A complaint against Quebecor Inc. subsidiary Videotron Ltd.’s French-language community channel MAtv is holding up the launch of its English-language equivalent, MYtv. Peggy Tabet, Videotron’s senior director of broadcasting and regulatory affairs, said in a phone interview Monday that the launch of the channel will be delayed about a year after the initial launch date, which had been planned for this June. In Sept. 2013, Videotron applied to the CRTC for a licence to launch MYtv, a new community TV channel catering to Montreal’s English-speaking community. That October, a...
BCE Inc.’s TSN sports specialty network on Monday said longtime executive Al Banks has been appointed its group director of sales. At this position, Banks will report directly to Nathalie Cook, TSN’s vice-president of sales and brand partnerships, the network said in a press release. The release said Banks has been at TSN for 16 years, in which time he’s held a number of senior management roles....
The CRTC said Monday it has granted Ethnic Channels Group Ltd. a broadcasting licence for a specialty channel focusing on cricket. The commission said in a decision posted online that ECGL Cricket TV would be a “national,...
BlackBerry Ltd.’s fourth-quarter earnings show the company is a getting smaller proportion of its revenue from hardware and a bigger slice from services. Results released in a press release...
OTTAWA — The CRTC’s head of broadcasting says radio revenue does not appear to be suffering as a result of competition from Internet-based streaming services. Scott Hutton, the commission’s executive director of...
More than three out of every four anglophone Canadian adults are consumers of online video, according to report released Thursday. Media Technology Monitor (MTM), a project of CBC/Radio-Canada, said 76 per cent of respondents in...
Winnipeg radio station Jewel 101 FM is asking the CRTC to change its frequency from 100.7 to 100.5 in order to be less of a “loser,” the station wrote in a filing released on Thursday. The station, owned by Evanov Communications Inc., said over the past nine years it has performed consistently poorly with listeners and advertisers, and now “the frequency itself has become stigmatized as ‘a station no one listens to.’ ” In October, the CRTC approved the station’s request to break free of the specialty-format restrictions, and the station rebranded itself from The Breeze 100.7 to Jewel 101 and began playing adult contemporary music in December 2013....
The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) is calling on governments to do more to protect people from companies that offer so-called free online services. In a press release issued Wednesday, it said consumers have little...
As Canadian television providers have rolled out their TV-everywhere strategies, aimed at fighting off over-the-top (OTT) competition by making content easier to access online, customers can be...
Facebook Inc., in announcing the purchase of a pioneering virtual reality company, said this kind of immersive technology is "a strong candidate to emerge as the next social and communications...
Italian eyewear maker Luxottica Group S.p.A. said Tuesday that it has reached a deal with Google Inc. to collaborate on making its Google Glass wearable technology. The company said in a press release that its main brands,...
Telus Corp. and Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. have fulfilled their regulatory obligations by adding the Sun News Network to their TV-service channel lineups. In December, the CRTC said news channels Sun News and Le Canal...
Google Inc. and Viacom Inc. have settled a copyright lawsuit relating the uploading of content owned by the latter on Google’s YouTube platform, the company’s said in a joint news release issued last week. Terms of...
Netflix Inc. CEO Reed Hastings said in a blog post on the company’s website Thursday that a stronger sense of net neutrality is needed to prevent situations like the one that has his company...
The Canadian Media Production Association said Marguerite Pigott will become its vice-president of outreach and strategic initiatives. The CMPA said in a press release Thursday that Pigott will start her position in early May and...
Blue Ant Media Inc. has officially launched its international distribution arm, the company said this week. The Toronto-based distributor of television content said in a press release Thursday that its new division is called Blue Ant International, and it will be using the upcoming MIPTV conference in Cannes, France, to raise awareness about its new business. “The launch of Blue Ant International is an integral part of the growth strategy for our company,” Raja Khanna, Blue Ant’s CEO of television and digital, said in the release. “In such a crowded marketplace we hope to stand out by focusing on superior service and by continuing to build a roster of top-tier content partners to create an industry-leading catalogue of high quality programming.” The Wire Report reported in January that Blue Ant had appointed...
A French-language, photography-focused documentary channel has been approved by the CRTC, the regulator announced Thursday. The channel, Le réseau de la photographie (RDP) will broadcast feature-length and short films...
Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron unit said Thursday that Pierre Bonin is its new vice-president of information technology. It said in a news release that Bonin has almost 30 years of experience in IT and telecommunications...
A research group studying the demographics of Canadians who follow the National Hockey League said Rogers Communications Inc., which has exclusive national rights to NHL broadcasts as of next season,...
