BCE Inc. has proposed to the CRTC that it pay $16 million in support for TV and radio programming in Canada in relation to divestments required as part of its purchase of Astral Media Inc. last year. A filing from BCE's Bell Media division, which appeared on the CRTC's website Tuesday, noted that the company was not tasked with covering tangible benefit payments in total on assets sold off to comply with conditions of the Astral purchase. However, the commission decided that Bell should pay appropriate proportions of the difference between what the CRTC assessed for the value of its...
BCE Inc.’s "Project Latte" has signed a deal for several new series that will only be available on the streaming platform, and not on linear television. The company said in a press release Tuesday that it has signed a deal with Lionsgate for Manhattan, a drama that will “only be available to ‘Project Latte’ subscribers.” Bell Media spokeswoman Eleni Tenuta said in an email that the series will not be broadcast on traditional TV. The service will later add other “Project Latte Exclusives,” including the comedy Deadbeat and thriller Bosch, the release added. Bell Media's streaming service, currently code-named "Project Latte," will launch later this year, it said. ...
More than one-third of U.S. smartphone users conduct video calls over their devices, and this activity is expected to grow in popularity around the world, technology research company Gartner Inc. said...
Google Inc. is launching a new approach to Internet advertising in the United States that uses a subscriber model to replace ads on certain websites. With Google Contributor, users can choose to pay...
Shomi, the online streaming service owned by Rogers Communications Inc. and Shaw Communications Inc., said Friday it has partnered with Twitter Inc. for a marketing campaign. Shomi said in a press release it will be the...
Rogers Communications Inc. on Thursday defended itself against a complaint to the CRTC from BCE Inc. about its online NHL hockey content, saying Bell's application is simply an attempt to "hinder" efforts to provide customers with innovative products. In October, Bell launched an...
Three industry observers, including two academics, have released an open letter to senior government officials that seeks strong measures to temper the power of major players in the telecommunications industry. The letter comes from Ben Klass, currently researching communications policy at Carleton University, Dwayne Winseck, a journalism and communications professor at Carleton, and CallNet Communications founder Mike Kedar. It is addressed to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, members of cabinet and CRTC Chairman Jean-Pierre Blais. The letter says "real changes" are expected...
BCE Inc.'s Bell Media division cut 80 full-time jobs, the company confirmed Thursday. Bell Media said in an emailed statement that the operation, which includes CTV, CTV News Channel, TSN, and various other TV and radio properties, represents about 1.3 per cent of Bell Media's workforce....
The latest report on Internet usage from Sandvine Inc. shows average monthly data downloaded on fixed-line Internet accounts in North America was up about 30 per cent in the second half of 2014 compared to a year earlier. The...
Yahoo Inc. and Mozilla Corp. announced Wednesday they have reached an agreement that makes Yahoo the default browser on Mozilla's Firefox Internet browser in the United States for desktops and mobile devices. The agreement...
MONTREAL — CBC/Radio-Canada employees grilled CEO Hubert Lacroix over cuts to the public broadcaster during its annual public meeting in Montreal Wednesday. Radio-Canada journalist...
Telus Corp. communicated with high-ranking members of the federal government in October, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper about the company’s health-care operations, according to the lobbying registry. The Oct. 2...
Shomi, the new streaming service from Rogers Communications Inc. and Shaw Communications Inc., announced Wednesday that it had signed a content deal with the Walt Disney Co. Under the terms of the deal, Shomi will offer a selection of Disney’s film library, as well as current and past TV...
Canadian broadcast distributors need to do more to increase awareness and usage of their TV-everywhere products, according to Gord Hendren, president of Charlton Strategic Research, which produced a report on the subject....
Canada’s largest media companies take it as a given that the current market for advertising on traditional broadcast media is weak, but experts say broadcasting is shifting to a new normal as online advertising becomes the...
Telus Corp. has filed a letter with the CRTC that supports BCE Inc.'s complaint against Rogers Communications Inc.'s online hockey streaming products. In October, Bell said in a filing to the commission that Rogers is giving its own subscribers undue preference by making GamePlus, which offers exclusive content such as extra camera angles, advanced statistics, interviews and expert analysis, only to subscribers of Rogers' telecommunications services. It also took issue with the fact that free trials of Rogers' NHL GameCentre Live, its online streaming service for games, was...
