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 came to $2.8 million in its second fiscal quarter that ended Dec. 31. That was up from $287,000 a year earlier. Revenue was up 15 per cent from a year before to $30.4 million, the company said, fuelled largely by 42 per cent spike in revenue from it proprietary productions. DHX announced its’ intention in November to enter the broadcasting industry with the...
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 the addition of Viber would strengthen its own business “through the use of Viber’s range of customers in the company’s e-commerce and digital-contents services.” Rakuten said Viber has 280 million registered users globally and has “rapidly growing numbers of users, especially in emerging countries.” Reuters reported the...
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...
Regulatory oversight over CBC/Radio-Canada should be loosened, former CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein told the Senate standing committee on transport and communications on Tuesday. The CRTC should “seek greater flexibility from government in terms of oversight in order to compete in the modern, hyper-competitive media environment,” he said. Von Finckenstein said CBC’s status as a Crown corporation means it is “encumbered” by “all the onerous reporting and...
Cogeco Cable Inc. and Channel Zero Inc.’s CHCH TV said Tuesday they made Canadian television history last week by being the first in the country to offer localized advertising. The companies said advertisers will be able to...
CBC/Radio-Canada said Thursday it reached licensing agreements for coverage of the Sochi 2014 Olympic Games with Quebecor Inc. subsidiary Videotron Ltd., Telus Corp., Google Inc. and the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance. This...
Leclerc Communication Inc., owner of two radio stations in the Quebec City market, has filed a complaint with the CRTC regarding CBC/Radio-Canada’s refusal to air television ads promoting...
BCE Inc. CEO George Cope called the company’s wireline data revenue growth the “highlight” of its fourth-quarter results, released Thursday. “From my perspective, the...
The CRTC said Tuesday that CJON-DT, a television station in St. John’s, N.L., operating under the brand NTV, has been approved to receive support from the Small Market Local Production Fund...
Pelmorex Media Inc. said Wednesday it is expanding its Weather Network brand into the United Kingdom. The Oakville, Ont.-based company said in a release that establishing the Weather Network U.K. marks the second phase of its...
Rogers Communications Inc. said it will be keeping the Hockey Night in Canada brand alive on Saturday nights, and using 13 different channels to broadcast up to seven different games on those evenings. This was among the plans of...
While mobile devices have allowed Canadians to stay connected to the Internet when they’re on the go, the coming emergence of Internet-connected vehicles will soon allow their cars to do the...
A non-commercial CBC/Radio-Canada should be considered, Ian Morrison, spokesman for watchdog group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, told the Senate standing committee on transport and communications Tuesday. According to speaking notes of Morrison’s presentation, he said CBC’s loss of national broadcast rights for the National Hockey League to Rogers Communications Inc. over the next 12 years, announced in November, and the associated loss of ad revenue, presents “an excellent opportunity to do what SRC Television did 12 years ago — to wean itself from excessive...
This year’s Super Bowl attracted an average audience of eight million people in Canada, making it the second-most watched Super Bowl ever in the country, BCE Inc. said Monday. The company said in a release, citing data from...
BCE Inc.’s TSN said Monday it has secured the Canadian rights for national coverage of Major League Baseball games for Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights in a deal that will last until 2021. The specialty sports broadcaster...
The CRTC on Monday said it has approved the sale of a Saint John, N.B., radio station that will result in its format changing to Christian music. The commission said in a decision that it approved...
The CRTC has written letters in recent weeks to four television distribution companies, urging them not to blame the commission for simultaneous substitution and telling them it’s the...
The CBC/Radio-Canada report tabled by Heritage Minister Shelly Glover in the House of Commons on Monday, which sets out CBC’s plans to deal with reductions to its budget, is “obsolete,” said Ian Morrison, spokesman for watchdog group the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting. In the report, titled “Change Is the New Status Quo,” CBC said it will deal with reductions to its budget by selling off real estate holdings, increasing advertising and cutting some programming....
The CRTC is combining three complaints about wireless providers’ mobile-TV services and will consider all three complaints under a single proceeding, the commission said. In a complaint filed in November, University of...
The CRTC said Friday it has approved a Greek-language television channel for distribution in Canada. It said in a notice posted online that Star International, which will source its programming from Greece, has been approved to...
The federal government has finalized its long-awaited digital economy strategy and could release the policy as early as next month, sources familiar with the government’s plans said. Three people contacted by The Wire Report this month confirmed a formal digital economy plan has been finalized after more than...
