Rogers Communications Inc. unveiled its new IPTV service to investors Thursday, according to analysts’ notes, though company spokesman Aaron Lazarus declined to comment Friday. Canaccord Genuity analyst Aravinda Galappatthige said in a Friday note that the service “represents a substantial leap from its existing legacy platform.” He noted the transition to cable from IPTV is likely to take almost five years. “The take-away for us is that the technical hurdle, which was always deemed to be formidable considering the historical difficulties of...
Canadian Cable Systems Alliance (CCSA) president and CEO Alyson Townsend has left the organization, vice-president of corporate and regulatory Chris Edwards confirmed Wednesday. Jenny Bosien, CCSA’s finance director, has stepped in as interim CEO, Edwards said over the phone. Edwards could not confirm the date when Townsend left the position she has held for at least a decade, but said it was “within the last two weeks.” A search for a new CEO will be conducted, Edwards said, but did not have a timeline for putting a new permanent CEO in place....
An independent proxy advisory company has backed the takeover of Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. by BCE Inc., MTS said in a Tuesday press release. International Shareholder Services (ISS) is recommending...
An information package for Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. shareholders sheds some light on the genesis of the proposed $3.9-billion acquisition of the company by BCE Inc., announced May 2. According...
Shareholders in Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. will have their say in the proposed merger with BCE Inc. later this month. The company announced in a Wednesday press release that a special meeting...
Ontario Internet service and television provider VMedia Inc. will expand to Quebec, British Columbia, Manitoba and Alberta in the next two weeks — a move the company says will see its services...
The sale of Manitoba’s largest telecommunications company is not sitting well with Manitobans, with 61 per cent stating they don’t approve of the deal, while only 21 per cent said it would be good or very good for the province, according to a new Angus Reid poll. The survey, released Wednesday, also found that disapproval is highest among those who are paying the closest attention to the story. A majority of residents in the prairie province, or 53 per cent, say the sale of Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. to BCE Inc. would have a negative effect on prices, while nearly half, or 48...
The proposed $3.9-billion acquisition of Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. by BCE Inc. dominated question period in the Manitoba legislature this week, with the opposition NDP peppering the governing Conservatives...
The CRTC said Tuesday it will hold a hearing on the implementation of skinny basic TV packages, though it only asked four companies — BCE Inc., Rogers Communications Inc., Shaw Communications Inc.,...
Saskatchewan Telecommunications Holding Corp. said Monday it was making a more-than-$1.4-billion capital investment over the next five years to upgrade its systems and networks. Of that investment, $331 million is allotted...
Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. reported a two-per-cent loss in revenues, earning $250.7 million in the three months ended March 31, compared to $255.9 million in the same period a year earlier. The company...
Faced with the prospect of becoming “an island in Western Canada” at the conclusion of the proposed Manitoba Telcom Services Inc. sale, Saskatchewan Telecommunications Holding Corp. is...
NDP MPs pushed the innovation minister to closely scrutinize BCE Inc.’s proposed $3.9-billion acquisition of Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. in the House of Commons Wednesday. Manitoba MP Niki Ashton...
Telus Corp. revenues increased by 2.6 per cent in the first quarter of 2016, rising to $3.1 billion compared to $3.03 billion during the same period a year earlier, the company said Thursday. In a press release...
BCE Inc. announced Monday morning that it will purchase Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. in a $3.9 billion transaction that, if approved, will see the number of players in Manitoba’s telecom...
The CRTC issued a call for Thursday for IPTV and cable providers whose broadcast licences will expire in 2016 and 2017 to submit licence renewal applications. The regulator said that licensees with licences expiring on Aug. 31 this year should submit their renewal applications by May 5, while those whose licences expire in 2017 should submit the same information no later than Aug. 31 this year....
Rogers Communications Inc. will be launching an IPTV service by the end of the year, Guy Laurence, the company’s CEO, confirmed Tuesday during Rogers’ annual general meeting of shareholders held in Toronto....
The number of Canadians without TV subscriptions is currently 20 per cent, according to a pair of new reports from Media Technology Monitor, a project of CBC/Radio-Canada. MTM noted that “living without a paid TV...
A new report from Convergence Consulting Group Ltd. estimates 3.43 million Canadian households, or about 23.7 per cent, didn’t have a traditional TV subscription with a cable,...
BCE Inc. said in a press release Friday it has begun allowing customers to buy ongoing access to on-demand movies. The Own with Bell service is available to its IPTV customers, who can access it through their...
