BCE Inc.’s Bell Media said Wednesday that Kristie Painting will be its new vice-president of digital sales as of Jan. 4. It said in a press release that she was most recently vice-president of sales for Checkout 51, a Toronto-based company that operates a mobile couponing app and was bought this year by News Corp. It added that she has 20 years of experience in media and technology. “I’m thrilled to be joining the Bell Media team,” Painting said in the release. “The power of the Bell Media brands and the breadth of the available Canadian data combine to create...
The Jim Pattison Group announced Wednesday in a press release it has appointed Ross Winters as its new director of programming. It said in the release that Winters will support program directors who are responsible for programming and content on the company's 43 radio stations in Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. It added that he will also provide overall strategic leadership to the programming departments of the radio stations as well as their management team. Winters spent the past 10 years as program director at Corus Entertainment Inc.’s Rock 101 FM, based in Vancouver, and was program director for two years at CFOX, another rock radio station in Vancouver, the release noted. ...
In a survey of Canadian adults, 57 per cent said they are most likely to notice an advertisement while watching TV, compared to 13 per cent who said they were most likely to do so while listening to the radio and only two per cent...
The CRTC has denied a request by BCE Inc.'s Bell Media division to delete a condition of licence for its French-language specialty channel Vrak.TV that requires it to show 104 hours of original,...
DHX Media Ltd. said Wednesday that it has reached a long-term deal with toymaker Mattel Inc. to produce and develop content based on brands such as Bob the Builder, Fireman Sam, Little People and Polly Pocket. DHX said in a news...
Rogers Communications Inc. announced Wednesday a new portfolio of cybersecurity solutions for Canadian businesses to detect and prevent global cyber-attacks. It said in the press release that the service will provide business...
The CRTC has denied TekSavvy Solutions Inc.'s request for interim relief in a situation where Rogers Communications Inc. is slated to replace some legacy cable in a Toronto neighbourhood with fibre, leaving a certain number of households, for the time being, unable to become customers of TekSavvy or any other small Internet service provider (ISP) renting capacity on the local cable network. An application from TekSavvy that was posted on the CRTC website last week, indicating that the company was informed on Nov. 24 of Rogers' plans to "remove coaxial cable from a Toronto...
Netflix Inc. is re-encoding its entire library of content in order to provide customers with a better experience for watching content while using less bandwidth to process it. The company said in a blog Monday that the...
The Television Bureau of Canada, which represents Canada's commercial TV industry, has rebranded itself as ThinkTV. Its old name and logo had been in place since the organization started in 1961, it said in a press release last week. “As a resource for advertisers and agencies, [Thinktv]...
Cision, a multinational provider of media-intelligence services, announced Tuesday it has reached a deal to buy PR Newswire from UBM PLC. Cision said in a news release that PR Newswire, which operates a website for hosting news releases and other materials from various organizations, is "the largest distribution...
Channel Zero Inc. said Friday that it has restructured the news operations for CHCH-TV, the Hamilton TV station it owns, and that the company that produced news for the channel, Channel 11 L.P., has filed for bankruptcy. Channel Zero said in a press release that the changes, which include fewer hours of news programming, were made so that the...
Cogeco Cable Inc.’s Canadian cable division has appointed Daniel Boisvert as vice-president of marketing and innovation, and Antoine Shiu as vice-president of business solutions sales, it said...
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...
Blue Ant Media Inc. announced Monday it has partnered with Smithsonian Networks, a joint venture between CBS Corp.’s Showtime and the Smithsonian Institution, to create Blue Skye Entertainment,...
Yahoo Inc. announced Thursday the launch of its Yahoo Video Guide mobile app for customers in the United States to search for video content across multiple services they have installed on their devices. The company said in a blog...
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 be from 2016 to 2018, provides an overall wage increase of two per cent for directors in each of the three years of its term and noted that the contract applies to all productions that begin on or after Jan. 1. “This new agreement takes a consistent approach to key issues including the terms of engagement for directors in new media productions and recognizes the...
The CRTC on Friday approved requests from BCE Inc. to delete many genre-related terms on its licences for three different specialty channels, but it was denied in all three instances its requests that...
Rogers Communications Inc. announced Friday that its customers will now have access to its customer care service on Facebook Inc.’s Messenger. It said in a press release that the service is available for all consumer...
Canadian millennials, defined as individuals aged 18 to 34, spend 31.8 hours a week on the Internet and are more likely to watch TV and video content online than those aged 34 and above, who...
