Prime Time 2020: Lennox, Tait, clash over streaming-era financing strategies

By Etan Vlessing OTTAWA – As Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and other U.S. streamers compete in Canada alongside local digital rivals Crave and CBC Gem, Bell Media president Randy Lennox and CBC president and CEO Catherine Tait on Thursday offered competing visions on how best to potentially structure TV deals with American streamers promising bigger budgets and global reach, while still protecting and fully exploiting their Canadian-nurtured IP. During a Prime Time panel entitled “Canadian Broadcasting Beyond 2020,” Lennox and Tait talked of grappling with production financing tools and strategies dramatically morphing in the streaming era as American digital...