The percentage of Canadians subscribing to TV service in Canada fell to 77 per cent in the fall of 2015, according to a new report released Tuesday by Media Technology Monitor, a project of CBC/Radio-Canada. That’s a five-per-cent decrease from numbers reported a year earlier. MTM said the IPTV market, unlike cable and satellite, “is expected to grow in the coming years as its footprint expands.” MTM said subscriptions to IPTV services grew to 21 per cent by the fall of 2015, up from 18 per cent a year earlier. The report added that 53 per cent of subscribers were...
The number of subscribers leaving the Canadian TV system appears to be accelerating, as Canada’s publicly traded telecom companies lost five times more TV subscribers in 2015 than a year earlier. They reported having...
On the day Canadian TV providers were required to make their skinny basic options available to consumers, experts expressed skepticism about how many Canadians will sign up for the new offers and...
A new proposal from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) aims to free TV subscribers from their leased set-top box agreements with cable and satellite operators. In a 3-2 decision on...
BCE Inc. reported net earnings of $542 million in the fourth quarter of 2015, down 8.8 per cent from the same time a year earlier. It said Thursday that final quarter revenues were up 1.4 per cent to $5.60 billion,...
The CRTC has told officials representing ADR.TV and Quebecor Inc.'s Videotron that the latter must maintain distribution of the former as the CRTC sorts through a dispute between the two parties....
Canada's Gusto TV on Tuesday announced that has sold one of its original shows to a South Korean 4K channel. It said in a press release that 30 episodes of A is for Apple — a cooking-challenge program — had been...
Barclays Capital analyst Phillip Huang said Monday that providers of telecommunications services in Canada will feel the effects of the struggling economy. He said in a research note that most of repercussions from things such as...
The CRTC is proposing a new fund to support local TV news programming, which would be funded by existing financial resources within the broadcasting system. The proposal was included a paper released Tuesday, which will be used...
Television service providers have another 20 months before they are forced to abide by a new code governing their relationship with customers. The CRTC on Thursday released a finalized version of its television service provider code, which will, among other things, require broadcast distributors to provide easy-to-understand information about what channels a customer is getting, clarity about the duration of promotional offers and time commitments a consumer must undertake, explicit information on charges or taxes that might be applied on top of an advertised price, and provide 30 days notice...
Beanfield Technologies Inc., an independent provider of fibre-based Internet, TV and phone services in Toronto, is asking the CRTC to help it gain access to one of the few condominium buildings it isn't already connected to in...
Having premium content on linear TV and on over-the-top (OTT) services can cause adverse effects on revenue growth and will cause consumers to expect lower costs for premium TV content, according to a...
BCE Inc. announced Monday that subscribers of Bell’s Fibe TV and Bell Alliant’s FibreOP TV will have access to their Netflix Inc. account directly from their TV receivers. It said in the release that all Fibe TV...
The Canadian Media Production Association (CMPA) announced Friday it has agreed on terms for a new three-year agreement with the Directors Guild of Canada (DGC). It said in a press release that the renewed agreement, which will...
The CRTC denied an application from Ethnic Channels Group Ltd. Wednesday to amend the exemption order for discretionary TV services serving fewer than 200,000 subscribers in order for third-language undertakings to devote 15 per cent each week to Canadian programs rather than 15 per cent of the broadcast year and the evening broadcast period. Ethnic Channels had argued in its application that devoting 15 per cent of the broadcast year and the evening broadcast period to Canadian programming “would result in a greater regulatory burden for exempt third-language services,” and added...
Subscribers to BCE Inc.’s TV services will pay more for CraveTV starting in February, though the company isn’t saying how much customers who get the streaming service through other TV-service providers, or those...
A Quebec TV station that focuses on disseminating public-safety and police-related information has filed a complaint against BCE Inc. for its impending exclusion of carriage of the channel, though the CRTC has ordered Bell to keep...
OTTAWA — Canada's major TV service providers argued before the Copyright Board of Canada on Monday that they should pay less for distant-TV signals because these channels are losing value as...
As the Canadian TV industry approaches an era where customers have more choice over the channels they subscribe to, large broadcasters should “pick their winners” and consolidate into a...
Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. CEO Jay Forbes on Monday downplayed the likelihood that the whole company could be sold in the wake of a deal to unload its business communications division, Allstream....
