Netflix Inc.'s quarterly results, released Monday, showed the lowest level of global subscriber growth in a year. The online video-streaming service said in a letter to shareholders there were 50.05 million subscribers at the end of the second quarter. That was up 1.69 million over three months, Netflix said. That compared to gains of four million in this year's first quarter, 4.07 million in last year's fourth quarter, 2.73 million in last year's third quarter and 1.24 million in the second quarter of 2013. Netflix forecast that net additions would pick up to 3.69 million in the current third quarter. Most of the new subscribers in the last quarter came from outside of the United States. Netflix said it had 1.12 million net additions from its international operations, for a total of 13.8 million total members outside the...
Over two months, Rogers Communications Inc. has gone from being dead last in Netflix Inc.'s ranking of Canadian Internet service providers' speeds to being sixth out of 16 with an average speed that has nearly doubled. In the latest ranking, released Monday, Netflix said Rogers had an average Internet speed of 2.95 megabits per second in June in prime-time viewing hours. That was up from 2.52 Mbps for Rogers in May, which put it in 12th place, and 1.67 in April, which put it in the 14th and final spot, according to Netflix' information posted online. There were 16 different services rated for the June, up from 14 in the previous two months. The reason it increased was that Netflix divided up the fibre services of Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. and SaskTel from their DSL...
Amazon.com Inc. said Friday it has launched a monthly e-book subscription service in the U.S., giving users access to all they can read for $9.99 US a month. The product is called Kindle Unlimited, and will provide subscribers...
A deal between Netflix Inc. and Walt Disney Co. that will see Walt Disney Studios’ movies appear on Netflix’s Canadian streaming service as soon as eight months after they hit...
Facebook Inc. said in an online posting Thursday that it has begun testing a feature that allows users to purchase certain products without leaving the Facebook site. The social network operator said the function works...
Official Languages Commissioner Graham Fraser on Thursday warned CBC/Radio-Canada and the federal government about obligations they have to provide programming services in both official languages as...
The Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group, which owns the CFL's Ottawa Redblacks, said this week it has reached a 10-year deal with Telus Corp. to provide, among other things, free WiFi at the Redblacks' home stadium. OSEG said in a posting on the Redblacks' website Monday that Telus is the "official communications supplier" for TD Place, the team's newly renovated stadium. Bernie Ashe, OSEG's chief executive, said in the release that visitors to the stadium, which also hosts the North American Soccer League's Ottawa Fury FC, will be able to "exchange...
Microsoft Corp. said Thursday it is cutting 18,000 jobs, most of them related to integrating the cellphone division of Nokia Corp., the acquisition of which closed in April. In a letter to employees,...
The CRTC has denied the addition of Arabic-language channel OSN Ya Hala HD to the list of non-Canadian programming services authorized for distribution. The commission said in a decision Wednesday that there was not enough...
CBC/Radio Canada said the 2014 FIFA World Cup was the most watched ever in Canada, with 30.7 million people viewing at least a portion of the month-long tournament. The broadcaster said in a release Monday that the July 13 final...
Time Warner Inc. turned down an acquisition offer from 21st Century Fox Inc., Reuters reported Wednesday. Citing anonymous sources, the news service said the bid was worth around $80 billion US, with 60 per cent in stock and 40...
Penetration of Netflix Inc.’s streaming service among anglophones in Canada is now at 32 per cent, with 28 per cent watching in a typical week, according new report. CBC/Radio-Canada's Media Technology Monitor said in a...
MONTREAL — Over the past month, 32 soccer teams played 64 matches in Brazil while millions around the world tuned in. As those transmissions were reaching their destinations around the globe, many of those signals were monitored through an unassuming office building near the Pierre Elliott Trudeau airport in...
Scribble Technologies Inc., the Toronto-based provider of technology and services to help companies engage audiences online, said Tuesday it has purchased CoveritLive from U.S. digital content company...
The CRTC has approved a licence application by Telus Corp. to operate a pay-per-view service, the commission said Monday. A letter from Telus to the CRTC to support the application in October last year said the pay-per-view...