The CRTC announced Thursday new measures for informing Canadians about charges associating to long-distance calls made from a payphone. The regulator said in a press release that Canadians will be provided with detailed information regarding the costs that come from making such calls when using a credit card or other forms...
DHX Media Ltd. announced Thursday it has been commissioned by BBC’s children's broadcasting arm, CBBC, in the U.K. to produce two seasons of Airmageddon, a new TV show for kids that features competitive radio-controlled drone flying. It said in a press release that the show will be produced by DHX in collaboration with U.K.-based Conceive Media Ltd., and added that DHX will be responsible for distribution and licensing of the show in Canada and globally. The show will air on CBBC in the new year, and in Canada on DHX's Family CHRGD channel in the spring. ...
Amazon.com Inc. announced Tuesday it is launching an over-the-top (OTT) streaming subscription program for video providers to reach out to Amazon Prime members, and will also allow Prime members to add other video subscription...
Three board members of Powermat Technologies Ltd., a maker of wireless mobile-device chargers, are suing the company and CEO Thorsten Heins, accusing them of unauthorized operations that threaten the...
Otono Networks Inc. announced Wednesday it is launching next year in the U.S. a new prepaid wireless mobile service specifically for parents that will include two free lines for their kids. It said...
OTTAWA — Extending copyright terms from 50 to 70 years after the death of the author is necessary to boost investment in creative industries, Robert Hutton, executive director of the Canadian...
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...
DHX Media Ltd. announced Tuesday it has signed a five-year deal with DreamWorks Animation LLC to produce, broadcast and distribute content across several channels. DHX said in the press release that it will be co-producing 130...
Verizon Communications Inc. would consider buying Yahoo Inc.'s core Internet business, which includes its email, news and sports sites, as well as its advertising technology, according to a report...
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has agreed to pay Apple Inc. more than $548 million US as determined in a court decision earlier this year related to an earlier ruling that Samsung infringed certain...
Yesterday's actions can have a profound influence on tomorrow. Such a notion might apply to a couple of decisions Shaw Communications Inc. has made in the last half-decade. The first of those was its 2010 move to spend $2 billion to purchase the broadcasting assets of Canwest Global Communications Corp., which included the Global TV network and several specialty channels such as HGTV, Showcase and Slice. Then in 2011, Shaw — after having spent $190 million on spectrum in 2008 AWS auction — said it was abandoning plans for mobile services and instead building a network of WiFi hotspots for its Internet subscribers. Fast-forward to today, and Shaw finds itself challenged by certain factors that would have been hard to foresee just a few years ago, such as: • New...
Audio and video traffic — or real-time entertainment — now accounts for more than 70 per cent of download traffic on fixed Internet networks during peak periods in North America, with Netflix Inc.'s share now 37.1 per cent, an increase from 36.5 per cent a year earlier, according to a report released Monday...
MONTREAL — A panel discussing discoverability of content at a CRTC event Thursday stressed the importance of recommendations and curation as strategies to help viewers find content in an environment with more options than ever. “Algorithms are necessary but not enough,” said Jean-François Gagnon,...
Worldwide wearable shipments rose 197.6 per cent with 21 million units shipped in the third quarter this year, up from 7.1 million units in the same period a year earlier, according to a new report released Thursday...
Google Inc. is folding its music-streaming service Songza into a new ad-supported, free tier of Google Play Music. Wendy Manton, a Google spokeswoman, said in an email that this is happening everywhere Songza had been available,...
Shaw Communications Inc. announced Wednesday that all customers who are subscribed to its Internet 30, or any broadband Internet plan above that, will have access to download speeds six times faster when connected to any of the 75,000 Shaw Go WiFi hotspot across Western Canada. Chris Kucharski, senior vice-president of consumer at Shaw, said in a news release that customers will have fewer interruptions when watching content from over-the-top services (OTT) such as Rogers Communications Inc. and Shaw’s Shomi, or Netflix Inc. "Our network was built to provide customers with...
The CRTC is asking Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron to answer 16 questions regarding its Unlimited Music service, including why it chose to launch a zero-rating service rather than increase data caps....
The Canadian Media Production Association (CMPA) announced Wednesday it has appointed Marcia Douglas as the new director for business affairs and digital initiatives. CMPA said in a press release...
Rogers Communications Inc. announced Wednesday it has signed an agreement with the Centre de services partagés du Quebec (CSPQ) to continue its wireless services for up to 10 years with the...
