer to the CRTC for violations of Canadian content and closed-captioning rules on its specialty channels, including three adult-movie stations, at a hearing in April. The CRTC claims that multiple channels, including film channels Moviola and Silver Screen...
BlackBerry Ltd. said in blog post that it is testing sponsored content on its BBM messaging service with some users. A posting on BlackBerry’s website Tuesday by Jeff Gadway, head of product and brand marketing for BBM,...
Rogers Communications Inc. shelled out billions in this year’s 700 MHz spectrum auction for what was once “second-class” spectrum and what could now be the most coveted wireless real...
The Canadian broadcast of the Academy Awards Sunday night attracted an average of 6.12 million television viewers, said BCE Inc.’s CTV network, which had the broadcast rights to the awards show. In a press release put out...
The government of Canada plans to limit the remuneration rights of music creators in the United States, among other countries, when it ratifies the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)...
Tanya Woods, director and legal counsel for regulatory and copyright law at BCE Inc., is leaving to become vice-president of policy and legal affairs the Entertainment Software Association of Canada, The Lobby Monitor reported....
Dish Network Corp. announced a deal with Walt Disney Co. that will bring content from some of the most popular channels in United States, including worldwide sports leader ESPN, to over-the-top streaming services for the first...
A question posed by the CRTC in its review of television services, focusing on exempting over-the-top (OTT) services from Internet data caps, could have implications on net neutrality, according to some industry experts. In an online questionnaire released last week as part of Phase 2 of its review of television in Canada, the CRTC asks “if streaming content from online services that meet [closed captioning and programming standards] requirements didn’t count against your Internet access data cap, would you be willing to pay a small flat fee of $5 per month to cover increased...
Rogers Communications Inc. customers who are on an analog cable service are losing some of their channels as the service provider phases out what remains of analog signals of certain services. The company said any customers...
TVA Group Inc., the broadcasting and magazine publishing arm of Quebecor Inc., on Friday reported declines in profits and revenue for the last quarter of 2013. TVA said in a press release that net income in the fourth quarter was...
The CRTC is consulting on amending its rules to make it mandatory for the broadcasting industry to distribute emergency alert messages. In a notice Thursday, the commission said the amendments would make distribution of emergency...
BCE Inc.’s media subsidiary will make the live broadcast of the Oscars free on its CTV Go service. It normally requires viewers to have an account with a participating TV service provider, Bell Media said in a release...
Shaw Communications Inc. said Thursday it has launched a mobile app and upgraded the website for its History channel to allow its subscribers on-demand viewing of almost 300 hours of programming. Shaw said in a press release the History Go application is available for users of Apple Inc.’s iPhones and smartphones powered by Google Inc.’s Android software. The on-demand service can also be accessed at history.ca. The service, which will give users access to more than 20 shows, such as Vikings, Ice Pilots NWT and Pawn Stars, was available as of Thursday to those who subscribe to...
OTTAWA — The CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada told a Senate committee Wednesday night that he has never asked for “one dollar more” of public money but that the public broadcaster needs...
The CRTC has approved an ownership transfer of the English-language community radio station CJHQ-FM Nakusp in Nakusp, B.C., from the Nakusp Roots Music Society to the Nakusp Community Radio Society. The commission said Wednesday...
BCE Inc.’s Bell Media announced Wednesday it was making a $930,000 investment into the NSI Totally Television training course to keep the program going for another seven years. The course matches writer/producer teams with...
The CRTC said in an notice on its website Tuesday that it has consented to a request from Viewers Choice, a pay-per-view service owned by BCE Inc., to revoke its broadcast licence for carriage on...
BlackBerry Ltd. CEO John Chen said Tuesday he would consider selling BBM, the company’s messaging service, according to different media reports Tuesday. CNBC quoted Chen in an interview as saying: "If somebody comes to...
About 15 million people in Canada tuned in to at least part of the Olympic men’s hockey gold medal game on Sunday, which had an average audience of 8.5 million throughout the contest,...