The Movie Network said Thursday that its TMN Go app is now available for smartphones and tablets running on Google Inc.’s Android software. The network, which is owned by BCE Inc., said in a news release that the app is for...
Shaw Communications Inc.’s media division on Wednesday said it has become the first private-sector Canadian broadcaster to offer closed captioning for television programming accessed online. It said in a press release that closed captioning is available for more than 1,300 online episodes of its shows that air on Global and its specialty channels. It said the function can be turned on by clicking the CC button during video playback. Shaw spokeswoman Sheila Frise said in an email that closed captioning is not yet available for the company’s mobile-TV apps, though “our...
A majority of Canadians taking part in a survey, for which results were released Tuesday, said having more choice and control over what they watch on television is an “excellent” or “good” idea. The...
The CRTC has approved Newcap Inc.’s acquisition of five radio stations from BCE Inc.’s media subsidiary for a purchase price of $112 million. The commission said Tuesday that it had...
Rogers Communications Inc. had the ear of some of the highest officials in the federal government in early February, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Harper communicated with Rogers on Feb. 5, according to information in...
BCE Inc.’s Bell Media division on Tuesday announced the release of two new applications that will bring live breaking news video to smartphones and tablets. Apps for CTV News Go, featuring content from the national news...
Canadians are the most prolific visitors of websites in the world, according the Canadian Internet Registration Authority’s Factbook, released Tuesday. Citing data from ComScore, CIRA said Canadians, on average, visited...
The availability of video-on-demand (VOD) titles doubled across Canada’s eight largest TV providers between 2012 and 2013, the CRTC said on Monday, from 44,535 titles available from all eight...
The CRTC said Monday that Oui TV has been approved as a foreign channel for distribution in Canada. An online posting from the commission said it is a 24-hour French-language service featuring drama and comedy programming. The channel originates in the U.S. and its programming is sourced from...
BCE Inc. should not compare itself to companies like Google Inc., Facebook Inc. or LinkedIn Corp. when it comes to tracking and collecting customer information for advertising purposes, the Public...
The CRTC said Friday it has approved the sale of two radio stations in New Brunswick by Rogers Communications Inc. The commission said in an online notice that the sale of CHNI-FM in Saint John to Newcap Inc. has been given the OK, as has the transfer of CKNI-FM in Moncton to Acadia Broadcasting Ltd. Both new owners of the radio stations were given approval to change their formats from news and talk to music....
One in five Canadians surveyed by U.S. research firm Parks Associates said they downgraded their TV service over the last year. A report from the company said 20 per cent of Canadian households, out...
Analysts from Barclays Capital said there is little risk to Quebecor Inc.’s businesses from former CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau’s candidacy for the sovereigntist Parti...
Industry Canada issued a statement on Friday about rule changes for radio broadcasters first reported by The Wire Report on Wednesday. The amendments to the Radiocommunication Act did away with issuance and reinstatement fees for...
Thunder Bay Electronics Ltd. has put in a request to the CRTC to disaffiliate from CBC/Radio-Canada, the company said in a Feb. 28 letter filed with the CRTC. It said it was seeking the disaffiliation “so that CKPR-DT can...
Quebecor Inc. reported higher fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday on revenue that was slightly higher than a year earlier. Overall revenue for the fourth quarter was $1.12 billion, up 0.5 per cent from a year earlier, Quebecor said in a press release. Net income was $43.4 million, up from $7.1 million a year before, the company said. Adjusted earnings from continuing operations were $68 million, up from $52.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2012. Chief financial officer Jean‑François Pruneau said in the release that “Quebecor continued its efforts to reduce its refinancing...
Regulating entertainment content that’s increasingly coming from online sources, funding mechanisms to promote productions and foreign-ownership restrictions in the broadcasting industry are...
BCE Inc.’s media division on Wednesday announced that online streaming of TSN content is now available to those who subscribe to the channel through TV service from either Bell or Rogers Communications Inc. Bell Media said...
Pierre Karl Péladeau’s decision to run for the sovereigntist Parti Québécois in the upcoming Quebec election could cause problems for the company he used to lead and of...
BCE Inc.’s collection of customer data for its targeted-advertising program doesn’t violate the Telecommunications Act, the company said in a filing to the CRTC. The letter, submitted on...
Rogers Communications Inc. on Monday named George Stroumboulopoulos as the next host of Hockey Night in Canada, which Rogers takes over production of next season. Stroumboulopoulos, currently host of...