When Channel Zero Inc. announced the launch of its Bloomberg TV Canada channel this week, it listed every TV-service provider that was carrying it and absent from that list was Canada's biggest provider of TV service. Channel...
Blue Ant Media Inc. on Wednesday announced several changes to its leadership team, including the appointment of Jamie Schouela to the newly created position of executive vice-president of Canadian networks. Blue Ant said in a...
Telus Corp. and Cogeco Cable Inc. have filed their opposition to BCE Inc.'s attempt to fight, before the Federal Court of Appeal, the CRTC's wholesale code governing relationships between television stations and TV-service...
The CRTC granted Atop Broadband Corp., an IPTV provider serving most of the Greater Toronto Area, the authorization to carry WNLO-TV and WNYO-TV, based in Buffalo, N.Y. The regulator said in a decision Thursday that Atop requested carriage of the two channels in order “to remain competitive with other BDUs that offer these programming services.” The approval “is consistent” with other previous applications, it noted. ...
The Television Bureau of Canada (TVB) announced Wednesday it has appointed Kathy Gardner to the newly created position of vice-president of media insights. TVB said in a press release that Gardner will oversee research and...
Third-quarter results indicate the mobile market has adjusted to the higher-priced, two-year contracts that became the norm after the CRTC implemented the wireless code in 2013, says Scotia Capital...
Ontario residents are not moving as fast toward newer ways of getting TV content, such as IPTV and Netflix, as other parts of the Canada, according to newly released figures. Survey results released last week from Media...
The CRTC on Friday made certain clarifications about the policy implemented early this year to prohibit providers of telecommunications services from requiring 30-days' notice of subscription...
Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. on Wednesday reported lower revenue and profits compared to a year earlier. It said in a press release that revenue was down one per cent to $398.4 million for the three months ended Sept. 30. Net earnings came in at $26.7 million, down from $36.8 million one year earlier. MTS said revenue was down due to declines in wireless-voice and long-distance revenue, partially offset by gains in wireless-data, Internet, "information solutions" and IPTV revenues. The company said it is continuing efforts to transform the company, which include improving customer experiences in its MTS division and revitalizing its Allstream division, the latter of which it intends to sell....
BCE Inc. announced Wednesday that the popularity of its Fibe TV service has made its the largest TV provider in Canada for the first time with more than 2.7 million customers across the country. Bell said in a press release that...
Representatives from the Commission for Complaints for Telecommunications Services (CCTS) told the CRTC Tuesday that making telecom companies' participation in the CCTS voluntary would affect the...
The notion that "content is king" is challenged in a new report that points out that connectivity services take in significantly more revenue than content providers in Canada and have seen...
Telus Corp. announced Monday it is providing more than $3.2 million in funding for more than 60 new local content projects in Western Canada this year through its Optik Local community programming. It said in a press release that...
A telecom-market analyst says incumbent telecommunications-service providers would benefit under a Liberal government. Scotia Capital analyst Jeff Fan said in a research note released the Friday before Monday's election:...
Following Corus Entertainment Inc.’s announcement at MIPCOM, the global entertainment content conference, it said in a press release Monday that it has signed deals to distribute its original...
Barclays Capital analyst Phillip Huang said in a research note Monday that, despite the uncertain outcome of this month's federal election, a significant change in policy with regard to...
Prices for TV subscriptions in the coming pick-and-pay era will be one of the main factors determining how over-the-top (OTT) video services are affected, say experts, noting that competitive pricing...
Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. is asking the CRTC to grant its Classic TV customers another exemption from the regulator’s emergency alert rules, which would be in place until MTS is able to migrate all customers to set-top boxes capable of receiving such alerts. MTS said in November 2014 that its MTS Classic TV service, which was likely to be shut down anyway, cannot support the National Public Alerting System (NPAS), and asked for an extension from the deadline to comply to give affected customers more time to adjust. The CRTC granted it a six-month extension, the company noted in a...
Rogers Communications Inc.’s OMNI TV announced Wednesday it will be broadcasting its first production of an original series on its channel. OMNI said in the release that the show, titled Blood and Water, will be a Chinese...
The CRTC on Thursday released a final version of its anticipated wholesale code governing the business relationships between TV-service providers and channel operators, which, among other things, bans provisions that would prevent...
The CRTC is asking whether maintaining a physical presence in an area is necessary to produce local programming and whether community-access TV is still relevant as part a proceeding on local and community television it announced...