Corus Entertainment Inc. was granted amendments to its broadcasting licences for Teletoon, Teletoon Retro, Historia and Séries+ regarding minimum amounts to be spent on Canadian programming. The licences state that the Teletoon channels have to devote 34 per cent of the previous year's revenue to Canadian programming and 26 per cent to programs of national interest, while the French-language Historia and Séries+ must put 30 per cent of the previous year's revenue toward Canadian programming. The channels had been allowed to deduct no more than five per cent from a...
LG Display Co. announced a technological breakthrough on Thursday that it says proves it is capable of developing TVs as big as 50 inches that can be rolled up like a yoga mat. The company said it in a press release it has been...
BCE Inc. is sponsoring an application from TV Media Planet Ltd. to have a Ukrainian television channel approved for distribution in Canada. The application appeared on the CRTC's website Thursday. An attached letter from TV...
Television and radio production house Corus Entertainment Inc. on Thursday reported a loss of $30 million in the third quarter of its fiscal year, although revenues were buoyed by its recent TV acquisitions including Teletoon....
BCE Inc. and Rogers Communications Inc. are shutting down their jointly-owned pay-per-view service, Viewer’s Choice Canada. Bell Media spokeswoman Amy Doary said in an email Monday that the service would cease operations by...
Quebec’s superior court has denied a motion for a class action lawsuit against BCE Inc., Telus Corp. and Rogers Communications Inc. Law firm Fasken Martineau, which represented Rogers’ Fido division and its Rogers Communications Partnership, said in a posting on its website judge Michel Yergeau ruled on July 2 that the motion didn’t meet the criteria necessary to authorize a class action. The judge ruled that Inga Sibiga, a customer of Rogers’ Fido brand, did not have sufficient legal interest to bring a case against Bell or Telus, was not an adequate...
Soundview Entertainment Inc. has asked the CRTC to make the Creole-language Haiti HD channel available for distribution in Canada. In a letter to the regulator, it described the channel as “a niche-interest Creole-language...
Canadian television broadcasters' revenues fell 1.3 per cent to $7.5 billion last year, with the decline affecting “every segment of the industry, except specialty television,” Statistics Canada said Monday....
Many companies are still trying to find the benefits in adopting the latest in machine-to-machine (M2M) communication technology, yet those that do see significant returns of their investment,...
The CRTC shouldn’t try to regulate Internet-based services the same way it does traditional broadcasting, Netflix Inc. said in an intervention submitted as part of the commission’s review of the future of television. The provider of over-the-top (OTT) streaming video services said the existence of video on the Internet and of TVs that...
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada is taking a close look at Facebook Inc. after the social network announced it had manipulated users’ news feeds for a study on emotional responses. “We will be contacting Facebook to seek further details related to this research and have been in touch with some...
Sierra Wireless Inc. chief financial officer David McLennan has been named to the board of the Canadian Media Fund (CMF), a public-private parternship that provides money for Canadian media producers, the group said in a press...
Google Inc. has bought Songza Media Inc., the music-streaming service said on its website Tuesday. "Today, we’re thrilled to announce that we’re becoming part of Google," Songza said in the online notice,...
Canada's major wireless carriers' have dismissed an argument from the collective representing music writers and publishers that if the Federal Court finds the collective owes $12 million in tariffs collected for ringtone...
BCE Inc. wants to see over-the-air (OTA) transmitters shut down and local stations move to a model it called “local specialty,” under which they would negotiate wholesale fees with cable, IPTV and satellite-TV providers. The company said in an intervention, submitted as part of the CRTC’s review of the future of the television, that local stations “would retain carriage rights and have the same local programming obligations they do today.” Local TV stations — also known as conventional TV stations or over-the-air TV stations — “must have access...
In interventions submitted as part of the CRTC’s review of the future of the television, both BCE Inc. and Rogers Communications Inc. said they supported a pick-and-pay television system, though...
