BCE Inc.’s Bell Media division announced Tuesday that it will expand TSN from two to five national feeds this fall. According to a press release, the five national feeds will be branded as TSN1, TSN2, TSN3, TSN4 and TSN5. All TSN feeds will be available to subscribers both online and through the TSN Go application, Bell said. “With five national channels as our new canvas, we now have the flexibility to fully leverage our immense portfolio of premium sports programming," TSN president Stewart Johnston said in the press release. He added: “With this expansion, we are increasing our lineup of live events and in-house productions, while acquiring even more new content. This evolution of TSN is a win-win for both our viewers and our key partners.”...
OTTAWA — The CRTC would be unlikely to intervene if a move to pick-and-pay television caused price increases, said Reynolds Martin, chief negotiator and chief legal officer at the Canadian Media Production Association. “I wonder what remedies would be available to the commission, because my supposition is that it’s going to be extremely reluctant to engage in any kind of rate regulation exercise over and above what’s been contemplated [and] done in the past,” he...
Rogers Communications Inc. took a hit in this year’s first quarter in both revenue and profit numbers, according to results released Monday. The company said it had $3.02 billion in operating revenue for the three months...
Rogers Communications Inc. said Thursday it has deployed its new 700 MHz spectrum in parts of Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver. Rogers said the launch of the spectrum means customers in these locations will have an easier time...
As CBC/Radio-Canada on Thursday announced another round of job cuts and other reductions throughout its organization, observers expressed impatience over the lack of a fundamentally different vision emerging from the public...
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...
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 website Monday evening said the meeting is expected to deal with financial pressures the public broadcaster will face after losing revenue rights to Hockey Night In Canada following Rogers Communications Inc.’s $5.2-billion, 12-year deal with the National Hockey League, which gives it exclusive rights to nationally broadcast games starting next season....
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...
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,...
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,...
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...
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...
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...
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 Monday, CTV said it was the most watched entertainment show since the 2011 Oscars, and that a total of 14 million people tuned into at least part of this year’s awards show. Those numbers did not include viewers watching an online stream of the show, which CTV was offering for free, network spokeswoman Carolyn Fell said in a phone interview. CTV said...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
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 eight seasons and extending its exclusive Canadian right to sell the MLB Network through Rogers’ digital-television service. The deal will allow Sportsnet to continue showing nearly 300 MLB games each season, including regular season matchups, the all-star game, the post-season and the World Series until 2021, Rogers said in a press release. The MLB Network is...
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...
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...
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...
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,...
OTTAWA — The ease with which athletes, coaches, journalists, officials and volunteers at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, are able to communicate, surf the Internet and watch events beyond their immediate locations will depend largely on a guy working in the west end of Ottawa. Avaya Inc. is the official network supplier of the Games this winter. Avaya is based in Santa Clara, Calif., though its chief architect for the Sochi Games, Dean Frohwerk, works at Avaya’s office in the Ottawa suburb of Kanata. “It’s a soup-to-nuts, hand-to-hand solution we...
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...
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...
Technological developments that impact the way consumers watch broadcast content will help determine whether CBC/Radio-Canada will continue to air NHL hockey games five years from now, said Scott...
Rogers Communications Inc.’s new 12-year deal for the broadcast and multi-platform rights to National Hockey League games is a $5.2-billion bet that Canadians will pay to maintain access to NHL...
The NDP introduced a private members bill that would ban TV blackouts for some live sports events. MP Glenn Thibeault introduced in the House of Commons Tuesday Bill C-552, which would ban blackouts for live sports events taking...
For a channel that has exclusive Canadian broadcast rights to big-ticket international sports events, beIN Sport doesn’t have the greatest track record in this country. The channel, a sports...
CBC/Radio-Canada is in “ongoing” negotiations with the National Hockey League (NHL) to renew its Hockey Night in Canada broadcasting rights, which are scheduled to expire in June. “We’ve been negotiating...
If TV subscribers are about to receive individual channels on a pick-and-pay basis, as the Conservative government says it will mandate, they may be surprised at the standalone pricing for some of...
BCE Inc. entered a “multi-year strategic partnership” with the National Basketball Association (NBA), the company said. In a release Wednesday, Bell said the deal will allow its customers to watch “new weekly NBA content on their smartphones and tablets” throughout the league’s regular season and playoffs. It will also make “new nightly NBA highlights” available on its mobile TV service, the company said. Bell will also be the presenting sponsor of the “NBA Canada Series pre-season game platform” and “NBA All-Star Balloting platform in Canada,” the release said....
When fans of Sporting Kansas City are watching a live game at the team’s 18,467-capacity stadium and miss a kick, play, or goal on the soccer pitch, they can catch up by pulling out their...
The American television industry's annual revenues of $150 billion US would be cut nearly in half if broadcast distributors moved to an a la carte model, said a report by research firm Needham...
Quebecor Media Inc.’s French-language specialty channel TVA Sports has reached a deal to broadcast portions of CBC/Radio-Canada’s coverage of the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games. In a release Thursday, CBC said the...