Ericsson AB announced on Thursday that its cloud-based TV platform, MediaFirst, is now commercially available to operators and content providers, noting that Telus Corp. will be utilizing the service to enhance service for its TV...
A stock market analyst has speculated that an acquisition of Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. by BCE Inc. is likely next year. A research note Wednesday from TD Securities analyst Vince Valentini said that with MTS set to sell off its Allstream division in the coming months, “we believe that the stage will be set for a sale of the remaining Manitoba operations to one of the larger telcos in Canada by mid-2016.” Valentini referenced Bell’s recent purchases of CTV, Astral Media and Bell Aliant as proof of the company’s willingness to use acquisitions to fuel growth. He...
The Canadian Media Fund (CMF) said Monday that it provided $365.5 billion in funding for television and digital-media productions last year. That's up from $354.5 billion that it reported spending in the previous year's...
BCE Inc. said Monday that Fibe TV customers will have exclusive access to a spinoff series of The Amazing Race Canada. It said in a press release that The Amazing Race Canada Auditions will be...
The plunge in oil prices could end up hurting telecommunications service providers like Shaw Communications Inc. and Telus Corp., which have a high proportion of their business operations in Alberta, according to a Bay Street...
Distributel Communications Ltd. on Thursday announced that it has hired Gerry Vanderpost as its chief financial officer. Vanderpost had been vice-president of financial at Primus Telecommunications Canada Inc., and joined...
The CRTC has given two more companies permission to provide television services to small audiences, even though it has technically denied their applications for licences. The commission said Thursday it has rejected an...
BCE Inc. says in a filing with the CRTC that it is not violating regulations by requiring customers to pay for various services by the month in advance and not providing partial refunds if subscriptions are ended before the...
Uniserve Communications Corp. on Wednesday made note of a decision from the CRTC last month that set the stage for it and Atop Broadband Corp. to provide television-distribution services in British Columbia under a new exemption...
A report from Boon Dog Professional Services Inc. released Wednesday said Canada's publicly traded TV-service providers lost six times as many subscribers in the first half of 2015 than in the...
Telus Corp. on Friday reported a 5.1 per cent year-to-year revenue gain in its second quarter, boosted by more data-generated cash from both its wireless and wireline operations. The company said in a press release that operating revenue came in at $3.1 billion for the three months ended June 30. Net income declined to $341 million from $381 million, Telus said, attributing the decline to non-recurring issues such as restructuring costs, an unfavourable tax adjustment in relation to higher rates in Alberta and real estate-related charges associated with closing down its Blacks stores. It...
BCE Inc. said Thursday that its gigabit Internet service will launch Monday for 1.3 million households in Ontario and Quebec. It added that it will be available to households in Atlantic Canada by the end of September, resulting...
Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. announced in its quarterly results a decrease in revenues, which totalled $398.3 million, compared to $403.3 the previous year. Net income was $10.4 million for the three months ending June 30, down from $28.8 million for the same period a year earlier. The...
Telus Corp. said Tuesday that it has reached an agreement to sell the website of the Blacks photography retail operation to Montreal-based photo finishing company Les Pros de la Photo. It said in an emailed statement the sale will close on Aug. 4, at which time the purchasing company will do...
“Sharp” price hikes in wireless service over the past year are prompting people to reduce how much they spend on other telecommunications services, according to a Conference Board of...
Quebecor Inc. has filed an application asking the CRTC to force BCE Inc. to stop charging customers after the date they cancel telecommunications services. An application from Quebecor appearing on the CRTC website Monday said Bell's practice of charging customers in advance for a month of service, with no refunds if service is cancelled partway through the month, violates both the wireless code and the CRTC's policy of banning the requirement of 30-days' notice of cancellation of telecommunications services. Quebecor said in its letter to the CRTC, written in French, that its...
Companies spent $138.7 million on TV-related tangible benefits in Canada in the 12 months ended Aug. 31 last year, marking a 27 per cent increase from a year earlier, according to TV-industry research...
ADR.TV said Friday that it has applied to Federal Court for a judicial review of the CRTC's decision in August 2013 not to grant it mandatory carriage on basic TV packages in Quebec past Aug. 31...
Telus Corp.’s Optik TV customers will now have access more than 1,000 National Film Board of Canada (NFB) films on their TV via a new app. Telus announced Thursday in a press release that the NFB app is now available to...
