BCE Inc. has asked the CRTC to approve the U.S-based Africa Channel for distribution in Canada. Currently, the channel is distributed in the United States and the Carribean, the channel’s chief financial officer, Fred Paccone, wrote in a letter included in the application posted on the CRTC's website Tuesday. He said the channel is “a showcase for the African continent’s most outstanding English-language television series, specials, documentaries, feature films, music, soaps, biographies, current business analysis, cultural and historical programs.” He added that...
The Federal Court of Appeal has dismissed a motion by BCE Inc. to extend the deadline by which it has to comply with a CRTC ruling on its mobile-TV service. Bell had asked the court for a stay in its appeal of the commission’s Jan. 29 decision that said Bell could no longer exempt the streaming service from data charges. Bell had stated that if a stay is not granted, its wireless division would “suffer severe harm to its market share and reputation, and its customers will be severely inconvenienced.” The Canadian Network Operators Consortium argued that...
CBC/Radio-Canada’s English-language conventional TV stations reported a loss of $20.9 million in the financial year ended on Aug. 31, 2014 despite an increase in revenue, which amounted to $799.5 million, according to...
Financial analysts reacting to the CRTC’s new pick-and-pay rules say they don’t expect the decision to have a major impact on the industry, though the broadcasting side of the business is...
Four of Canada's biggest wireless carriers are fighting a recent Federal Court decision that found that although a tariff charged for cellphone ringtone downloads is invalid, the carriers that paid it are not owed their money...
Quebecor Media Inc. said Friday it has upped its stake in TVA Group Inc. to more than 68 per cent from about 51 per cent. Quebecor Media, which is three-quarters owned by Quebecor Inc., said in a press release it bought 17.3...
Streaming accounted for 27 per cent of U.S. music industry revenue last year, up from 21 per cent in 2013, the Record Industry Association of American (RIAA) said in report released Wednesday. The RIAA said permanent downloads accounted for 37 per cent of overall music revenue in the U.S. last year, down from 40 per cent a year earlier. Physical copies of music accounted for 32 per cent of industry revenue, down from 35 per cent one year earlier. The association report showed streaming revenue was up 29 per cent from a year earlier to $1.87 billion US, and its 27 per cent share of the...
GATINEAU, Que. — While the public will generally back the CRTC's decision to require TV service providers to offer pick-and-pay to customers by the end of next year, they don't understand the full consequences for the Canadian TV industry, one media consultant said in the wake of Thursday's announcement....
BCE Inc. announced Wednesday it has extended its deal with the French Tennis Federation to broadcast the French Open through 2024. TSN and RDS will remain the exclusive Canadian home of the tennis Grand Slam tournament, the...
Sony Corp. said Wednesday it has launched a new online video-streaming service in New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. PlayStation Vue streams video from the Internet though PS3 or PS4 gaming consoles, Eric Lempel, vice-president...
BCE Inc.’s media division said in a press release Wednesday that its streaming service, CraveTV, is now available to customers of four small TV providers in Ontario. Bell Media said Hay Communications Co-operative Ltd.,...
The Competition Bureau on Wednesday disputed a report that a decision on an investigation it has been conducting into Google Inc.'s search and advertising businesses could be coming later that...
The CRTC’s decision last week up to eliminate an agreement governing contracts between independent producers and large broadcasters has angered and surprised the Canadian Media Production...
Nintendo Co. Ltd. said Tuesday that it was launching to joint venture with DeNA Co. Ltd. to produce video games for smartphones and tablets. Nintendo said it would work with DeNA, a company involved in mobile games and Internet...
The CRTC said Tuesday it is reviewing applications for licence renewals from three radio stations that have been cited in the past for not complying with licence terms. The commission said in a...
Jeffrey Orridge, former head of CBC/Radio-Canada’s sports division, has been named the new commissioner of the Canadian Football League. Orridge takes over for Mark Cohon, who served in the position for eight years. According to a news release, the new commissioner has a degree from Harvard Law School and has worked in sports marketing and licensing with Time Warner Co. and Reebok International Ltd. Orridge officially starts with the league on April 29....
The CRTC said it will be announcing a decision on Thursday afternoon related to its review of the television industry that focuses on "measures to maximize choice for Canadian television viewers." It's expected that the decision will address whether consumers have the right to pick their own channels in TV...
The number of Canadian broadband subscribers among the major publicly traded telecom service providers exceeded television subscribers for the first time in 2014. Data compiled by The Wire Report shows the overall number of TV subscribers at these companies, as recorded at the end of their last fiscal years, fell by almost...