Telus Corp. has ended an 18-year relationship with Taxi, the advertising agency that created marketing campaigns featuring a variety of cute animals including monkeys to hippopotamuses, the Globe and Mail reported on Friday. The...
CBC/Radio-Canada’s re-focusing of its priorities on its digital and mobile presence is “not a very logical thing to do,” said Barry Kiefl, president of Canadian Media Research Inc....
BlackBerry Ltd. said Thursday it has launched a new website to "hold our competitors accountable for what they say, when what they say is wrong." Mark Wilson, BlackBerry's senior vice-president of marketing, said on the company's official blog that the company has to defend itself with the facts. "As we’ve been...
Shaw Communications Inc. said Thursday its third-quarter earnings took a hit as its television subscriber base continued to decline and its media division took in less money. The company said in a press release that net income for the three months ending May 31 was $228 million, down from $250 million a year earlier. Revenue was up 1.2 per cent to $1.34 billion, the company said. By division, Shaw said revenue was up 2.4 per cent in its cable business to $845 million, satellite operations took in 0.9 per cent more at $220 million, while the media division's revenue declined two per cent to $301 million. Its quarterly summary showed that cable-video subscribers were down 12,075 over the quarter to 1.98 million, satellite-TV subscribers were down 5,608 over that time to 887,229, Internet subscribers grew by 12,399 to 1.92 million and...
OpenMedia.ca said Thursday it is going to meet negotiators of the Trans-Pacific Partnership when they convene in Ottawa in early July, and it is inviting the public to provide input into various related issues, including Internet...
Google Inc. is extending its Android operating system to cars and television sets, the company said Wednesday during its Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco. Customers can use the Android Auto service to connect...
The U.S. Supreme Court has sided with broadcasters in their case against Aereo Inc.’s TV service, ruling that the service violates the U.S. Copyright Act. U.S. studios and broadcasters had challenged Aereo’s use of...
SnapSaves, a Toronto-based company that makes an app for receiving cash back on certain purchases, has been bought by Groupon Inc. Users of SnapSaves take pictures of the receipts from their purchases to claim cash on certain products. The photos are uploaded with the company's app, SnapSaves explains on its website. Customers can request cheques...
While singing competition reality shows have been a mainstay on network television for the past decade, their newest iteration could offer an indication of the direction in which social-TV strategies...
The CRTC said Monday it is extending the deadline for submitting comments in the third phase of its Let's Talk TV proceedings until Friday. The deadline had previously been set for Wednesday. A...
CBC/Radio-Canada will unveil a five-year strategic plan to employees and the general public on Thursday, outlining how it intends to move forward in an era of increasingly limited financial resources. France Bélisle,...
The CRTC has renewed the broadcast license of a radio station in Salt Spring Island, B.C., though it warned that if the station does not comply with its regulatory requirements its license could be suspended or revoked. On...
Twitter Inc. has acquired the online video platform SnappyTV, which allows “live clipping, editing and distribution,” Twitter said in a blog post Thursday. “As we continue to invest in video, it’s important for us to provide tools that make it easy for TV broadcasters, businesses, and event producers to share high-quality videos,” Baljeet Singh, Twitter’s director of product management, wrote in the blog post. Singh added that the companies have worked together in the past “with the biggest content partners in the world to inject the best video...
Amid the many challenges television service providers were already facing, along came an Ottawa company making devices with digital recording capabilities and electronic-guide functionality for those...
Cisco Systems Inc. on Thursday announced it would put $150 million toward innovation and technology development in Canada over the next 10 years. The U.S. technology giant said in press release it was establishing the Cisco...
BBM Canada has changed its name to Numeris, the broadcast audience measurement company said Thursday. It also announced a new logo and slogan, “Audiences Count.” “Building on the foundation we have developed as...
The CRTC has the backing of the general public if it decides to get into regulating the prices people pay for television service, according to a new survey. A poll done by Forum Research, released in advance to The Wire Report,...