Google Inc.'s wearable device, Glass, is seeing a decline in interest among the public and application developers, according to an article by Reuters. The article, published Friday, said nine out of 16 app makers it contacted...
Telus Corp. on Monday announced two new products it said can help businesses take advantage of cloud computing. One is called Cloud Collaboration, which Telus said in a press release is a suite of cloud-based communications...
It makes sense that David Cormican is optimistic about the impact new streaming services will have on Canadian producers. He’s halfway through the shoot of a new show called Between. It's a teenager-focused drama about a group of youth quarantined by the government after the outbreak of a mysterious disease. It...
Quebecor Inc.'s broadcasting operation TVA Group said Thursday it has reached an agreement to purchase film- and TV-production company Vision Globale for about $118 million. TVA said the transaction is subject to approval by...
The Jim Pattison Broadcast Group said Wednesday that it has made Rob Bye permanent general manager of its Victoria radio stations. It said in a press release that Bye had been managing CKKQ-FM and CIZN-FM in Victoria on an interim basis for the last six months, and that role has now been made permanent. It said Bye will continue, as he has since 2007, to oversee all other Pattison radio stations on British Columbia's Vancouver Island, including CKLR-FM in Courtenay and Campbell River, CKWV-FM and CHWF-FM in Nanaimo, CIBH-FM and CHPQ-FM in Parksville, and CJAV-FM in Port Alberni....
BlackBerry Ltd. on Thursday announced the availability of its latest system for enterprise management of mobile devices. The new system is called BES12, which BlackBerry said in a press release "is the foundation for...
The CRTC said Thursday that it has ordered a Vancouver-area radio station found to be transmitting signals from the United States back to its home base in British Columbia to cease these operations before the end of the day. A...
The software and consulting subsidiary of Numeris has followed the lead of its parent company and dropped BBM from its moniker. BBM Analytics is now known as NLogic, according to a Thursday press release. Its parent company...
Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday released its new Lumia 535 smartphone. The 535 is the first of the Lumia series of phones not to carry the Nokia brand. Microsoft completed its purchase of Nokia Corp.'s devices and services...
The federal government is poised to introduce rules that would ensure retailers can opt out of accepting payments though smartphone applications while still maintaining contactless-payment processing...
CBC/Radio Canada and The Weather Network announced a content-sharing agreement on Monday. CBC and Pelmorex Media Inc.'s Weather Network said in a press release that, starting Dec. 8, national weather forecasts on CBC News...
Toronto-based wearable technology maker Bionym is partnering with the Royal Bank of Canada and MasterCard for a Canadian test of wristbands that act as payment tools. Kurt Bartlett, a spokesman for Bionym, said in an email that...
The video-streaming service to be launched by BCE Inc. has obtained rights to episodes of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, the company said Monday. Bell said the streaming service, currently...
Instagram, the photo-sharing app owned by Facebook Inc., on Monday launched its advertising program in Canada. The company said in a press release the first ads, or promoted posts, that show up in users’ feeds will be from Hudson’s Bay Co., Sport Chek, Target Canada, Mercedes-Benz, Air Canada and Travel Alberta. Instagram began showing promoted posts to users in the United States about a year ago. Not all users will see the ads and Instagram is working with advertisers to make sure their content is “seamlessly integrated,” the company said on its website. “We...
The CRTC is concerned with “much bigger issues with greater ramifications down the road” than the question of whether it will regulate over-the-top (OTT) services like Netflix, CRTC...
BCE Inc. on Thursday reported higher revenue and profit numbers for the third quarter as it added subscribers to its its wireless, Internet and TV businesses and saw a jump in mobile-data revenue. The company said in a press...
Quebecor Inc. reported overall revenue growth for the third quarter that was almost flat, as growth in its telecommunications services was offset by decline in its media segment. The company said in documents posted on its website Thursday that overall revenue for the three months ended Sept. 30 was $1.02 billion, down 0.2...