The CRTC has dismissed a complaint by BCE Inc. against Rogers Communications Inc.’s GamePlus service, ruling that Rogers could offer the NHL hockey app exclusively to its own customers because the content wasn’t produced primarily for traditional television. The regulator said in the decision that the CRTC...
The Canadian Network Operators Consortium (CNOC) filed papers with the Federal Court of Appeal Monday asking that BCE Inc.'s appeal of a CRTC decision banning the way it bills for mobile-TV...
Rogers Communications Inc. and the Competition Bureau announced Monday that they had reached an agreement to end legal proceedings against the carrier in relation to so-called premium texting services that customers paid for. The Competition Bureau said in a news release that Rogers would refund about $5.42 million to customers in relation to what it said were "false or misleading representations to customers in advertisements for premium text messages appearing in pop-up ads, apps and social media." The bureau in 2012 launched a $30-million lawsuit against Rogers, BCE Inc., Telus...
OTTAWA — The CRTC introduced a new category for video-on-demand services Thursday that allows them to offer content exclusive to certain TV service providers and operate under the digital-media exemption order, as long as they also offer that content online to all Canadians, though the consequences for Shomi and CraveTV remained unclear. In...
International Data Corp. has lowered its forecast for tablet and 2-in-1 hybrid shipments in 2015 following previous figures that showed the first ever year-on-year decline for this market in the fourth quarter of last year. IDC...
A new report from Ericsson AG suggests Apple Inc.’s upcoming Apple Watch could address a market that's far larger than what current wearable sales would indicate. In a worldwide study of...
Competitors will be harmed if BCE Inc. is not forced to comply with an April deadline in a CRTC directive to stop exempting its mobile-TV app from data caps, according to the Canadian Network...
Patrick Pichette, the Canadian chief financial officer of Google Inc., said in a web post Tuesday he will retire in the coming months to spend more time travelling with his wife Tamar. Pichette, who is from Montreal, according to...
The amount of video watched on smartphones and tablets doubled in 2014, according to a sub-sample used for Ooyala Inc.'s quarterly index. The online-video management company said in a report released Wednesday there had been...
Quebecor Inc. on Wednesday reported a net loss for the fourth quarter resulting largely from non-operational factors, while indicating major gains in its wireless operations' revenue and subscriber base. The company said in a...
Telus Corp. is spending $100 million to provide access to a fibre optic network to 90 per cent of the homes and businesses in the British Columbia communities of Kelowna and West Kelowna, it said Tuesday. It said in a press...
The chief executive of the Royal Bank of Canada says his company is on a “collision course” with technology giants such as Apple Inc. and Google Inc. as the act of making payments with mobile devices becomes more mainstream, according to a report in the Financial Post. The newspaper reported Dave McKay told an investors conference in New York Tuesday that the companies making mobile payment technology available might come between the direct relationship the bank has with customers...
The Ontario government spent months preparing its position on regulating streaming services like that offered by Netflix Inc., according to documents cited in a blog by University of Ottawa law...
Apple Inc. unveiled new details about its upcoming Apple Watch on Monday, saying the wearable device will be available on April 24 in Canada and eight other countries. The watch will have 18 hours of...
A tariff on downloaded ringtones for cellphones has been declared invalid, but the wireless carriers who challenged it were denied the $12 million in paid royalties they were seeking back from the...
BCE Inc.’s appeal of a CRTC decision to ban the use of simultaneous substitution for the Super Bowl in future years could be a sign of more conflict and court challenges to come as the...
OTTAWA — The retransmission of U.S. networks in Canada is the equivalent of Aereo, the service ruled illegal by the U.S. Supreme Court last year, Kevin Crull, president of BCE Inc.'s media division, said Friday. “Canada is the only country in the world that allows American networks to be retransmitted without restriction despite valid and exclusive copyrights held by domestic broadcasters,” he said during a keynote address at the Prime Time in Ottawa event put on by the Canadian Media Production Association (CMPA). “In an industry that’s obsessed with...
OTTAWA — Kevin Crull, president of BCE Inc.'s media division, said Thursday that monetization is currently his organization's biggest challenge, given the usage of over-the-top (OTT)...
New data shows an overall drop in the share of English Canadians subscribing to TV services over the last year. MTM, a project of CBC/Radio-Canada, released a report Thursday that showed the...
BlackBerry Ltd. CEO John Chen said he's open the idea of having the company produce another tablet, according to a report by CNet. "It's not in the works, but it's on my mind,"...
BCE Inc. is asking the CRTC to extend the March 31 deadline for incorporating its Bell Aliant subsidiary’s services into the National Public Alerting System (NPAS). The company said in a Feb. 26 filing posted to the...