The use of data analytics to build a global audience steered much of the discussion around content discoverability at an event hosted by the CRTC in collaboration with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). The panel of experts...
The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) has granted Eric Baptiste another five-year term as CEO. SOCAN said in a press release that the reappointment will extend Baptiste's tenure with the...
Global tablet shipments will be down 8.1 per cent for 2015 overall, though tablets with detachable keyboards are expected to see strong growth for this year and in 2016, according to International Data Corp. The technology...
Wind Mobile announced Tuesday it is partnering with Lifeline Syria, a non-profit organization that helps Syrian refugees with the relocation process in Canada, to provide incoming refugees with mobile phones and wireless service...
Rogers Communications Inc. announced Tuesday it has acquired Internetworking Atlantic Inc., a Halifax based communications technology company that offers a range of IT products and solutions to government agencies, institutions...
BlackBerry Ltd. said Monday that it will stop operating its BES enterprise servers in Pakistan as of Dec. 30 due to the insistence of the Pakistani government that it get "unfettered access" to communications on the servers. A blog post by Marty Beard, BlackBerry's chief operating officer, initially said BES servers in Pakistan would shut down on Monday. It was later updated to say the shutdown has been delayed until Dec. 30 as a result of Pakistan extending a "shutdown order" until that date. The blog said the country's telecommunications authority in July told mobile operators that the BES servers have to stop operating "for security reasons." "The truth is that the Pakistani government wanted the ability to monitor all BlackBerry Enterprise...
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...
OTTAWA — David Purdy, senior vice-president of content at Rogers Communications Inc., said Monday that he will leave the company and that an official announcement will be issued later this week. Purdy told the Copyright Board of Canada, during a hearing to set the royalty rates that TV...
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...
Blue Ant Media Inc.’s international division announced Friday it has made sales of more than 175 hours of content from its catalogue of factual, factual entertainment, nature and wildlife, lifestyle and documentary series to...
The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with the Society for Reproduction Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers in Canada (SODRAC) in a dispute with CBC/Radio-Canada over whether the latter should pay for “broadcast-incidental copies” of musical works for television or Internet productions CBC had been arguing that the copies in question — which it had been paying $1.2 million a year for during the tariff period between 2008 and 2012, and the interim period ever since — were made to “facilitate modern digital broadcasting” and did not incrementally generate additional revenue. SODRAC, on the other hand, argued that a legal precedent for such payments...
On-demand viewing delivers “bonus audiences for programs,” since the number of people watching on-demand programs amounts to five to 10 per cent of the original broadcast audience,...
BCE Inc.'s Bell Media division said Thursday that the top five entertainment specialty programs in Canada this fall were all on its channels, according to data from viewership tracker Numeris. Bell Media said in a press...
The University of Northern British Columbia said Thursday that former industry minister James Moore has been named its next chancellor. The Prince George, B.C.-based school said in a press release that Moore, who was industry...
Leslie Church, head of communications and public affairs at Google Inc.’s Canadian division, is Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly’s new chief of staff. She said on Twitter Thursday that she was “very...
Television remains the main source of news for most anglophone Canadians, though the Internet is becoming increasingly used as individuals' primary way of getting news, according to survey results released Wednesday. Media...
BCE Inc.'s challenge to the CRTC's decision to ban mobile-TV plans where data used does not count against customers' data caps will be heard before the Federal Court of Appeal on Jan. 19. A notice in the case file on the court's website indicates the hearing will be held in Toronto. Telecom researcher Ben Klass, who launched the...
OTTAWA — Rights holders of programming shown over distant TV signals are seeking to at least double the amount of money they receive from TV service providers, on a per subscriber basis, for...
The CRTC approved an application by Torres Media asking for permission to acquire, from Radio Express Inc., and continue operating CKOD-FM, a French-language radio station located in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Que., about an hour...
Saskatchewan Telecommunications Holding Corp. announced Tuesday it is introducing new roaming rates and five new roaming add-on plans for customers traveling outside of Canada. It said in a press release that the new rates, part of the Roam and Relax Travel plan, will take effect Nov. 26 and will automatically be added to customers’ plans when they travel across the border. Data and voice rates will be seven cents per MB and seven cents per minute when traveling to the U.S., and data rates will fall from $15 per MB to $1 per MB when travelling to Mexico, Netherlands, Australia, Portugal, Bermuda and Costa Rica, SaskTel said in the release. SaskTel also said that it will add five new add-on plans that are subscription-based for customers who require “additional voice or data coverage while traveling for extended amounts of...
