TORONTO – CTV, Canwest Global and CBC officially announced late Sunday they have joined together to launch a national campaign, dubbed “Local TV Matters”, aimed at striking back at Canadian BDUs and putting pressure on politicians and the CRTC in advance of the November Commission hearings which will again analyze the challenges facing Canadian broadcasters, including the contentious fee-for-carriage issue.
“Our viewers are telling us that local television is very important to them and to this country,” said Paul Sparkes, CTV’s executive vice-president of corporate affairs, in the group’s official press release. “Canada’s broadcasters are responding to our viewers’ concerns…
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EVERY YEAR AT THIS TIME, both because it’s fun and because we want the weekend off… we re-publish the top 25 stories from the last 12 months.
The other reason why we do it now and not in January is that September, just after Labour Day, is the “new year” for broadcasters. The new fall shows are coming out and speaking from a regulatory perspective, too, the 2009 broadcast year ended August 31st and we are into a new year.
After spending hours pouring over our analytics to identify the top stories, I can say it has been a very busy…
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OTTAWA – If the transition to digital television is going to work here, Canadian consumers are going to need digital set top boxes – and help paying for them – says prospective satellite company FreeHD Canada.
In its early submission to the CRTC on Broadcasting Notices of Consultation 2009-411 and 411-3, the company (which just asked the CRTC for BDU and SRDU licenses last month, as first reported by Cartt.ca) notes the substantial issues facing the Canadian broadcast industry with less than two years until analog TV is set to be switched off forever.
BNC 2009-411 and 411-3 are of…
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TORONTO – Consultations around the Canada Media Fund (CMF) will be ongoing forever, and any issues not captured in its inaugural guidelines could be incorporated later, Canadian Television Fund (CTF) president and CEO Valerie Creighton noted during a virtual townhall held Thursday.
The guidelines must be finalized and approved by the CMF board by April 1, the date the new fund is set to replace the CTF. The $300-million-plus CMF will have two streams – convergence (TV component with a tie-in to at least one other platform) and experimental (no TV connection needed).
Given the deadline to produce the guidelines, there…
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VANCOUVER and TORONTO – The federal government will conduct eight weeks of nationwide consultations to solicit Canadians’ opinions on the issue of copyright.
In order to be as inclusive and transparent as possible, the discussions will include many ways for Canadians to voice their opinions, from an on-line forum, a web-based submission centre where participants can upload their own position papers so that other people can view their work, to ‘round table’ discussions for stakeholders, and town hall meetings.
"Canadians are concerned with copyright and its implications in our increasingly digital environment,” said Industry Minister Tony Clement in Monday’s announcement. “Our goal is…
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TORONTO, MONTREAL and OTTAWA – Three of Canada’s largest BDUs were quick to express their mutual disappointment with Monday’s CRTC decision, and hinted that it will be the consumer who will be hit the hardest.
Rogers said that the introduction of the “major new consumer TV taxes” should have Canadian consumers “very worried”, and vice-chair Phil Lind predicted that the new fees could cost its customers an additional $50 – $100 per year depending on their cable package.
“Today’s CRTC announcement says that, not withstanding earlier rulings by the CRTC and notwithstanding the lack of support by the Canadian…
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GATINEAU – As Cartt.ca reported last week, the CRTC has a big day coming up on Monday. Not only is the network management hearing beginning that day, the Regulator is also launching a new proceeding seeking structural reform of the TV sector while releasing new rules (and potentially a new amount) for its yet-to-be-launched Local Programming Improvement Fund.
The CRTC’s Ontario commissioner Rita Cugini addressed the two broadcasting items in a speech to the Radio Television News Directors Association on Saturday, noting that structural reform for the TV biz seems to be a necessity.
“The Broadcasting Act specifies that…
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TORONTO – CTV issued a terse press release this afternoon to announce that Shaw Communications will not purchase the broadcaster’s stations in Brandon, Man., Wingham and Windsor, Ont. after all.
In a newspaper ad on April 30, Shaw offered to buy the three stations from CTV after hearing the broadcaster tell the CRTC and the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage that they couldn’t find anyone to buy the, not even for a buck.
Shaw called CTV on it, saying it would take the stations off their hands for a loonie each. CTV then called what has now proved to…
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IT MAY NOT BE UNTIL 2010 when the CRTC holds licence renewal proceedings for the big Canadian TV companies, but the new chief executive of Canada’s national producers association has been working hard on that file for weeks already.
“We believe that the corporate group licence renewal hearings that are coming up in 2010 are probably the most important regulatory event of our generation and will have wide-ranging impact for the next 25 or 30 years,” said Norm Bolen, president and CEO of the Canadian Film and Television Production Association (CFTPA), in a recent interview with Cartt.ca. “It’s very…
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OTTAWA – After dominating the three months worth of hearings earlier this Spring, the House of Commons committee on Canadian Heritage left out any recommendation on the controversial issue of fee for carriage in its report on the state of local television released Friday.
The committee heard testimony from 45 different groups in March, April and May about the issues and challenges facing Canada’s TV industry, from the importance of local television, to the fragmentation of TV audiences, through to declining advertising revenues.
Made up of MPs from all of the federal parties, the standing committee’s report made 18…
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