Netflix isn’t the only game in town anymore. In recent weeks, Canadian and American TV giants have made a number of announcements about new over-the-top (OTT) video services — HBO and CBS revealing new streaming...
Janice Smith is the new vice-president of national media sales at Rogers Communications Inc. The company said in a press release Thursday that Smith will be “responsible for delivering the compelling and differentiated go-to-market One Call strategy to drive advertising revenue that leverages the company’s diverse suite of media assets and leading brands.” She will also “set the strategic direction for the National Sales Team, Specialty team, and the One Call Agency Teams.” Most recently, Smith was the executive director of multiplatform sales for...
BCE Inc.'s Bell Media said on Wednesday there are three TV services lined up to carry its recently announced video streaming service, two of which are in the Bell family as well as Telus Corp.'s Optik TV service. Bell Media said in a press release that the service, code-named "Project Latte," will be...
Canadian law enforcement and government agencies asked Facebook Inc. for users’ data more times in the first six months of 2014 than in the same period last year, the social networking platform...
The CRTC has approved an application by BCE Inc'.s Bell Aliant for a licence to operate a pay-per-view service, the commission said Tuesday. It added that “the service will primarily offer live and tape-delayed sports...
Toronto-based Fuse Powered Inc., which runs a mobile-app publishing and monetization platform, said Tuesday it has purchased Corona Labs Inc., a Palo Alto, Calif.-based company that also makes software for developers of...
Television Bureau of Canada (TVB) president and CEO Theresa Treutler will leave the organization by the end of the year, the company announced Tuesday.. TVB said in a press release that her replacement hasn’t yet been named...
Shomi, the online streaming service being offered by Rogers Communications Inc. and Shaw Communications Inc., will launch Tuesday, the companies said Monday. It will be available initially to TV and Internet subscribers of Rogers...
BCE Inc.'s Bell Media said Monday that Mary Ann Turcke was appointed group president of its media sales division for local TV and radio. Bell Media said, effective immediately, Turcke fills the role that was held by Luc...
BCE Inc. said Monday that its acquisition of Bell Aliant Inc. is complete. It said that on Friday, it gained control through compulsory acquisition of the last 12 million shares of Bell Aliant that had not been tendered. Before...
Shomi, the video-streaming service being launced next week by Rogers Communications Inc. and Shaw Communications Inc., said Friday it has signed a deal with BBC’s commercial arm that will grant it exclusive access to some BBC series. The deal includes exclusive rights for Shomi to the Canadian premiere of the series A Young Doctor’s Notebook & Other Stories and Way To Go, and exclusive rights to other shows, including The Honorable Woman and Top of the Lake, it said in a press release Friday. “Also available through the deal are all the previous seasons of the hit franchises A Bit of Fry & Laurie, Doctor Who and Top Gear,” Shomi added. In a separate release Friday, Shomi said it has acquired exclusive rights to the series The Blacklist. Shomi has also recently announced a deal with Warner...
BlackBerry Ltd. on Friday announced new privacy measures for its BBM messaging service that will eventually be offered, along with other services, for a fee. One such feature allows users to set a time when their sent messages...
When Rogers Communications Inc. CEO Guy Laurence wore a leather jacket to the announcement of his company's latest project —a $100 million joint venture with Vice Media Inc. —the unconventional outfit emphasized...
Several new options for online television are about to become available in Canada. On Thursday BCE Inc. announced a new streaming service it's currently code-naming "Project Latte." The service, operated by the Bell Media division, will be available to TV service providers across the country, pending...
John Bitove is stepping down as chairman of satellite radio operator Sirius XM Canada Holdings Inc., the company said Thursday. SiriusXM Canada said in a press release that Bitove, who among other things is the founder of...
Microsoft Corp. announced a new group of products designed to help customers monitor and track their health on Wednesday, including a fitness band and a cloud platform for health data. The $199 US Microsoft Band wearable device will monitor user’s hear rate, sleep and distance walked as well as displaying notifications from a user’s smartphone, the company said in a news release. The Band will be compatible with Android, iOS and Windows Phone, and is “designed to be worn 24 hours a day,” the company said. The Microsoft Health cloud platform, which the company said...