BCE Inc. is launching a court challenge of the CRTC’s ban on the use of simultaneous substitution during the Super Bowl. Bell Media spokesman Scott Henderson said in an email Monday that “the CRTC erred in law,...
A survey done for BCE Inc.'s Bell Media showed most Canadians support broadcasters' rights over the ability to watch U.S. commercials during the Super Bowl. According to polling results released Monday and conducted by Nanos Research for Bell, which holds the Canadian rights to the game, 69 per cent said supporting...
Ottawa-based networking technology company Mitel Networks Corp. said Monday it has reached a deal to purchase Texas-based Mavenir Systems Inc., a provider of software for mobile operators. Mitel and Mavenir said in a joint press...
Google Inc. said Thursday that it will start giving mobile friendliness more weight in terms of how websites are ranked in Google searches. It said on its Webmaster Central Blog on Thursday that the change will take effect April...
Rogers Communications Inc. said Friday that David Purdy, its senior vice-president of content, did not call on government to ban virtual private networks (VPNs) during a media-industry conference in Toronto on Thursday, despite suggestions on Twitter to the contrary. Broadcasting consultant Kelly Lynne Ashton, commenting on proceedings at the Content Industry Connect conference, posted Thursday: "Purdy - need the govt to shut down VPNs, enforce copyright then can have a viable business." Marcia Douglas, program manager for the Bell Fund, at about the same time, posted on Twitter:...
One of the executives behind the newly announced Bloomberg TV Canada news channel says that there are no plans to seek a broadcast licence that would compel broadcast distributors to offer the channel to customers. New York-based...
The CRTC on March 12 will announce most decisions related to its Let's Talk TV consultation, but it won't be about whether to force TV-service providers to unbundle channels. The Canadian Club of Ottawa will host a lunchtime presentation by CRTC Chairman Jean-Pierre Blais on that day. CRTC spokeswoman Patricia...
Advocacy group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting say a television ad was turned down by Canada’s largest broadcasters, yet at least one company says it has no record of the denial. In the...
Google Inc. said Wednesday it has a developed a program that will help utilize Android devices for business purposes in a way that ensures security for employers. A blog post from Google said the technology is called Android for...
Users of Apple Inc.'s iPhone 6 Plus are using twice as much data as those with the iPhone 6, according to a report from Citrix Systems Inc. The U.S. provider of workplace mobility technology said in a press release earlier this month that the bigger, 5.5-inch screens of the iPhone 6 Plus — compared to 4.7 inches for the regular iPhone 6 — leads more video viewing. Its report said that data usage on the iPhone 6 Plus is 10 times that of the iPhone 3GS. Citrix said in its report that the usage patterns of the iPhone 6 Plus are similar to that of tablets, and it presents an...
Google Inc.'s Android and Apple Inc.'s iOS operating systems "inched closer to total domination of the worldwide smartphone market" in the fourth quarter of 2014, International Data Corp. said Tuesday. The technology research company said in news release that the two operating systems powered 96.3 per...
Newly released results from a Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) survey show the availability of online video content is a factor for four in 10 Canadian Internet users who do not subscribe to cable TV. The data,...
Telus Corp. announced Tuesday it is partnering with Internet of Things (IoT) platform provider Jasper Inc. for its own IoT platform, the Telus Control Centre. The new platform “simplifies the deployment and management of...
BCE Inc. is seeking to recover legal costs from a range of parties — including an advocacy group representing senior citizens, private individuals and companies in the telecommunications sector...
Apple Inc. said Monday it will spend 1.7 billion euros ($2.4 billion Cdn) on two data centres in Europe that are expected to be operational in 2017. The company said in a press release the facilities will each be 166,000 square...
The CRTC has suspended the proceeding initiated the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and Consumers' Association of Canada (CAC) against video-streaming services CraveTV and Shomi. CRTC dispute resolution manager Tandy...
Snapchat Inc., the maker of mobile apps for picture and video sharing, is being valued at as much as $19 billion US in current talks to secure a new round of funding, Bloomberg reported this week. An article Tuesday said the...
CBC/Radio-Canada is considering selling its headquarters in Toronto, according to a report in the National Post. An article published Thursday said a consultant has been hired to determine whether it should sell the...
The next generation of health technology is slowly rolling out in Canada, but experts say more government leadership is needed to bring innovations such as remote health monitoring and personalized universal health records into widespread adoption. According to a recent report from Reuters, at least 10 of the 23 top-ranked hospitals in the United States are involved in a pilot program of Apple Inc.’s HealthKit service, using the platform to store patient information such as blood pressure, weight and heart rate. The data can help hospitals prioritize care, reduce visits and anticipate...