The CRTC is consulting on a request to delete the conditions of distribution it imposed on Al Jazeera Arabic in 2004. The commission said in a notice Thursday that it had received a request from the...
The CRTC has approved an application to change the frequency of ethnic radio station CJVF-FM Scarborough from 105.9 MHz, with an average effective radiated power of 45 watts, to 102.7 MHz, at 6.5...
BCE Inc.’s media subsidiary reached a 12-year regional broadcast rights deal with the Ottawa Senators, the company said in a release Wednesday. Under the deal, Bell’s TSN and RDS channels will be the hockey...
Three million Canadian households have access to Netflix Inc.’s over-the-top streaming service, according to consulting firm Solutions Research Group. In a release Thursday, SRG said that number includes paid subscribers,...
Canadians who took part in a CRTC consultation “want more” from their television services, including more diverse and higher-quality programming, as well as more choice to subscribe to the individual channels they...
The value of Canadian independent television production dropped 9.8 per cent between April 2012 and March 2013, to a total of $2.67 billion, the Canadian Media Production Association said. Quoting data from its "Profile 2013: An Economic Report" in a press release Wednesday, CMPA said the number of television shows also dropped, from 693 to 629, in that time. Michael Hennessy, president and CEO of the CMPA, said in a release that “because there was such a sharp decline last year in independent television production, we need to determine the causes and find remedies for the...
The CRTC will hold a hearing on April 8 in Gatineau, Que., to consider the licence renewals of 10 TV conventional stations and seven specialty channels owned by Rogers Communications Inc., the commission said Wednesday. In a...
If one academic had his way, you would have no problem watching the latest wacky and titillating commercials from the United States during the Super Bowl this Sunday. Not that this is the main reason...
Telelatino Network Inc., a private corporation owned by Corus Entertainment Inc., is rebranding its specialty channel TLN en Español as Univision Canada, the company said in a release Tuesday. Corus said it had reached a...
Less than 60 per cent of Telus Corp.’s Optik TV customers subscribe to a sports specialty channel, the company’s chief financial officer said. “If I ask people in the hall,...
In a report released Thursday, Media Technology Monitor said that 16 per cent of anglophones with a TV subscription indicate they are somewhat or very likely to cut the cord, compared to eight per cent of francophones. MTM, a project of CBC/Radio-Canada, reported that 22 per cent of anglophones aged 34 to 47 said they are interested in cutting the cord, compared to 18 per cent of those aged 25 to 33 and 15 per cent of those aged 18 to 24. Among older age groups, 11 per cent of those 69 or older said they are considering cord-cutting, and the rate was 16 per cent among those 48 to 68. In a...
The CRTC has approved an ownership transfer of two Ottawa radio stations from BCE Inc. to Corus Entertainment Inc., the commission said in a decision Friday. The stations involved are CKQB-FM, known...
The CRTC has approved the addition of Lifestyle Network, Cinema One Global and TV Record to the list of non-Canadian programming channels authorized for distribution, it said in a notice Friday....
Netflix Inc. reported on Wednesday that its fourth-quarter profit had grown about sixfold from a year earlier. The over-the-top television service provider said its net earnings for the three months ended Dec. 31 were $48.4 million US, up from $7.9 million US in the same quarter of 2012. Revenue...
Scott Moore has been appointed president of Sportsnet and NHL at Rogers Communications Inc.'s media division, the company said in a release Thursday. Rogers said Moore would leverage “the company’s cable, wireless...
If 2013 was the year that the idea of binge-watching as a phenomenon hit the mainstream, then 2014 may be the year that traditional broadcasters seriously get into the game. Broadcasters in Canada...
The CRTC will be watching a Toronto radio station’s experiment with HD Radio to help gauge whether the technology has a future in Canada, and what that future might look like, the head of the...
The Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner has launched an “examination” of a fundraising event involving Heritage Minister Shelly Glover that a Liberal MP says illegally sought donations from people in the cultural community. A letter Liberal MP Ralph Goodale sent to the Ethics Commissioner...
The CRTC said in notice Wednesday that it has approved a new commercial radio station for Meaford, Ont., located about 180 kilometres north of Toronto on the south shore of Georgian Bay. The FM station will broadcast at a...
CenturyLink Inc. said Tuesday it has changed the name of its data-hosting division from Savvis to CenturyLink Technology Solutions. CenturyLink, a telecommunications firm based in Monroe, La., in November announced a Savvis data centre would open in Toronto in the summer of 2014, which would be its fourth data centre in Canada. CenturyLink Technology Solutions says on its website that it has 55 data centres around the world, which serve 30 per cent of Fortune 100 companies....