Kelvin Shepherd is retiring as president of Manitoba Telecom Service Inc., paving the way for Jay Forbes to take on the roles of both chief executive and president, the company said Monday. Forbes became CEO at the start of this...
Cable companies are “poised to level the playing field” against telephone incumbents in the area of TV service as they launch more advanced technological services of their own, Barclays Capital analyst Phillip Huang...
The CRTC on Friday granted approval for seven non-Canadian television channels to be distributed in Canada, six of which were sponsored by BCE Inc. The stations approved, which Bell Canada sponsored, included: Radio...
Shaw Communications Inc. on Thursday reported a decline in its quarterly income with much of the drop attributed to a $55-million write-down taken on an abandoned IPTV project. Shaw said in a press release that it started work in...
Prices of low-end wireless plans have continued to climb for the second year in a row, while Canada’s rates for broadband, wireless and bundled telecom services remain high compared to other...
Rogers Communications Inc. will launch its IPTV service at about the same time it starts adjusting to new rules that require service providers to provide skinny-basic TV packages for no more than $25 a month, the company's chief financial officer told an investor conference in Toronto on Wednesday. "With that enhanced user interface, it'll be good vehicle in which to launch some of the new, what I would call, packages," Tony Staffieri said during the TD Securities Telecom & Media Forum. Rules, announced by the CRTC earlier this year, will require TV service providers to...
Almost 60 per cent of the data generated globally by smartphones and tablets will be offloaded to WiFi networks by 2019, Juniper Research Ltd. said Tuesday. Juniper said in a press release that more than 115,000 petabytes from...
Canadian TV providers are worried the wording the CRTC proposed to prohibit policies requiring 30-day notice to cancel TV services could be interpreted to apply to the cancellation of individual...
Canada’s biggest telecom companies are asking the CRTC to dismiss an application by smaller providers that, if granted, would make usage-sensitive rates interim, allowing small Internet service...
TORONTO — There has never have been a better time than now to be a consumer of television, it was said during a panel discussion Wednesday at the Canadian Telecom Summit, but it was also discussed how big changes are afoot,...
TORONTO — With a key decision from the CRTC on smaller service providers’ access to wireline telecommunications networks expected soon, three incumbents’ regulatory bosses took on their counterpart at TekSavvy Solutions Inc. over the issue at the Canadian Telecom Summit on Tuesday. During the so-called “Regulatory Blockbuster” panel discussion, TekSavvy chief regulatory officer Bram Abramson found himself arguing the merits of stronger oversight over the prices companies like his have to pay for access to networks owned by the major telecoms. “You’ll...
A number of Canadian broadcast distributors have taken issue with aspects of the CRTC’s proposed code governing the relationship between TV providers and their customers, including the requirement that distributors must...
Stingray Digital Group Inc. announced Tuesday that its initial public offering on the Toronto Stock Exchange will include 22.4 million voting shares for total proceeds of $140 million. Based on these prices, market capitalization...
The CRTC said Wednesday in a notice of consultation that it is looking for comments on its elimination of 30-day notice requirements for cancelling telecom services, which has been in effect since...
The CRTC said in a press release Tuesday it has opened an online discussion forum on a code of conduct for TV providers it proposed in March. At the time, the CRTC said the code would help better inform Canadians and help resolve...
While many broadcasters and TV providers expressed support for the CRTC’s proposed changes to its wholesale code, which governs carriage agreements for TV channels, they took differing positions...
The CRTC on Friday approved a new IPTV service from VMedia Inc., despite arguments from some interveners that the proposed service would be transmitted over the public Internet and should therefore not be licensed as a broadcast...
Telus Corp. on Thursday reported higher profits and earnings from the year's first quarter, largely on the strength of its wireless business. The company said in a press release its quarterly profit was $415 million, up from...
Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. said Thursday that, following a strategic review, it will make cuts to staff and capital spending at its Allstream division. MTS's Allstream, which provides business communications services...
Despite streaming services eating away at the profits of pay-per-view movies and TV shows, TV providers could see their biggest PPV revenues in history on Saturday as two of boxing’s biggest names fight in front of a worldwide audience. Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao are set to face each other at the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, in a fight that promoter and Top Rank Inc. CEO Bob Arum, who represents Pacquiao, told ESPN could raise $300 million US between ticket sales, pay-per-view sales and sponsorships. Ray Rutter, president of Canadastar Boxing Inc., said...