Rogers Communications Inc.’s The Score specialty sports channel reached a two-year deal with the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) for the multiplatform rights to eight international basketball events, Rogers said....
Higher NHL audience ratings resulting from a shortened NHL season could lead broadcasters to generate better advertising revenues during the NHL playoffs this spring despite viewers’ lingering negative perceptions about the league, said Gord Hendren, president of Charlton Strategic Research Inc. In a report released this week, Charlton said viewers hold a lingering negative perception about the NHL following a 113-day lockout that cancelled the first three months of the 2012-2013 hockey season. The report said 51 per cent of respondents interviewed during a survey in late January,...
CBC/Radio-Canada reached licensing arrangements to share coverage of the 2014 Olympic Games with Rogers Communications Inc. and BCE Inc. CBC said in a release Thursday that it will share coverage...
Super Bowl ratings in Canada fell ten per cent year-over-year to an average audience of 7.33 million viewers for Sunday’s game, according to BBM Canada data released by CTV Monday. In a release, the BCE Inc.-owned...
Hockey fans are watching televised NHL games in record numbers following a 113-day lockout, allowing broadcasters to slowly claw back lost revenues, broadcasters and industry experts said. Jeffrey...
Growth in sports news websites has changed the competitive environment for the sports specialty channel genre and created a need for more relaxed regulations on The...
The Winnipeg Jets’s success after moving from Atlanta in 2011 “buttresses” the case for relocating another NHL franchise to Quebec City, Forbes magazine reported. Pierre Karl Peladeau, Quebecor Media...
Rogers Communications Inc.’s application to bring MLB Network to Canada was approved, the CRTC said Wednesday. The commission said in a decision that it added MLB Network to the list of non-Canadian channels authorized for...
Marquee, nation-building sporting events like the Olympics or the PanAm Games should be broadcast free to the public, Jeffrey Orridge, executive director of sports properties at CBC/Radio-Canada, said Tuesday. In a panel...
Five in 10 anglophone television viewers consume sports content weekly and four in 10 do not follow sports at all, a new report from the Media Technology Monitor (MTM) said Tuesday. The MTM report, a product of CBC/Radio-Canada...
Score Media Inc.’s shareholders voted to approve Rogers Media Inc.’s $167 million bid to acquire the company, the Score said Monday. Rogers said in August that it reached an agreement to purchase the Score and its related television assets, as well as gain access to the Score’s “digital technology to immediately enhance its mobile offerings.” The Score’s digital assets will be spun off as a separate company owned by its existing shareholders and with Rogers taking a 10 per cent equity interest, the companies said at the time. The deal must receive...
The delay or potential cancellation of the NHL hockey season would “negatively impact” CBC/Radio-Canada’s advertising revenues as the public broadcaster plans for replacement...
Rogers Communications Inc. will leverage the Score Television Network to deliver more sports programming on multiple platforms and seeks to sell advertising geared to younger Canadian sports viewers,...
CBC/Radio-Canada should model its coverage of the Sochi 2014 and Rio 2016 Olympic Games on the successful multi-platform efforts of this year’s London Summer Olympics, but may still have a hard...
CBC/Radio-Canada and Rogers Communications Inc.-owned Sportsnet have put their assets together across all platforms to provide coverage for the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil, CBC said Tuesday. In an announcement on CBC Sports, the...
The closing ceremony of the 2012 London Olympic Games was the “most-watched” Summer Olympics broadcast in Canadian history, Canada’s Olympic Media Broadcast Consortium said Monday. In a release, consortium partners BCE Inc. and Rogers Communications Inc. said last Friday’s closing ceremony attracted an average audience of 7.5 million viewers across the country, including an average 5.1 million viewers on the Bell-owned CTV network. They said those totals made it the “most-watched Summer Olympics broadcast on record in Canada.” Other top-drawing events...
Sixty-one per cent of the traffic connecting to Canada’s Olympic broadcast consortium’s digital platforms came from mobile devices during the first week of the 2012 London Olympic Games, the consortium said Wednesday....
The federal Competition Bureau is investigating whether BCE Inc. is using its stable of “high-demand television” channels to place “anti-competitive” restrictions on competing...
CBC/Radio-Canada will continue to seek the broadcast rights to the 2014 and 2016 Olympic Games but will not make a money-losing bid for the sports rights, said Jeffrey Orridge, executive director of...
A joint bid by BCE Inc. and Rogers Communications Inc. to purchase a controlling stake in Maple Leafs Sports & Entertainment (MLSE) will give the two companies unfair...
Rogers Communications Inc. has applied to the CRTC to add Major League Baseball’s MLB Network to the list of specialty channels authorized for distribution in Canada. In regulatory documents dated June 1 and posted...
Online streaming services offered directly by professional sports leagues will increasingly compete for viewers as online and mobile video consumption grows, analysts say. Over the past decade, major North American sports...