Internet and television have become more prominent as primary news sources for anglophone-Canadian adults over the last two years at the expense of print media and radio, according to a new report. Media Technology Monitor (MTM),...
The CRTC has awarded the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) about three-quarters of the costs it had requested for its participation in an ongoing mobile-TV complaint. PIAC had asked for $39,324.66 in costs for its...
CBC/Radio-Canada says it will either break even or earn a profit on its acquisition of the broadcasting rights for the 2018 Olympics in South Korea and the 2020 Olympics in Japan. During a conference...
The CRTC said Tuesday that it will start seeking public comment on applications for new radio stations. In an online notice publishing results of a yearlong review of the commercial radio sector, the commission said it will issue...
The Canadian Internet Registration Authority said Tuesday it has appointed Steven Barry as its director of information technology. CIRA said in a news release that Barry has more than 20 years of experience as an IT executive,...
Google Inc.'s YouTube streaming service is exploring possible subscription models, according to report by Re/code. The technology news website reported Monday that YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said during an on-stage interview...
Amazon.com Inc. said Monday it is introducing a new over-the-top streaming device called the Fire TV Stick. The device is just a few inches long, plugs directly into a television’s HDMI port and picks up a home's WiFi...
On Monday the CRTC denied a request from two Newcap Inc. television stations in Lloydminster, Alta., for lenience on meeting the regulator's quotas for providing local content. The two channels,...
Notwithstanding Guy Lawrence's recent remarks about rival BCE Inc. being a "crybaby," a market analyst says Rogers Communications Inc.’s strategy for NHL streaming could be affected by Bell's recent CRTC complaint. The analysis follows last week’s complaint by Bell that Rogers is contravening rules against making content exclusive for subscribers of certain services by offering a free trial of NHL GameCentre Live only to Rogers' Internet and mobile customers until the new year, and making the GamePlus extras available only to those who have GameCentre and subscribe to Rogers' Internet, wireless, television or home-phone services. During a conference...
The CRTC said Friday that it has denied a request by Allarco Entertainment Inc. to modify the licence of its Super Channel specialty channel. The CRTC said Allarco had “proposed a modification to the service’s...
Stingray Digital Group Inc. has named Stephane Boisvert its senior vice-president of global sales. In a press release Friday, Stingray said Boisvert would “ensure that sales for all our markets continue to grow, and accelerate the growth of Stingray sales worldwide.” Boisvert was previously president and...
Canada's two biggest cable companies on Thursday reported losses of more than 100,000 television subscribers each over the last year. Roger Communications Inc.'s earnings release showed that it had 2.04 million TV subscribers at the end of the third quarter on Sept. 30, down 111,000 from a year earlier. Shaw...
Rogers Communications Inc. said Wednesday that Jack Tomik is stepping down as senior vice-president of media sales at the end of this month and being replaced by Al Dark. Rogers said in a press release that Tomik's departure...
BCE Inc. has filed a challenge with the CRTC against Rogers Communications Inc.’s plan to offer its own customers free access to its NHL streaming product until the end of the year as well as exclusive content while watching games. Bell claims the free trial of Rogers’ NHL GameCentre, announced in September, amounts to anticompetitive behaviour under the CRTC’s rules for digital media. The move to offer the live-streaming app for free to Rogers wireless and broadband customers until Dec. 31 of this year is “designed to deny content to competitors' subscribers and gain an anticompetitive advantage for Rogers' own wireless and Internet businesses,” Bell chief legal and regulatory officer Mirko Bibic said in an Oct. 14 letter to the CRTC posted to the...
A survey of U.S. consumers shows about 40 per cent of those working for large organizations use their own technology for work purposes at least some of the time. Gartner Inc. said in a press release Tuesday that its study found...
Laura Pearce is the new vice-president of brand strategy and fan engagement at Blue Ant Media Inc. “Her expertise will be a key asset in growing the company’s 10 media brands, including Cottage Life, T+E, Oasis and...