Cecil Hawkins, the Toronto executive who heads metal fabricator Canerector Inc., has been appointed to the board of CBC/Radio-Canada, Canadian Heritage announced Monday. Hawkins, president and CEO of Canerector, has been involved...
Pierre Karl Péladeau has resigned from a number of Quebecor Inc. board positions following news that he intends to run as candidate for the sovereigntist Parti Québécois in the upcoming provincial election in...
There were 18 communications between Shaw Communications Inc. and the federal government within the last month, for which company CEO Brad Shaw was listed as the lobbyist, according to the federal lobbyists registry, including one...
Rogers Communications Inc.’s mobile-TV service upholds the Broadcasting Act by making Canadian content available and is not an undue preference, the company told the CRTC Wednesday. Rogers made the comments in a filing on a mobile-TV complaint currently underway at the CRTC. In the proceeding, the commission is considering three complaints regarding mobile-TV services offered by Rogers, BCE Inc.’s Bell Mobility subsidiary and Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron subsidiary. The...
CBC/Radio-Canada announced Thursday that will be adding a subscription-based section to its ICI Tou.tv streaming platform, and a partnership with Rogers Communications Inc. and Telus Corp. will give...
OTTAWA — CBC/Radio-Canada has been at the vanguard of changes the broadcasting industry has faced due to the emergence of digital media in recent years, Scott Hutton, the CRTC’s executive...
Independent Canadian broadcaster Channel Zero Inc. will have to answer to the CRTC for violations of Canadian content and closed-captioning rules on its specialty channels, including three adult-movie stations, at a hearing in April. The CRTC claims that multiple channels, including film channels Moviola and Silver Screen...
BlackBerry Ltd. said in blog post that it is testing sponsored content on its BBM messaging service with some users. A posting on BlackBerry’s website Tuesday by Jeff Gadway, head of product and brand marketing for BBM,...
Rogers Communications Inc. shelled out billions in this year’s 700 MHz spectrum auction for what was once “second-class” spectrum and what could now be the most coveted wireless real estate in the country, according to Nordicity analyst Stephan Meyer. Rogers spent $3.2 billion in the auction, the majority of which went to snapping up 20-year licences for contiguous A and B paired blocks of 700 MHz spectrum in every major wireless market in the country. The A block was previously “undesirable,” Meyer said in a phone interview, because carriers in the United...
The Canadian broadcast of the Academy Awards Sunday night attracted an average of 6.12 million television viewers, said BCE Inc.’s CTV network, which had the broadcast rights to the awards show. In a press release put out...
The government of Canada plans to limit the remuneration rights of music creators in the United States, among other countries, when it ratifies the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)...
Tanya Woods, director and legal counsel for regulatory and copyright law at BCE Inc., is leaving to become vice-president of policy and legal affairs the Entertainment Software Association of Canada, The Lobby Monitor reported....
Dish Network Corp. announced a deal with Walt Disney Co. that will bring content from some of the most popular channels in United States, including worldwide sports leader ESPN, to over-the-top streaming services for the first...
A question posed by the CRTC in its review of television services, focusing on exempting over-the-top (OTT) services from Internet data caps, could have implications on net neutrality, according to some industry experts. In an...
Rogers Communications Inc. customers who are on an analog cable service are losing some of their channels as the service provider phases out what remains of analog signals of certain services. The company said any customers...
TVA Group Inc., the broadcasting and magazine publishing arm of Quebecor Inc., on Friday reported declines in profits and revenue for the last quarter of 2013. TVA said in a press release that net income in the fourth quarter was...
The CRTC is consulting on amending its rules to make it mandatory for the broadcasting industry to distribute emergency alert messages. In a notice Thursday, the commission said the amendments would make distribution of emergency...
BCE Inc.’s media subsidiary will make the live broadcast of the Oscars free on its CTV Go service. It normally requires viewers to have an account with a participating TV service provider, Bell Media said in a release Thursday, adding it would lift that requirement “as a special showcase of the app and its content.” “Unlocking CTV Go for the biggest awards show of the year provides a terrific sampling opportunity on a massive scale,” Mike Cosentino, CTV networks’ senior vice-president of programming, said in the release. The awards ceremony, which airs...
Shaw Communications Inc. said Thursday it has launched a mobile app and upgraded the website for its History channel to allow its subscribers on-demand viewing of almost 300 hours of programming. Shaw said in a press release the...
OTTAWA — The CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada told a Senate committee Wednesday night that he has never asked for “one dollar more” of public money but that the public broadcaster needs...