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and BCE Inc. on Wednesday said that CIBC's mobile payment app will be available in the coming weeks for certain mobile phones on the Bell network. In a joint press release, the companies said the app will be available for Samsung Electronics Co.’s Galaxy S4, Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II, HTC Corp.'s One (M7), and BlackBerry Ltd.'s Q10, Z10 and Bold 9900. It will be downloadable from Google Inc.'s Play store or BlackBerry World, depending on the device being used. In an article last November, The Wire Report reported that...
BlackBerry users will gain access to several applications this fall, including Netflix, as a result of making Amazon.com Inc.'s Appstore part of the BlackBerry 10.3 operating system that becomes available this fall, BlackBerry...
OTTAWA — The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) said in a recent Federal Court filing that there is "no remedy" should the court find that it owes wireless carriers $12 million for tariffs they paid for ringtones used between 2006 and 2012. SOCAN made the case that the...
Heritage Minister Shelly Glover announced Tuesday that Quebec lawyer Yves Dupras was returning as a commissioner of the CRTC. A press release from Heritage Canada said Dupras would start a five-year term as a full-time designated...
Stingray Digital Group Inc. said Friday it has reached an agreement to purchase an Amsterdam-based owner of music-related television services. Stingray, a Canadian-based company that provides music services such as Galaxie to...
TORONTO — Rogers Communications Inc. CEO Guy Laurence says the telecom industry has wasted Canadians’ time. He said in a speech to the Canadian Telecom Summit Monday that complexity in...
Tom Wheeler, chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, said Friday that his organization is looking into whether Internet service providers are purposely diminishing, for their own benefit, the flow of content from...
A House of Commons heritage committee report on the music industry released Thursday said the government should look at how long the Copyright Board, which sets the rates for use of copyrighted...
Canada's lobbying commissioner says attempts to convince the CRTC to grant a broadcast licence do not have to be registered under the Lobbying Act, The Lobby Monitor reported Thursday. The article (subscribers only) said...
The Department of Canadian Heritage said Wednesday that the Audiovisual Coproduction Treaty between Canada and India takes effect July 1. A press release from Canadian Heritage said the agreement will allow producers in both countries to combine "creative, technical and financial resources" in the making of feature films or TV productions. The government said this is the first treaty following the implementation of new policy on international audio-visual co-productions in March 2013, which sought to make Canada a more attractive place to make TV and film productions, and create...
Twitter Inc.'s chief operating officer, Ali Rowghani, has resigned his position, a move that has been linked with slower-than-expected growth the company has seen lately. Rowghani posted on Twitter Thursday morning: "Goodbye Twitter. It's been an amazing ride, and I will cherish the memories." A story published a day earlier on...
BlackBerry Ltd. said Thursday it has reached a three-year deal with a consortium comprised of Canada's three incumbent wireless providers to support financial transactions conducted through...
Amazon.com Inc. announced Thursday the launch of a new music-streaming service in the United States. It said in a press release that the product is called Prime Music and is available at no extra cost to existing U.S. customers...
The number of “interactions” about television on social networks operated by Facebook Inc. or Twitter Inc. increased 12 per cent in the past year, according to a report from social TV...
The number of anglophone Canadians who are streaming television content on their smartphones increased 71 per cent from a year earlier, according to a new report from Media Technology Monitor (MTM). In 2013, 12 per cent of respondents reported watching TV on a smartphone, up from seven per cent a year earlier, according to MTM, a project of CBC/Radio-Canada. “While smartphone TV streamers watch less traditional TV on a TV set, they more than make up for that time streaming TV,” said the report, released on June 5. The number of users who stream video on their smartphones rose...
The CRTC has approved an application by a Thunday Bay, Ont., broadcaster to disaffiliate from CBC/Radio-Canada. Thunder Bay Electronics Ltd. said in a Feb. 28 letter filed with the CRTC that it was seeking the disaffiliation...
Google Inc. said Tuesday it had reached a deal to buy satellite company Skybox Imaging Inc. and hopes it can help it improve Internet access in some areas. Google said in a press release it is buying Skybox for $500 million US in...
