Kung hei fat choi! Rogers rings in the year of the rabbit

By: RogersMiranda

January 26th, 2011 a 2:15pm

Chinese New Year, also known as Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival is considered the most significant traditional Chinese holiday. In honour of this year’s celebration, we’re helping you stay connected with family and friends in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

This year’s 2011 celebration falls on February 3 so starting February 2 at 8:00 pm EST until February 3 at 8:00 pm EST, we’re offering our Rogers Home Phone customers in Ontario and Atlantic Canada free long distance calling to China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The calls will show up on your next bill, but there will be no cost associated with them.

And if you are a Rogers Digital TV customer looking to stay connected with news and entertainment from China, Rogers is also offering free Chinese channel previews until February 10. From January 20- February 3, you can watch Phoenix America (Ch. 807) and LS Times (Ch. 819) for free. And from January 27 – February 10, you can watch ET Global (Ch.806), WOWTV (Ch. 808) and WOWTV HD (Ch.577) (Ontario only).

Rogers is also offering 250 free text messages per month for six months to China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan when you activate or renew a three year term on any Quick Messaging Device (QMD) or Android smartphone.

For more information on these promotions, you can check out the details here.

Happy Chinese New Year!

To view this post in Chinese, click here.

Miranda MacDonald is a regular contributor to RedBoard

Rating: 3.9/5 (7 votes cast)

Categories:

Cable TV, Community, Home Phone, Wireless

Tags:

android, china, chinese, Chinese new year, Digital TV, ET Global, Home Phone, hong kong, LS Times, Phoenix America, preview, qmd, quick messaging device, rabbit, Rogers Digital TV, rogers home phone, taiwan, WOWTV, WOWTV HD

11 Comments

Minh says: January 26th, 2011 a 3:55pm

Not all asians are Chinese! The Lunar new year’s also celebrated by other asian countries…. Come on.
- RogersMiranda says: January 26th, 2011 a 5:13pm
  
  Hi Minh,
  
  Thanks for checking out the post. We’ve extended our promotions (ie: free calling) to other Asian countries in the past and our research indicates that the vast majority of customers who have participated have used them to contact friends and family in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
  
  We know there’s lots of Asian countries that celebrate Lunar New Year but we’re unable to extend the promotions to all of them. That being said, consideration will be given to other countries if these promotions are implemented in the future.
HB says: January 28th, 2011 a 9:48am

Yay, WOWTV is free again, not that I’d watch it anyways. Does anyone ever pay for this channel? It’s just hilariously bad.
- RogersMiranda says: January 28th, 2011 a 5:08pm
  
  Well, I suppose it’s not for everyone. :) But it does offer 24 hour programming in Cantonese, Mandarin and Vietnamese as well as news from Hong Kong and China so certain audiences would certainly find it appealing.
Alex says: February 1st, 2011 a 9:28pm

Neither of these stations provide Chinese Spring Festival Show！！ Where’s CCTV4? the reason we like Rogers’ free Chinese channels is only because of the spring festival show… come on…
Yiyue says: February 2nd, 2011 a 7:07am

please tell me where CCTV is?
- RogersMiranda says: February 2nd, 2011 a 10:50am
  
  @Alex @Yiyue
  
  We do offer both CCTV 4 and CCTV Entertainment in Ontario but they are not part of our free preview this year. We appreciate your feedback and interest in the channels though! If we offer free previews next year, consideration will be given to other channels.
  
  While the channels aren’t available in free preview, you can order them as part of the Great Wall Package. For more information just go to http://www.rogers.com -> TV -> Channels -> Multicultural
AMY says: February 2nd, 2011 a 7:39pm

Discrimination !!!!! This was offered to South-East Asian countries such as Malaysia and Singapore before. What happened?? Time to switch phone companies?? So peeved!
Cindy says: February 2nd, 2011 a 7:42pm

I agree with Minh. This isn’t right. You shouldnt only offer the long distance calling to a few countries when many others are celebrating this holiday as well. It’s discriminating against the others who celebrate the Lunear New Year too. Last year I used this to call my family back in Malaysia and now this year I don’t get to? You should include all countries who celebrate this or not have this offer at all.
M. says: February 2nd, 2011 a 11:48pm

Are you kidding me Rogers? So what if your research shows that most people only call China, Taiwan and Hong Kong during LUNAR New Year (notice how I don’t refer it to just Chinese New Year)? Does that mean other nationalities aren’t calling home? Why give the option to three countries, and exclude the others? Amy is right, this sounds a lot like discrimination to me.

I’m so glad my family and I switched phone companies when we got a chance. And before you go thinking that I’m not Chinese and that’s why I’m so annoyed – well you’re wrong I am in fact Chinese. I just a firm believer in equality.

All in all this is pretty ignorant, especially coming from such a large company like yourself.
- RogersMiranda says: February 3rd, 2011 a 9:14am
  
  @AMY @ Cindy @ M.
  
  Thanks for your feedback. We’re not able to extend the promotions to all countries participating in this celebration so we selected countries that, based on our research, had the highest participation in the past. While we can’t change this year’s promotions, what I can do is pass your feedback onto our team here and as I said to Minh, consideration will be given to other countries should we do the free calling promotion in the future.