Blue Ant Media Inc.’s international division announced Tuesday in a press release that it has signed a multi-year, exclusive distribution deal with Cream Productions Inc., an international factual content creator based in...
The Canadian Media Fund (CMF) said Monday it providing $2.5 million for 10 productions as part of its diverse languages program. CMF said in a press release that the funding will support productions that reflect Canadian diversity and are in languages other than English, French or Aboriginal languages. The 10 productions...
Stingray Digital Group Inc. has appointed Tom Pentefountas as senior vice-president of sales for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. A press release Monday said that the former vice-chairman of broadcasting for the CRTC...
BCE Inc.’s move to acquire exclusive rights to HBO programming on all platforms and become the sole operator of HBO Canada will make its CraveTV over-the-top (OTT) service more competitive...
Rob Farina has resigned as vice-president of content with Rogers Communications Inc.'s media division, the company has confirmed, following a report he called for a boycott of a record company he saw as favouring BCE Inc. An article on the Billboard website last week reported that Farina wrote a letter — which it published in full — to other Canadian media companies such as Cogeco Inc., Corus Entertainment Inc. and Newcap Inc., asking them to stop playing artists signed to Republic Records, a division of Universal Music Group. In the letter, Farina cited the appointment of...
BCE Inc.’s media division said Thursday that it is now the sole operator of HBO Canada, and that it has reached a deal with Time Warner Inc.’s HBO that will give it exclusive Canadian rights to all HBO programming on...
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...
Most Canadians who subscribe to TV services do not intend to scale back their TV packages after the CRTC starts requiring $25 skinny-basic packages and pick-and-pay options next year, according to a new survey. Survey results released Thursday by the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing's Canadian...
DHX Media Ltd. announced Thursday it has signed a distribution deal for one of its cartoon shows, called Endangered Species, with seven international broadcasters and video-on-demand (VOD) services. It said in the press release...
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...
A judge has ordered Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron to pay back $6.4 million it improperly billed its customers, plus $1 million in punitive damages. Superior Court Judge Carole Hallée said in a Nov. 11 decision that...
Google Inc. announced Wednesday it is launching in Canada its YouTube app for children. It said in a blogpost that the YouTube Kids app will be a “safer version of YouTube, a family-friendly place for kids to explore...
Demand for affordable devices helped global sales of smartphones hit 353 million units in the third quarter of 2015, up 15.5 per cent from the same period a year earlier, Gartner Inc. said Wednesday. The research company said in a press release that Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. “refreshed its flagship devices,” in order to address...
News anchor Carol Anne Meehan, who has been with BCE Inc.’s Ottawa CTV station for 26 years, is among those who lost their job as part of cuts at Bell Media Tuesday. The Ottawa Citizen reported that Meehan confirmed to the newspaper she was leaving, among a number of staff cut by the station and by Bell Media-owned radio station CFRA. The cuts in Ottawa come in addition to the 380 jobs the company was to eliminate in Toronto and Montreal this month. Bell Media spokesman Scott Henderson said in an emailed statement that “a restructuring at Bell Media continues with staff...
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...
Seven out of every 10 Canadian between the ages of 18 and 34 have a subscription-TV service in their home, while that proportion is 87 per cent for those 35 and older, according to a new report from...
A group that previously battled MAtv, the community channel operated by Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron, is telling the CRTC that MAtv is still violating the conditions of its licence months after a...
The National Hockey League's Ottawa Senators announced Tuesday it has partnered with Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., making the Chinese equipment maker the club's "official smartphone supplier." Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson, who was visiting Huawei's research-and-development facilities on Tuesday, said in a news release issued by the...
Numeris announced Tuesday it has appointed Neil McEneaney as its new CEO. The ratings measurement group said in a press release that McEneaney will be replacing Jim MacLeod, who had announced his retirement in April. Numeris said McEneaney’s position will be effective Jan. 11. “The Numeris board feels that Neil’s extensive leadership experience and knowledge of our industry will provide him with the skills necessary to move Numeris forward and solidify its position among the world’s elite media measurement companies,” Numeris chairman Gary MacKrell said in the...
American Express Co. announced Tuesday that Apple Inc.’s Apple Pay is now available for its eligible customers and small businesses in Canada. American Express said that once customers add their American Express card to...
