Claiming an industry first in Canada, Rogers Communications has rolled out a barker channel, Sportsnews, for free to its digital customers.
Sportsnews provides updated scores, fantasy information and statistics that are drawn from various data feeds, according to a Rogers spokeswoman. The channel also features up-to-date Twitter feeds from various Sportsnews personalities.
“Sportsnews is the first cable service of its kind in Canada. It’s where customers can learn about our sports programming, as well as what’s happening in the world of sports – 24/7 and right at their fingertips,” said Anthony Antonelli, senior director of sports and on-demand services at Rogers Communications. “Whether you’re at a sports bar with friends, the gym or at home in front of your big-screen TV, Sportsnews will keep you up-to-date with the day’s key match-ups, headlines, scores, stats and breaking news through a real-time Twitter feed.”
Rogers is able to offer more of its own sports content through its purchase of the controlling stake in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment late last year.
Last week at CES, Cisco announced that Rogers was one of its customer wins for its Videoscape platform.
Last month, Rogers launched a beta version of its live streaming service for iPads, and it plans on offering it across Android devices later this year. At the time, Rogers’ David Purdy, vice president of video products, hinted that Rogers was hard at work pushing video services across the company’s quad play of services, and Videoscape could play a role enabling the cloud-based services along with ActiveVideo.