The CRTC has approved an ownership transfer of the English-language community radio station CJHQ-FM Nakusp in Nakusp, B.C., from the Nakusp Roots Music Society to the Nakusp Community Radio Society. The commission said Wednesday...
BCE Inc.’s Bell Media announced Wednesday it was making a $930,000 investment into the NSI Totally Television training course to keep the program going for another seven years. The course matches writer/producer teams with...
The CRTC said in an notice on its website Tuesday that it has consented to a request from Viewers Choice, a pay-per-view service owned by BCE Inc., to revoke its broadcast licence for carriage on satellite TV services in Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces. An application from Viewers Choice, provided by the CRTC, states as a rationale for the request: “Bell Satellite TV and Shaw Direct satellite TV both offer their own direct to home pay-per-view services.” Scott Henderson, vice-president of communications for Bell Media, said in an email that no satellite providers were...
BlackBerry Ltd. CEO John Chen said Tuesday he would consider selling BBM, the company’s messaging service, according to different media reports Tuesday. CNBC quoted Chen in an interview as saying: "If somebody comes to...
About 15 million people in Canada tuned in to at least part of the Olympic men’s hockey gold medal game on Sunday, which had an average audience of 8.5 million throughout the contest,...
Walt Disney Co. on Tuesday announced the launch of a cloud-based movie service called Disney Movies Everywhere to consumers in the United States. It’s available as an free application for Apple Inc.’s iPhones, iPads...
Netflix Inc. will pay Comcast Corp. for access to its network in order to be able to provide its streaming video customers with faster speeds and improved reliability, Bloomberg reported Monday, quoting anonymous sources. Based...
BlackBerry Ltd. said Monday that its BBM instant-messaging service would become available to users of Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Phones and Nokia Corp.’s X smartphones. BlackBerry made the...
A Canadian Internet service provider is being required by court order to give information on its subscribers linked with illegal filesharing to a Hollywood production company, and advocates on both...
Leiacomm, a company that plans to launch an over-the-top TV service in Canada, has filed a complaint against BCE Inc.’s Bell Media subsidiary for refusing to license its content to the service....
OTTAWA — Industry executives disagreed about the best way to give consumers more choice as they discussed the CRTC’s ongoing review of the television system during a panel discussion at...
Facebook Inc. said Wednesday has reached an agreement to pay about $19 billion US for mobile-messaging application company WhatsApp Inc. Facebook said in a press release that the purchase price includes $4 billion US in cash and about $12 billion US in Facebook stock. In addition, the founders and employees of WhatsApp are to receive $3 billion US to be vested over four years after the acquisition closes. Facebook said that WhatsApp has 450 million users, with about 70 per cent using the service on any given day. It added the volume of messages on this system approaches global volume of...
The CRTC said Wednesday it has approved two Urdu-language channels, Business Plus and Zaiqa TV, for distribution in Canada. The CRTC said the application to add the station was received from Soundview Entertainment Inc. The...
The U.S. Television Coalition, which represents U.S. television stations whose signals are retransmitted in markets across Canada, has asked the Office of the United States Trade Representative to place Canada on its priority...
The CRTC is asking Canadians for feedback about Canadian content in online television services and their adherence to programming standards in an online questionnaire released Tuesday as part of Phase 2 of its review of television...
Quebecor Inc.’s media division has filed a complaint against the BCE Inc.-supported Bell Fund, claiming it had three TV projects that were unfairly turned down for funding last year. In letter filed on the CRTC’s...
DHX Media Ltd. on Thursday reported net earnings for its last quarter that were about 10 times what it made one year earlier. The Halifax-based producer and licenser of television content said in a press release that net earnings came to $2.8 million in its second fiscal quarter that ended Dec. 31. That was up from $287,000 a year earlier. Revenue was up 15 per cent from a year before to $30.4 million, the company said, fuelled largely by 42 per cent spike in revenue from it proprietary productions. DHX announced its’ intention in November to enter the broadcasting industry with the...
Rakuten Inc., a Tokyo-based provider of e-commerce and financial services, said Friday it is buying Viber Media Ltd., a provider of voice-over-IP (VoIP) and messaging services, for $900 million US. Rakuten said in a press release...
Rogers Communications Inc. said Thursday that Gord Cutler will become senior vice-president of NHL production, starting next week. Rogers said Cutler will oversee all on-air production aspects of Sportsnet’s National Hockey...
BCE Inc.’s Bell Media division said Wednesday that new regional production development offices will soon open in Vancouver and Winnipeg. The company said the Vancouver office will open Feb. 17...