Pandora Media Inc. announced Monday it will be acquiring key assets from music streaming service Rdio Inc. for $75 million US. It said in a press release that it will be acquiring technology and intellectual property, as well as...
DHX Media Ltd. said in its 2016 first quarter results that its revenue in the three months ending Sept. 30 grew 48 per cent to $63.9 million from $43 million during the same period a year earlier. It said Monday that an increase in distribution accounted for 19 per cent revenue growth and "new...
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has directed Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains to increase “high-speed broadband coverage and work to support competition, choice and availability of...
BCE Inc. will cover about 90 per cent of its wireline footprint with fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) in a little less or a little more than a decade, though the issue of whether smaller Internet service providers will get mandated access...
The CRTC denied an application by Groupe Média TFO, Ontario’s French-language public broadcaster, for a must-offer order that would have required TV providers to offer its French-language educational TV service in English-language and French-language markets across the country. TFO had argued in its application that “maintaining and...
Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. said Thursday that all of its TV customers will have access to BCE Inc.’s TSN GO and CTV GO mobile apps for free. MTS said in a press release that the apps are available through Apple...
TORONTO — The newly elected Liberal government has indicated infrastructure will be a priority, and that could include telecom infrastructure, said lawyer Chris Tacit during a panel...
CRTC commissioner Raj Shoan told a group of broadcasting professionals this week that radio operators should look at how they can become a bigger presence on smartphones in order to hold their own against an increasing number of new options for audio consumption, such as online streaming. In online text of a speech given at the Ontario Association of Broadcasters' annual general meeting in Toronto, Shoan noted how U.S. radio broadcasters have been lobbying wireless carriers and device makers to unlock chips in smartphones that are capable of picking up FM radio signals. Canadian...
Cisco Systems Inc. announced Tuesday it is partnering with Carleton University and providing a $1.8-million grant over the next nine years to establish a research chair in sensor technology for the...
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...
T-Mobile US Inc. announced Tuesday it will be launching a new service for its Simple Choice mobile plan customers that allows free video streaming from several services without it cutting into their...
Apple Inc. has made its music-streaming app available for Android devices. The Apple Music website now includes a link, that takes users to the Google Play store, to download what it calls a "beta" version of the app...
The Cable Public Affairs Channel (CPAC) announced Tuesday that Catherine Cano will become its new president and general manager. The privately-owned, not-for-profit television service said in a press release that Cano’s position will be effective Jan. 11. CPAC added that she brings more than 20 years of executive leadership and “most recently, she oversaw newsgathering and all news programming at Société Radio-Canada.” ...
A majority of Canadians reported in a survey this year they are users of Google Inc.'s YouTube video-streaming service, with the likelihood increasing among those further up on the income and...
A report from independent consultant and lawyer Peter Miller and research company Nordicity says that 50 per cent of Canada’s small- and medium-market local TV stations could...
An Ottawa-based subscription news website covering federal matters has been awarded $13,400 plus interest after the subject of one its articles was found to have breached copyright by obtaining a copy of the story without paying a...
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 Canadian Media Production Association (CMPA) has reached an agreement with online TV and film rights marketplace RightsTrade that will give CMPA members “preferred access” to RightsTrade sales tools, marketplace...
BCE Inc.'s Bell Media said Monday that its streaming service, CraveTV, will debut its first original series — a comedy called Letterkenny — on Feb. 7. Bell Media noted in a press release that this happens to be...
Cisco Systems Inc. and Ericsson AB announced Monday they are combining efforts to develop networking technology in areas such as mobile, routing, cloud and data centres. The companies said in a news release that this represents "a global business and technology partnership to create the networks of the future."...
Corus Entertainment Inc. said Monday that its version of kids' specialty channel Disney XD will start broadcasting in Canada in December. It will join its other Disney-branded stations, such as Disney Channel and Disney...
The number of Canadian households abandoning TV-service subscriptions from Canada’s biggest providers during the first nine months of this year was almost seven times higher than during the same period a year earlier, according to data compiled by consulting company Boon Dog Professional Services Inc. Boon Dog said in a release Monday that Canada's publicly traded telecom providers lost a net 153,000 TV subscribers during that first three-quarters of the year, compared to a loss of 22,000 a year before. The measurement period covered the nine months ended in Sept. 30 for BCE Inc., Rogers Communications Inc., Telus Corp., Quebecor Inc. and Manitoba Telecom Services Inc., and — because of the timing of their fiscal reporting periods — the nine months up until Aug. 31...