BCE Inc. on Thursday reiterated its position that a complaint from the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and the Consumers' Association of Canada (CAC) about its CraveTV streaming service is...
A new study from the C.D. Howe Institute says the "competitive value" of music in Canada is two and a half times what is actually paid through copyright tariffs. The report, authored by economist Marcel Boyer, came to this conclusion based on an analysis of conventional radio, for which he said established...
A coalition called Canada's Premium Audience Exchange (CPAX) said Thursday that four new companies have joined the exchange, which allows website operators to sell digital advertising in real time. CPAX said in a press...
BCE Inc.'s online TV-everywhere service, CTV Go, is now available to customers of Rogers Communications Inc. and four other TV service providers, CTV said Thursday. The network said in a press release that other broadcast...
The Copyright Board of Canada has produced a report outlining a number of changes it is considering in order to make its processes "more efficient and more productive." Recommendations included in a working document posted on its website include: improving the way it communicates proposed tariffs; requiring collectives that represent rights holders and those affected by proposed tariffs to provide better explanations of their positions earlier in the process; and streamlining the activity surrounding questioning, or "interrogatories," between the various parties that takes place in advance of hearings. A separate letter from board CEO Claude Majeau to various...
BlackBerry Ltd. is seeking an injunction against the latest version of a keyboard add-on made by Ryan Seacrest's Typo Products LLC for Apple Inc.'s iPhones, Reuters reported Tuesday. The article said BlackBerry claimed in...
Mobile shopping in Canada is growing at a pace that more than doubles the growth of overall online purchasing, PayPal said Wednesday. The digital-payment processing company said in a press release...
BCE Inc. will be among an international coalition of six telecommunications service providers demonstrating what it called a "revolutionary" new integrated platform for machine-to-machine (M2M) communications at next...
Blue Ant Media Inc. said Wednesday it has appointed Kate Blank as director of international sales for the Asia-Pacific Region, German-speaking countries, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. In a news release, the company said...
OTTAWA — CBC/Radio-Canada will emphasize "content over all other expenditures going forward," Heather Conway, the public broadcaster’s executive vice-president of English services, told the Senate's...
Rogers Communications Inc. said Tuesday it has brought its Smart Home Monitoring service to Vancouver and other parts of British Columbia's Lower Mainland. Rogers said in a press release there are multiple packages available,...
About one in three Canadian customers of Netflix Inc. have used a U.S. IP address to access the company's American service because it offers more content than the Canadian version, Media...
The Quebecor Fund, the organization established to distribute project contributions on behalf of Quebecor Inc.'s broadcast distribution operations, on Tuesday announced $635,000 in funding under its event and film...
Quebecor Inc. said it took Sun News Network off the air early Friday morning due to “a series of barriers to carriage,” while some experts said the long-struggling channel’s challenges from the beginning were a result of its flawed blueprint. Quebecor said in a press release the company had not been able to find a potential buyer after months of trying, and given the financial losses involved had no alternative but to shut down the channel. “Over the past four...
BCE Inc. is asking the CRTC to dismiss a “frivolous and vexatious” Feb. 6 complaint from the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) against the company’s CraveTV service, arguing that the case has no chance of...
The CRTC has approved an application from Radio Acadie ltée for a new French-language FM commercial radio station in Caraquet, N.B. to replace the company’s AM station. A local French-language community station run...
BCE Inc.’s Bell Media division said Thursday it has reached a 12-year agreement with FIFA for soccer tournaments including the men’s and women’s World Cups. “With this extension, Bell Media’s CTV,...
OpenText Corp. chairman Tom Jenkins was announced by Industry Canada Thursday as the new chairman of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC). It said in a press release that the appointment took effect Feb. 5. Jenkins was...
Amazon.com Inc. said Thursday its Canadian division, Amazon.ca, is making Kindle Unlimited available in Canada. The company said in a press release that Canadians will have unlimited access to more than 750,000 e-books for $9.99 a month with their Kindle e-readers and the free Kindle apps available for personal computers, Apple Inc.'s iPhones and iPads, devices powered by Google Inc.'s Android system, and smartphones equipped with Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Phone software. The service, launched in the United States in July, costs $9.99 US a month....
BCE Inc.'s CTV network announced Thursday that its TV everywhere service, CTV Go, has become the first of its kind in Canada to work with Google Inc.'s Chromecast streaming device. Chromecast is a thumb-sized device that...
Q9 Networks Inc. said Thursday it is launching a new support option for its data centre customers that includes hardware installation and management for the full life cycle of customers’ servers...