The CRTC said in a notice that it has approved three non-Canadian TV channels for distribution, all of which are aimed at viewers younger than 30 and are based largely on online content from platforms such as YouTube and Vimeo. The names of the three channels are Gone Viral Blog, Gone Viral Music and Gone Viral Vogue. They...
Rogers Communications Inc. reported lower fourth-quarter profits on Wednesday, and attributed some of the decline to costs associated with broadcasting more hockey games. The company reported net income, adjusted for...
Regulatory oversight over CBC/Radio-Canada should be loosened, former CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein told the Senate standing committee on transport and communications on Tuesday. The CRTC should...
Cogeco Cable Inc. and Channel Zero Inc.’s CHCH TV said Tuesday they made Canadian television history last week by being the first in the country to offer localized advertising. The companies said advertisers will be able to...
CBC/Radio-Canada said Thursday it reached licensing agreements for coverage of the Sochi 2014 Olympic Games with Quebecor Inc. subsidiary Videotron Ltd., Telus Corp., Google Inc. and the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance. This...
Leclerc Communication Inc., owner of two radio stations in the Quebec City market, has filed a complaint with the CRTC regarding CBC/Radio-Canada’s refusal to air television ads promoting Leclerc’s radio stations. In a letter written to the CRTC in December and posted on the commission’s website Tuesday, Leclerc said that it tried to buy advertising on Radio-Canada’s television service but was refused. In the complaint, Leclerc, owner of CFEL-FM and CJEC-FM in Quebec City, said that the CRTC’s broadcast distribution regulations stipulate that a company cannot...
BCE Inc. CEO George Cope called the company’s wireline data revenue growth the “highlight” of its fourth-quarter results, released Thursday. “From my perspective, the...
The CRTC said Tuesday that CJON-DT, a television station in St. John’s, N.L., operating under the brand NTV, has been approved to receive support from the Small Market Local Production Fund...
Pelmorex Media Inc. said Wednesday it is expanding its Weather Network brand into the United Kingdom. The Oakville, Ont.-based company said in a release that establishing the Weather Network U.K. marks the second phase of its...
Rogers Communications Inc. said it will be keeping the Hockey Night in Canada brand alive on Saturday nights, and using 13 different channels to broadcast up to seven different games on those evenings. This was among the plans of...
While mobile devices have allowed Canadians to stay connected to the Internet when they’re on the go, the coming emergence of Internet-connected vehicles will soon allow their cars to do the same. This means cars, trucks, vans and SUVs could, in the near future, be letting their drivers know when they need to be taken to a mechanic, while also providing the driver access to dashboard apps like music streaming and online maps, and allowing passengers to catch up on TV shows they missed. It’s technology that appeals to not only consumers who don’t want to be cut off from the...
A non-commercial CBC/Radio-Canada should be considered, Ian Morrison, spokesman for watchdog group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, told the Senate standing committee on transport and communications Tuesday. According to...
This year’s Super Bowl attracted an average audience of eight million people in Canada, making it the second-most watched Super Bowl ever in the country, BCE Inc. said Monday. The company said in a release, citing data from...
BCE Inc.’s TSN said Monday it has secured the Canadian rights for national coverage of Major League Baseball games for Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights in a deal that will last until 2021. The specialty sports broadcaster...
The CRTC on Monday said it has approved the sale of a Saint John, N.B., radio station that will result in its format changing to Christian music. The commission said in a decision that it approved...
The CRTC has written letters in recent weeks to four television distribution companies, urging them not to blame the commission for simultaneous substitution and telling them it’s the...
The CBC/Radio-Canada report tabled by Heritage Minister Shelly Glover in the House of Commons on Monday, which sets out CBC’s plans to deal with reductions to its budget, is...
The CRTC is combining three complaints about wireless providers’ mobile-TV services and will consider all three complaints under a single proceeding, the commission said. In a complaint filed in November, University of...
The CRTC said Friday it has approved a Greek-language television channel for distribution in Canada. It said in a notice posted online that Star International, which will source its programming from Greece, has been approved to...
The federal government has finalized its long-awaited digital economy strategy and could release the policy as early as next month, sources familiar with the government’s plans said. Three people contacted by The Wire Report this month confirmed a formal digital economy plan has been finalized after more than four years of preparation. They said the plan is ready for release, most likely by this spring, if not sooner. Though the sources could not confirm the contents of the finalized strategy, they said it would likely tie together a number of digital issues the government has focused on in recent years — such as copyright reform, intellectual property reform and increased...