Verizon Communications Inc. said Tuesday it has reached a deal to purchase Intel Corp.’s Intel Media division, which is focused on developing cloud-television products and services. Terms of the transaction were not...
The CRTC said Tuesday it approved a new community FM radio station in Prince Edward County, Ont., located about about 200 kilometres east of Toronto. The commission said in a notice that the station will be operated by Prince...
Independent broadcaster Blue Ant Media Inc. is launching an international distribution unit and has appointed Solange Attwood its new senior vice-president of international operations, the company said in a release Monday....
There are about 21,000 people in Ontario whose jobs are related to the development and distribution of mobile applications, the Information and Communications Technology Council said in a report released Thursday. The report...
Patrick Jutras is the new senior vice-president of sales for Quebec at BCE Inc.’s media division. The company said in a release Thursday that Jutras would “lead the integrated Bell Media sales teams for all of the company’s platforms in the province.” Jutras was previously vice-president of sales and marketing at Bell Media's RDS French-language sports channel....
BCE Inc.’s Bell Media division on Thursday announced Nanci MacLean as the new vice-president of production and Justin Stockman as the vice-president of specialty channels. The company said in a press release the...
Facebook Inc. said Thursday that it is launching a trending feature that will highlight the most talked-about topics on the social network. The company said in a posting to its website that Facebook users will find the new...
Sirius XM Canada Holdings Inc. said Wednesday it elected Sleep Country Canada president Christine Magee to its board of directors. Magee replaces Pierre Boivin on the board of the satellite radio operator. Boivin resigned after...
Rogers Communications Inc.’s media division is launching a new premium specialty channel on April 1, the company said in a release Tuesday. Rogers said FXX would be “a younger-skewing funnier extension of FX...
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada said Wednesday that Google Inc. breached Canadian privacy law by using individuals’ health information to provide them with targeted...
A fee dispute between U.S. satellite-TV provider DirecTV and the Weather Channel culminated in the latter being taken off of the service on Tuesday. Bloomberg reported David Kenny, CEO of the station’s parent firm, Weather...
Satellite-radio broadcaster SiriusXM Canada Holdings Inc. said in a release Tuesday that it will simulcast three Business News Network (BNN) programs. Sirius said it would broadcast the programs, which air on the BCE Inc.-owned...
Shaw Communications Inc. reported a gain in first-quarter earnings amid some declines in both its cable and satellite TV-service subscriptions. The broadcaster and provider of TV, Internet and phone service said in a release...
Television and radio broadcasting company Corus Entertainment Inc. reported higher first-quarter earnings compared to a year earlier as it recorded gains in TV advertising and subscription revenue. The owner of TV stations such as Teletoon, YTV and W Network said in a release Tuesday that net earnings came in at $150.9 million for the quarter ended Nov. 30. That included a one-time gain of $127.9 million related to a boost in the measured value of Teletoon. It owned 50 per cent of that channel during the quarter, but on Jan. 1, its deal with BCE Inc. to purchase the remaining half closed, it...
Increased sales of larger, “phablet” smartphones will drive growth in mobile data consumption in 2014 as more consumers use the bigger devices to watch more mobile TV, consulting firm...
Rogers Communications Inc. is spending more than $100 million to buy rights from both American and Canadian content owners in order to launch its own over-the-top video service, Cartt.ca reported Thursday. In an emailed statement...
Postmedia Network Canada Corp., operator of newspapers and news websites across Canada, reported on Thursday an $11.8-million first quarter net loss for the three months ended Nov. 30. Postmedia, which owns brands such as the National Post, the Montreal Gazette and Canada.com, said in a release it earned $6.7 million at the same time last year....
Rogers Communications Inc. said Wednesday it has renewed its long-standing partnership with Major League Baseball, extending its Sportsnet channel's multi-platform broadcasting rights to hundreds of games a year for the next...
Sony Corp. will launch a “cloud-based” TV service in the U.S. this year, Andrew House, president and group CEO of Sony subsidiary Sony Computer Entertainment, said Tuesday in a speech at the CES technology trade show in Las Vegas. The service will offer both live TV and video-on-demand service, House said, adding Sony plans to begin testing the service later this year. “The service will give you the most popular live-TV programs, combined with a large library of video-on-demand content so people will have all of their favorite movies, TV shows and sports programs available...
Carriage negotiations between broadcasters and the broadcast distributors who deliver their channels to consumers will focus on finding the right “penetration-based” price rates in a...