Employees of Quebecor Inc.'s Sun News Network expect the channel to shut down operations Friday due to a failure to strike a deal to sell the service to Moses Znaimer's ZoomerMedia Ltd., according to a report Thursday on...
Shaw Communications Inc. said Wednesday it is shutting down call-centre operations in Edmonton, Calgary and Kelowna, B.C., with about 1,600 workers at these locations having a choice of whether to move, assume a different position...
Telus Corp. said Wednesday it will be making services from Netflix Inc. available through its Optik TV set-top boxes in the coming weeks. Telus said in a press release that almost half of its Optik TV customers are Netflix...
Industry Canada’s announcement last week that it is opening up TV white space for the use of "super WiFi" technology could improve broadband availability in rural areas and has the...
International Datacasting Corp., an Ottawa-based provider of technology for the broadcasting industry, said Tuesday it is in talks with an undisclosed party about the sale of the company. International Datacasting said in a press...
The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) said Tuesday that collected a record amount of royalties last year, based on preliminary results. The collective representing songwriters, composers and...
David Kleidermacher has been appointed chief security officer of BlackBerry Ltd., the company announced Tuesday. Kleidermacher was previously chief technology officer at Green Hills Software, a maker of embedded operating systems, according to a press release. He has more than 20 years of experience in strategy and product engineering, the company said, and is the author of a book on security for embedded systems. “David’s knowledge of securing the Internet of Things and embedded systems will be invaluable as we execute on our strategy and continue to expand our management...
The Canadian government asked Twitter Inc. for users’ personal information 32 times in the last six months of 2014, the social network said on Monday in its latest transparency report. The requests covered 37 different...
Netflix Inc. said Monday it is now offering service in Cuba. "Bienvenida Cuba! Netflix is now available," Netflix said in a Twitter post. The move follows the December announcement that the U.S. government is restoring diplomatic relations with Cuba after more than five decades. Netflix...
There's been a jump over the last year in Canadian marketers using "advanced ad targeting" methods to reach their audiences, which include using information about their purchasing or online behaviour, video advertising platform provider Videology Inc. said in a press release Monday. Videology said 92 per cent...
The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) on Friday asked the CRTC to prohibit Rogers Communications Inc., Shaw Communications Inc. and BCE Inc. from restricting the availability of their streaming...
Ethnic Channels Group Ltd. has filed an application to the CRTC to have a Nigerian TV channel called 1Music approved for distribution in Canada. The company said in a letter posted on the CRTC’s website Friday that the English-language channel shows music and music-related programming aimed at African youth or those with an interest in African programming. A letter from the channel’s owner, One Music Ltd., confirms Canada’s Ethnic Channels Group as its sponsor and promises to “not hold, obtain or exercise exclusive or preferential programming rights in...
The CRTC issued a decision Friday the denied the operator of a Drumheller, Alta., radio station an amendment to its broadcasting licence that requires it make at least 10 per cent of the music it plays “folk or folk-oriented...
Industry Canada said Thursday it was moving forward with initiatives it says will provide new opportunities for rural Canadians to access "WiFi-like services" through the use of TV white...
Twitter Inc. and Google Inc. have reached a deal that will make posts on Twitter’s social media accounts easier to find through the Google search engine, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. Quoting...
Pierre Karl Péladeau, the controlling shareholder at Quebecor Inc., who was elected a member of Quebec’s national assembly last year, said Wednesday he maintains control of the company, the Montreal Gazette reported....
VMedia Inc. said Wednesday it has become the first independent telecommunications service provider to offer a triple-play bundle of television, Internet and home-phone service in Ontario. The company said its packages start at...
The CRTC said Wednesday that while it found MAtv, a French-language community channel owned by Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron subsidiary, was not in compliance with the conditions of its licence, it...
Valnet Inc., a Montreal-based company that owns several information/entertainment websites, said Wednesday it has bought ScreenRant.com, a website for television and movie news. Valnet said in a press release that it "plans to bolster the site's unique and in-depth film and television content with enhanced features, new digital media and...
Canada has agreed to extend the copyright term to 70 years after the death of the author as part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free-trade deal currently under discussion, the Japanese Broadcasting Corp. reported Feb. 2....
Five Canadian senators are going to the United Kingdom this month on a "fact-finding mission" as part of a study on the difficulties faced by CBC/Radio Canada. The Senate's transport and communications standing committee said in a press release that five members would be in London from Feb. 9 to 12, to consult with British parliamentarians, representatives of that country's public broadcaster, the BBC, and the BBC Trust, which is its governing body. The committee said the BBC has been mentioned often as a possible model for the CBC. The BBC raises the bulk of its funding...