While the announcement that Rogers Communications Inc. and Netflix Inc. are working together on an original TV series marked an unprecedented collaboration between the two rivals, it’s a logical...
Stingray Digital Group Inc. said Friday it purchased Telefonica SA's pay-TV music service, which operates in six counties in Latin America plus Portugal. Montreal-based Stingray said in a press release it is taking over the...
Rogers Communications Inc. announced Friday that Nitin Kawale will head its enterprise unit starting Dec. 1. Kawale, who joins the company after six years as president of the Canadian division of Cisco Systems Inc., will have...
Canadian telecom service providers got more money from their customers last year largely as a result of increased wireless data usage and demand for faster Internet, the CRTC said Thursday. Overall...
Astral Out-of-Home, the BCE Inc. division that provides street furniture and public advertising, announced Thursday that it is installing 40 4K screens at transit shelters in downtown Toronto. The 84-inch screens will be used for...
Shaw Communications Inc. has reached a sponsorship deal with the operators of the Ottawa Convention Centre, resulting in the venue being renamed the Shaw Centre, effective immediately. Shaw said in a press release that the...
CBS Corp. is the latest U.S. media company to say it will start providing consumers with an online option for accessing video content without the need to subscribe to a television service. The company said in a press release Thursday that CBS All Access is available immediately to U.S. residents for $5.99 US a month. The service is accessible through CBS.com and the CBS app for devices running on Apple Inc.'s iOS or Google Inc.'s Android. Other connected devices will be announced in the coming months, CBS said. CBS All Access features full current seasons of 15 prime-time shows with new episodes available the day after they air, CBS said. The company added that past seasons of eight current series are available, including Survivor, The Good Wife and Blue Bloods. There are also 5,000 episodes of past television shows, such as Star...
Eastlink announced a wireless TV service Thursday that will allow customers to use the company’s Maestro DVRs wirelessly on up to six different TVs. The company said in a news release the DVRs will record up to six programs...
Quebecor Inc.'s Videotron on Thursday announced three senior-level appointments in the marketing department of existing employees, two of which had managers becoming vice-presidents. Julie Brault was named vice-president of...
TD Canada Trust announced Thursday it has introduced a way for customers to deposit cheques in their bank account by taking a photo with their mobile phone through the bank’s mobile app. The bank also said business...
The Internet of Things has been compared to the Industrial Revolution in terms of its eventual impact, though the general public is not yet fully aware of it nor convinced of its value, according to a recent study. That’s...
The Ontario government has renewed Peter O'Brian as chairman of the board for the province's public broadcaster TVO for the next two years, the organization said Thursday. TVO said in a press release that O'Brian has been in this role since 2005. O'Brian is a film producer and director whose works have won 19 Genie awards, the TVO website says. Some of his films include The Grey Fox, My American Cousin and One Magic Christmas. O'Brian is married to Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett, according to her profile on the Liberal Party's website....
Netflix Inc. said Wednesday that subscriber growth in both the United States and internationally was less than it expected in the third quarter. "We added about a million new members in the U.S., ending Q3 with 37.22 million...
When CRTC Chairman Jean-Pierre Blais faced off against Netflix Inc. in September, his ordering of the U.S.-based streaming service to give the CRTC information it had previously refused to provide...
Home Box Office (HBO) Inc. will offer an over-the-top service that does not require a paid TV subscription in 2015, CEO Richard Plepler reportedly said on Wednesday. Multiple media outlets reported that Plepler, speaking at an...
French bank Groupe BPCE announced Tuesday what it called a "world first in the payment-media field" in allowing payments to be made via Twitter. It said in a press release it has created, in partnership with its...
BCE Inc. said Tuesday that its chief financial officer, Siim Vanaselja, will retire in the second quarter of next year. The company said in a press release that he will be replaced by Glen LeBlanc, currently chief financial officer of BCE-controlled Bell Aliant Inc. BCE also said the transaction to take control of all shares of Bell Aliant it does not...
Sonja Chong has been named a part-time member of the board of directors for CBC/Radio-Canada. Heritage Minister Shelly Glover announced Chong's appointment Monday in a press release that also said Chong would serve at term of...