At least two content collectives are asking the Federal Court of Appeal to review a decision the Copyright Board made in November regarding interest payments in the reallocation of tariffs for distant...
BCE Inc. said Monday that Lucy Collin has been appointed Bell Media’s vice-president of marketing, innovation and integrated sales for English Canada. She will report to Luc Sabbatini, president of sales at Bell Media, and also work in cooperation with Nathalie Doré, who holds the equivalent position for Bell Media in Quebec, the company...
BCE Inc.’s RDS French-language sports channel announced a 12-year regional broadcast deal with the Montreal Canadiens that it says makes it the team’s official broadcaster through to the 2025-26 season. RDS said it...
The CRTC approved Corus Entertainment Inc.’s acquisition of the Historia and Séries+ specialty channels, as well as full ownership of Teletoon Canada, the commission said. In a decision Friday, the CRTC said it had approved Corus’ application to acquire full ownership of specialty broadcaster Teletoon Canada, and will permit the...
The CRTC has approved an application by 0859291 B.C. Ltd. to have its CHEK-DT television station in Victoria added to the list of stations eligible to receive funding from the Small Market Local Production Fund. In a decision...
The CRTC is granting must-offer status to Canada’s national all-news specialty services and will require broadcast distributors to offer those channels on a standalone basis, though not...
BeIN Sport, a sports specialty television network owned by Qatari Sports Investments, which is affiliated with the Qatari-government owned Al Jazeera Media Network, has partnered with the Ethnic Channels Group Ltd. to launch in...
The CRTC is consulting on the acquisition of five BCE Inc. radio stations by Newfoundland Capital Corp. subsidiary Newcap Inc., the commission said Wednesday. The deal for CHBM-FM and CFXJ-FM in Toronto, and CKZZ-FM, CHHR-FM and CISL-AM in Vancouver follows Bell’s purchase of Astral Media Inc. earlier this year. As a condition of that deal, Bell was forced to sell the stations in order to comply with CRTC “diversity of voices” rules that limit broadcasters to owning no more than two same-band, same-language radio stations in each market. This Wire Report reported this...
Facebook Inc. said Tuesday it would start testing video advertisements that start playing in a user’s newsfeed as soon they come into view. It said in a release that this week a “small number of people” would...
BCE Inc. said Tuesday it has renewed a multi-year agreement to get exclusive Canadian rights to content from U.S. sports broadcaster ESPN for its sports channels, TSN and RDS. The companies said in a release that the content...
Espial Group Inc., an Ottawa-based provider of TV service software, said Tuesday it would begin providing Norway’s biggest cable operator with technology for its video-on-demand and time-shift TV services. Espial said Canal Digital Kabel-TV AS will use its video-delivery platform, Espial MediaBase, for these...
In a survey of 1,500 U.S. viewers who watch TV by streaming it online, 61 per cent “binge watch” TV shows regularly, Netflix Inc. said. The company said in a release Friday that the majority of respondents defined...
Canada’s Competition Bureau is has initiated a formal inquiry into Google Inc.’s search and advertising activities following a preliminary probe that found signs of anti-competitive behaviour, the Financial Post reported. The report said the bureau found evidence that Google was using its position as the dominant search engine in ways that might hurt competition, such as striking deals with software vendors and hardware makers to be the default search engine in third-party services, and manipulating search results to favour its own services. “The Commissioner has reason to believe that Google’s alleged practice of anti-competitive acts, independently and/or on a combined basis, have had, are having, or are likely to have the effect of preventing or lessening...
Moody’s Investors Services said Thursday that Canadian regulators could "respond" to Rogers Communications Inc.’s recent $5.2-billion, 12-year broadcasting deal with the National Hockey League. In a report,...
Chris Peirce is retiring from his position as chief corporate officer at Manitoba Telecom Services Inc.‘s MTS Allstream business unit. The company said in a release Friday that Peirce’s retirement would be effective Dec. 31. Peirce joined the predecessor of MTS Allstream, AT&T Canada, in 1999, it said. “Mr. Peirce made...
International Channel/Canal International (ICI) launched on Dec. 11, said Sam Nouruzi, vice-president and general manager of the channel. The channel is now available on television services offered by Quebecor Inc. subsidiary Videotron and on BCE Inc.’s Fibe TV, Nouruzi said in a brief...
BCE Inc. is making 10 of its French-language specialty channels available on a free preview from Dec. 12 to Jan. 12. The company said in a release Thursday that the channels offered will be Canal Vie, Canal D,...