Data transmitted over Internet protocol networks with devices in Canada will be about 2.4 times more in 2018 than what it was last year, according to a new report from Cisco Systems Inc. Highlights...
A recent report from PwC showed Internet advertising revenue in Canada surpassed television ad revenue last year for the first time. The report found Internet advertising was worth $3.75 billion last year, compared to $3.52...
Rogers Communications Inc. climbed out of the bottom ranking among 14 Canadian ISPs measured in latest speed index from Netflix Inc. Rogers had an average speed of 2.52 Mbps, according to Netflix's index for May that was...
BCE Inc.'s Bell Media division said Monday that its TSN Radio network will have the radio rights to the FIFA World Cup that starts this week. Bell said in a press release that TSN Radio's coverage would kick off on...
CBC/Radio Canada on Monday said Sally Catto has been named its new general manager of programing for CBC Television. The public broadcaster said in a press release that Catto had been its executive director of commissioned and scripted programming, where she oversaw dramas, comedies, children's shows and some...
The Canadian Media Production Association said Jamie Brown has been appointed the organization's chairman. Brown is the founder and executive producer of Frantic Films, the CMPA said in a press release issued Saturday. The...
A report appearing on the CRTC's website Friday indicated that Canadian television service providers are offering more choice and flexibility than ones in the United States in selected markets. The study, done by Ottawa-based business consultant David Keeble, studied TV offerings in three markets in Canada, which he contrasted with three comparable markets in the U.S. "On the evidence gathered in this report, Canadian BDUs offer the consumer more flexibility than their American counterparts," the report said. Looking at the Vancouver market, the report found that 30 per cent...
MONTREAL —Videotron’s new iPad application, which allows users to access live TV, free and paid video-on-demand (VOD) content and programming stored on a personal video recorder (PVR), in...
In a blog post on its website Wednesday, Verizon Communications Inc. accused Netflix Inc. of "misleading" consumers about the source of buffering issues that viewers may have experienced. The post from David Young, Verizon's vice-president of regulatory affairs, cited a Twitter posting showing a...
Broadcast commercial radio remains popular in the face of competition from online streaming services and satellite radio because it’s a “point of connection” for listeners rather than just a music-delivery service, says analyst Jeff Vidler. The latest figures from the CRTC, released Tuesday, showed...
Rogers Communications Inc. on Tuesday announced the launch of an online streaming service and mobile application for Sportsnet programing. The company said in a press release the service is called Sportsnet Now, and for the time...
A Finnish company that works with mobile operators to provide users with app-based data plans said Tuesday it has been bought by Facebook Inc. The company, Pryte Ltd., said in a message on its website: "Today, we are delighted to announce that our team will be joining Facebook. Since we launched Pryte we have worked to reimagine the way mobile data works in an app-driven world, by enabling partnerships between app and content providers, and mobile operators." Financial details were not released. Pryte's website says it works with mobile services providers to provide their...
Quebecor Inc. subsidiary Videotron will announce an application that it says “will change TV forever” later this week. The company said in an invitation to media Monday that Videotron president and CEO Manon...
At its Worldwide Developers Conference Monday, Apple Inc. revealed new software for Mac computers that, among other things, will allow iPhone calls and texting to be facilitated through a computer. Apple said in a press...
When the World Cup begins in Brazil in two weeks, 3.2 billion people around the world will tune into the tournament, according to FIFA’s estimates. And while many of them will cheer on their team through a high-definition...
OpenMedia.ca said Friday it has sent a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper — on behalf of itself and other advocacy groups — protesting his nomination for a new federal privacy commissioner. OpenMedia, which...
The Jim Pattison Broadcast Group said Friday it has made Mark Rogers its vice-president of sales. The company said in a press release that Rogers has more than 39 years of experience in broadcasting, and since 1999 had been the...