Walt Disney Co. on Tuesday announced the launch of a cloud-based movie service called Disney Movies Everywhere to consumers in the United States. It’s available as an free application for Apple Inc.’s iPhones, iPads...
Netflix Inc. will pay Comcast Corp. for access to its network in order to be able to provide its streaming video customers with faster speeds and improved reliability, Bloomberg reported Monday, quoting anonymous sources. Based...
BlackBerry Ltd. said Monday that its BBM instant-messaging service would become available to users of Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Phones and Nokia Corp.’s X smartphones. BlackBerry made the announcement from the Mobile World Congress, happening in Barcelona, Spain, this week. Until making BBM available to users of Apple Inc.’s iPhones and phones running on Google Inc.’s Android software last year, BBM had been available exclusively for use on BlackBerry devices. Last week, Facebook Inc. announced it had reached a deal to pay $19 billion US for WhatsApp Inc., which...
A Canadian Internet service provider is being required by court order to give information on its subscribers linked with illegal filesharing to a Hollywood production company, and advocates on both...
Leiacomm, a company that plans to launch an over-the-top TV service in Canada, has filed a complaint against BCE Inc.’s Bell Media subsidiary for refusing to license its content to the service....
OTTAWA — Industry executives disagreed about the best way to give consumers more choice as they discussed the CRTC’s ongoing review of the television system during a panel discussion at...
Facebook Inc. said Wednesday has reached an agreement to pay about $19 billion US for mobile-messaging application company WhatsApp Inc. Facebook said in a press release that the purchase price includes $4 billion US in cash and...
The CRTC said Wednesday it has approved two Urdu-language channels, Business Plus and Zaiqa TV, for distribution in Canada. The CRTC said the application to add the station was received from Soundview Entertainment Inc. The commission said Soundview described Business Plus as a 24-hour news channel featuring business-oriented news and analysis, while Zaiqa TV is a niche food channel featuring Pakistani chefs....
The U.S. Television Coalition, which represents U.S. television stations whose signals are retransmitted in markets across Canada, has asked the Office of the United States Trade Representative to place Canada on its priority...
The CRTC is asking Canadians for feedback about Canadian content in online television services and their adherence to programming standards in an online questionnaire released Tuesday as part of Phase 2 of its review of television...
Quebecor Inc.’s media division has filed a complaint against the BCE Inc.-supported Bell Fund, claiming it had three TV projects that were unfairly turned down for funding last year. In letter filed on the CRTC’s...
DHX Media Ltd. on Thursday reported net earnings for its last quarter that were about 10 times what it made one year earlier. The Halifax-based producer and licenser of television content said in a press release that net earnings...
Rakuten Inc., a Tokyo-based provider of e-commerce and financial services, said Friday it is buying Viber Media Ltd., a provider of voice-over-IP (VoIP) and messaging services, for $900 million US. Rakuten said in a press release...
Rogers Communications Inc. said Thursday that Gord Cutler will become senior vice-president of NHL production, starting next week. Rogers said Cutler will oversee all on-air production aspects of Sportsnet’s National Hockey...
BCE Inc.’s Bell Media division said Wednesday that new regional production development offices will soon open in Vancouver and Winnipeg. The company said the Vancouver office will open Feb. 17...
The CRTC said in a notice that it has approved three non-Canadian TV channels for distribution, all of which are aimed at viewers younger than 30 and are based largely on online content from platforms such as YouTube and Vimeo. The names of the three channels are Gone Viral Blog, Gone Viral Music and Gone Viral Vogue. They...
Rogers Communications Inc. reported lower fourth-quarter profits on Wednesday, and attributed some of the decline to costs associated with broadcasting more hockey games. The company reported net income, adjusted for non-recurring items, fell to $357 million from $448 million. That was partially due to “incremental costs associated with broadcasting significantly more hockey games compared to last year,” Rogers said in a press release. It said the National Hockey League lockout last season and the compressed schedule this season due to the Olympics contributed to a comparatively...