The Toronto Maple Leafs franchise was the one National Hockey League club not to vote in favour of the 12-year, $5.2-billion broadcast and digital-rights agreement between the league and Rogers Communications Inc., the Toronto...
Google Inc.’s YouTube will bring in about $5.6 billion US in advertising revenue this year, according to an analysis from research firm eMarketer Inc. Its report said this is a 51.4 per cent increase from last year. After paying its advertising partners and video content creators, YouTube would net $1.96 billion US, eMarketer said, which is up...
The CRTC has approved an application by My Broadcasting Corp. to acquire the Peterborough, Ont., English-language specialty radio station CJMB-FM from 4352416 Canada Inc. The commission said it would not require tangible benefits...
It’s a familiar refrain — a viewer flipping through hundreds of channels, complaining there’s nothing to watch. Consumers today have access to more content than ever, not only...
The National Film Board of Canada said Tuesday that Tom Perlmutter is stepping down as its chair and as the government’s film commissioner as of Dec. 31. A release on the NFB website said Perlmutter is leaving his role “to devote himself to thinking and writing about the long-term issues affecting the arts and public cultural organizations.” Perlmutter said in the release: “This is an ambitious undertaking which I believe I am uniquely qualified to take on and which I am convinced is fundamental to the future well-being of the country and its cultural agencies. But it is not something that can be done as an adjunct to my current work.” The release said Perlmutter will stay on as a strategic adviser to NFB. Perlmutter has been with the NFB since 2001 and...
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) must do more to entice broadcasters to take part in an “incentive auction” of their broadcast airwaves if it wants to reallocate that spectrum for mobile use, the head...
The CRTC has approved an application for a licence to operate a low-power, English-language commercial FM radio station in Barriere, B.C., the commission said Tuesday. The programming for the station, which would operate at 93.1...
David Philips is the new president and chief operating officer at BBM Analytics Inc., the company said in a release Monday. Philips joined BBM Analytics at its launch in 2006, and served as its vice-president and general manager, it said....
BCE Inc.’s Bell Media division on Monday said it has expanded an existing agreement to provide coverage of the National Football League in Canada. Bell Media said in a release the new deal adds to an existing arrangement...
The CRTC is consulting on one application for a television station licence and seven applications for radio station licences, the commission said. The CRTC said in a notice Monday it would consider an application for a national English-language specialty TV channel called Cycle TV, which would “offer programming devoted to the world of cycling and its associated activities.” It will also consider applications for English-language community FM stations in Lower Sackville, N.B. and Hubbard, N.S., as well as a Type B Native FM radio station in Kanesatake, Que. The regulator is also...
VMedia Inc., a provider of Internet-protocol television services in Ontario, announced Monday it is launching a "pick a pack" service called UChoose. VMedia is offering customers who subscribe to its basic or...
The Conservative government’s new anti-counterfeiting bill passed committee stage with amendments and was referred back to the House of Commons for further debate, a parliamentary committee said. In a report published...
The CRTC will not expand a complaint against BCE Inc.’s Mobile TV service to encompass other wireless providers. Ben Klass, a master's student at the University of Manitoba, filed an application with the CRTC earlier...
Shaw Communications Inc. can continue to enroll new subscribers in its Local Television Satellite Solution (LTSS), a free satellite TV program, for a “final” 12 months, the CRTC said. In...
The CRTC said in a notice on its website Thursday that it approved an advertising exception for CBC/Radio Canada regarding sponsored programs on its Radio 2 and Espace Musique stations. The decision allows the public broadcaster...
As Canadian regulators move toward a possible pick-and-pay TV regime in Canada, some industry analysts in the United States are warning of the effect such a move toward “unbundling” would have south of the border. A...
Netflix Inc. and CBC/Radio Canada have expanded their licensing agreement, adding CBC’s Murdoch Mysteries, as well as new seasons of series like Republic of Doyle and Heartland, to Netflix’s streaming service....
Knight TV Inc. will launch a new specialty channel focusing on food and lifestyle on Dec. 11, the company said Tuesday. The channel, called Gusto TV, will be available on a few preview through BCE Inc.’s Fibe TV and...
V Interactions Inc. is acquiring the French-language specialty channels MusiquePlus and MusiMax from BCE Inc.’s media division. Bell Media was required to divest the channels as part of its acquisition of Astral Media Inc. “With today's announcement, Bell Media has now entered into agreements with buyers for all of the properties it was required to divest,“ the companies said in a release Tuesday. The deal must still be approved by the CRTC and the Competition Bureau, they added. V, a Remstar Corp. company, runs the third-largest French-language over-the-air network...