BCE Inc. and Shaw Communications Inc. announced Friday, in separate press releases, that mobile applications for each of their conventional television networks are now available to subscribers of the other's TV-distribution services. Bell Media's CTV network said that its CTV Go application for Apple Inc. mobile...
Former prime minister Brian Mulroney has been nominated to be chairman of Quebecor Inc.'s board of directors, according to a corporate filing the company made on Wednesday. Mulroney would replace Françoise Bertrand,...
OTTAWA — Industry Minister James Moore said Wednesday that he is not concerned that the government’s Digital Privacy Act will, as critics as have charged, open the door to copyright...
Two non-profit organizations applied to launch radio stations on the 88.7 FM frequency within 40 kilometres of one another outside of Halifax, and the CRTC on Wednesday said it approved the bid from Hubbards Radio Society and asked the Cobequid Radio Society to find another frequency. Both groups had submitted applications for broadcasting licences for English-language community radio stations playing local programming produced by volunteers, with Cobequid Radio Society asking for a 250-watt station in Lower Sackville, N.S., and Hubbards Radio Society asking for a 1,080-watt station in...
Rogers Communications Inc. on Wednesday announced a six-year sponsorship agreement with Scotiabank for its various hockey programs in the upcoming season, which the broadcaster said is the first sponsorship agreement related to...
Carol-Ann Kairns is the new general sales manager at Corus Entertainment Inc. The company said in a press release Tuesday that Kairns would oversee advertising sales and revenues for Corus’ Historia,...
Broadcast distributors across the country are likely to pay for a big chunk of the billions of dollars for which Rogers Communications Inc. is on the hook as a result of the deal it struck for 12...
Twitter Inc. has entered into a two-year, $230 million mobile advertising deal with holding company Omnicom Media Group, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. The deal will integrate Twitter’s mobile advertising...
BCE Inc.’s media subsidiary has signed an agreement with Alliance des producteurs francophones du Canada (APFC), which represents French-language independent producers across Canada, the company said in a press release Tuesday. The five year agreement, which is renewable, “details the general principles of a trade agreement,” Bell said, and applies to its specialty and pay TV channels. The agreement aims to “significantly reduce the administrative and legal costs of transactions between Bell Media and independent producers and streamline the process...
Canadian Tire Corp. and TSN announced a multi-year advertising and production deal on Monday that will see the sports broadcaster produce branded content for the retailer that will appear on TSN’s broadcast and web...
Rogers Communications Inc. on Friday released a “comprehensive” plan to overhaul its customer service and restructure its corporate hierarchy. CEO Guy Laurence, who took over the job in...
The CRTC has approved a broadcasting licence for Cycle TV, a national English-language specialty TV channel. The commission said in its decision Friday that the channel would “offer programming devoted to the world of cycling and its associated activities, including purchasing, cycling...
OTTAWA — CBC/Radio-Canada will stop over-the-air broadcasts of its Radio 2 service and make it an “exclusively on-line music offering,” advocacy group Friends Of Canadian Broadcasting said at a news conference on...
Experts from industry and academia mostly agree that by 2025 the Internet of Things will be pervasive and ubiquitous while agreeing on little else in a new report from the Pew Research Center. The...
Rogers Communications Inc. said two senior officials in its marketing operations have left the company in advance of CEO Guy Laurence announcing a new corporate strategy to employees on Friday. In an...
Ethnic Channels Group Ltd. applied to the CRTC to add BeIN Español to the list of non-Canadian programming services authorized for distribution. In a May 15 application, the ethnic broadcaster described the channel as...
David Colville, a former vice-chairman and commissioner with the CRTC, has been appointed to the board of directors for television content creator and distributor DHX Media Ltd. The company said in a press release Tuesday that...
Netflix Inc. on Tuesday said it is expanding in Europe by adding service in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Belgium and Luxembourg later this year. That follows other European launches in countries such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands in recent years. Netflix, which said it currently has more than 48 million subscribers in more than 40 countries, said in a press release details will come later on pricing, programming and what devices will be supported in these new European markets....