Notices issued by the CRTC on Tuesday and Friday indicated two out of three British Columbia radio stations accused of broadcasting in Canada without a licence will not appear at a scheduled hearing...
Rogers Communications Inc. said Tuesday that Jacob Glick will start work next month in the newly created position of chief corporate affairs officer. Previously, Glick headed Google Inc.'s global public policy and government relations team, and before that took on the same responsibilities...
TekSavvy Solutions Inc. said Monday it has purchased an Ottawa-area software company called Openjive Inc. Independent ISP TekSavvy said in a press release that Openjive's programs, including Lingo, integrate platforms from Microsoft Corp. such as Lync, SharePoint, Dynamics CRM, Exchange, Office and Office365. The acquisition, TekSavvy said, will help its "software-as-a-service and professional systems integration services," as well as allow it to "offer a growing range of professional services to small and medium enterprises in Canada."...
Music-streaming service Spotify has launched an app called “Listen like a Canadian” that promotes Canadian music to listeners. The new app from Spotify, which recently launched service in Canada, allows listeners to...
A merger between Rogers Communications Inc. and Shaw Communications Inc. has been the subject of speculation for years. As the various industries these companies participate in — broadcasting, TV distribution, landline phone services, Internet and, in Rogers' case, mobile — change rapidly, at least one...
Independent broadcaster Blue Ant Media Inc. will make 200 hours of 4K, or ultra high-definition, “nature and wildlife” content each year, the company said in a press release Wednesday. “Over 150 hours of...
The Television Bureau of Canada has released what it says are the first statistics on viewership of broadcast distributors’ video-on-demand (VOD) platforms, which show an additional four to nine per cent of viewers use VOD...
OTTAWA — NDP Leader Tom Mulcair on Wednesday denounced Heritage Minister Shelly Glover's statements that ruled out regulation for online video services such as Netflix and YouTube, which were made while a CRTC hearing considering the future of television was ongoing. Mulcair did not say what his position on the regulation of online video was when asked by The Wire Report after an NDP caucus meeting on Parliament Hill. "What I found shocking was to hear a minister responsible for these files saying that she was going to determine, before the CRTC even had a chance to study it,...
Quebecor Inc.'s controlling shareholder Pierre Karl Péladeau said he'll put his holdings in the company in a blind trust if he becomes leader of the sovereigntist Parti...
Rogers Communications Inc. has sold out advertising for the opening week of the NHL hockey season, which begins Wednesday, Rogers spokeswoman Jennifer Kett said in an email. “For NHL opening week alone, we’ve closed...
Facebook Inc.'s purchase of instant messaging company WhatsApp Inc. closed Monday, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Details of the filing show the final value as $4.59 billion US in...
The conventional broadcasting sector should be deregulated, a move that should include the elimination of Canadian content rules, preponderance rules and foreign ownership restrictions, Fraser...
Quebecor Inc. says there is no connection between the $316-million proposed sale of its English-language newspapers to Postmedia Network Canada Corp. and its intention of expanding its mobile services...
Rogers Communications Inc. announced it is releasing a new hockey app that will give customers access to new camera angles and additional content like interviews and analysis. “Exclusive to Rogers’ customers, and it...
A coalition of some of the biggest Internet companies in the United States criticized Canada in a report released Tuesday for being a laggard in the usage and development of Internet technology to grow the economy. The Internet...
The European Commission said Friday that it has approved Facebook Inc.'s proposed $19-billion US acquisition of instant messaging service WhatsApp Inc. The commission said in a news release that Facebook's Messenger application and WhatsApp "are not close competitors and that consumers would continue to have a wide choice of alternative...
In the past, an aspiring broadcast distributor had no choice but to go to the CRTC and get a licence before they launched their cable or satellite business. Now, in theory at least, they can bypass the entire process by launching an over-the-top (OTT) TV service. While they would have more flexibility and freedom from regulation, such as Canadian content contributions and quotas, they also wouldn’t benefit from the rules that benefit licensed service providers, such as guaranteed access to content. And a recent CRTC ruling on an OTT broadcast distributor called Leiacomm could make...
