Media Beat: February 12, 2018

By David Farrell

The CRTC has requested that Netflix, Facebook, Spotify, Apple, Amazon and Google provide a trove of data that would reveal how Canadians consume audio and video content on the internet.  Included in the call are advertising and subscription revenue numbers, free and paid subscriber volumes, Canadian content expenditures and total viewing and listening hours for the past two years.

The regulator says the data will help it prepare a report for the federal government, which ordered it to report back on future models of audio and video distribution in Canada, and how these models will support Canadian content. – Financial Post

– CBC/Radio-Canada and Twitter Canada live streamed the 2018 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony on the social network. This was the first-ever live stream of select Olympic Games on the social network. The company adds that the Closing Ceremony and five additional streamed events are TBA. According to the social platform promoting 280 characters, the most mentioned and anticipated Olympic sports on Twitter this winter, in descending order, are figure skating, ice hockey, speed skating, bobsledding, and curling.

– Bell Media attracted an average audience of about 4.45M viewers for the Superbowl game, down from 7.32M viewers in 2016. While the number was stable as compared with the 4.47M viewers in 2017, it was down 40 percent from 7.32M viewers in 2016 — the last broadcast before the federal regulator changed the rules to allow US ads to air in Canada – Financial Post

– BCE Inc. won big in a five-day promotional standoff between Canada’s largest wireless carriers in the fourth quarter, reporting its best wireless performance in 15 years thanks to high consumer demand for unprecedented data deals.

Bell added 175,204 wireless subscribers on contract in the three months ended Dec. 31, up 56 percent from the same period in 2016, the company said Thursday. Telus Corp. said it added 121,000 wireless customers in the same period, up 39 percent for its most robust results in five years. Rogers Communications Inc. added only 72,000 customers. – Financial Post

– Shaw Communications is trying to reassure employees about the future of the company – and the possibility of mass layoffs – after receiving a stronger-than-expected response to the voluntary buyout package it unveiled last week, BNN reports.

At the time, Shaw said it expected about 10 percent of workers to accept the offer. However, the response has already surpassed that estimate, and Shaw has been asking some employees to reconsider their decision.

– Vice Media missed its 2017 revenue target of $805 million by more than $100 million, primarily due to the struggles of the company's cable TV channel, Viceland, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. Known for its youth-focused digital content and news, has been valued at $5.7B, about twice as much as The New York Times. 

Viceland drew a prime-time average of just 55,000 viewers among adults 18 to 49 in 2017, according to Nielsen. This figure is up 28% from 2016, the year that the channel launched, but it's still well behind established cable channels in entertainment-focused TV – Business Insider