TVO Media Education Group (TVO) announced Monday the appointment of Ron Ahluwalia as the Ontario public broadcaster’s vice president of strategy, effective Aug. 24.
Reporting to TVO CEO Pary Bell and serving as a member of TVO’s executive leadership team, Ahluwalia will be tasked with helping to shape TVO’s organizational strategy, planning and governance “in support of its mandate to inspire learning that changes lives and enriches communities,” said a TVO press release announcing his appointment.
Ahluwalia will work closely with the CEO, board and executive leadership team to help “translate TVO’s public mandate and leadership priorities into…
Continue Reading
Heritage commitee recommended collecting data to address media deserts
By Ahmad Hathout
As the news industry faces an uncertain future, a team of researchers is working to map all news outlets in the country in part to help guide public funds where they are needed most, assist in combating mis- and disinformation, and make reliable news outlets more discoverable.
The government-funded project will utilize advancements in artificial intelligence to help plot Canadian news outlets across the country, which will then go through human verification at the local level, including by library workers in those communities. The result will be a website with…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
A letter to the Federal Court of Appeal this month signaling the federal government’s intention to eliminate the CRTC’s base contribution requirement on streamers is not causing panic among some creatives, who say they want to see the government’s new policy direction before drawing conclusions.
The attorney general informed the court on July 17 of the federal government’s “intention is to eliminate the base contribution requirement on streaming services and to provide government funding to replace those contributions.” The five-per-cent financial obligation levied on streamers in 2024 was expected to draw some $200 million into…
Continue Reading
Brad Danks | CEO, OUTtv Media Global
Part 8 – CARTT Series: Beyond the Walled Garden
Read – Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9
The previous article in this series showed what should change in how Canada funds media. This article names the authority that can actually make that change — and where the conversation must happen.
The previous article in this series set out five commitments a redesigned Canada Media Fund would require: shifting allocation from inputs to outcomes, funding distribution…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
Before asking the CRTC to revisit a decision that ordered foreign streamers to increase their contribution to Canadian content, Culture Minister Marc Miller received a memorandum outlining scenarios after the Federal Court of Appeal rules on those streamers’ challenge to the initial base contribution decision from 2024.
The heavily redacted February memorandum, uploaded by Cartt here, summarizes what’s going on with the CRTC’s implementation of the Online Streaming Act, which forces the arms-length tribunal to directly regulate the online streamers.
But the memorandum focuses on what happens following the yet-to-be-released Federal Court of Appeal decision that…
Continue Reading
Between 2019-20 and 2023-24, English-language minority film and television production in Canada fell by nearly 40 per cent, according to a report released Tuesday by the Quebec English-language Production Council (QEPC).
The QEPC commissioned Nordicity to undertake the research for the report, which was produced with the participation of the Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA), Telefilm Canada, the Department of Canadian Heritage, the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and ACTRA Montreal.
The Canadian Official Language Minority Audio-Visual Production Report 1996-97 to 2023-24 is a 28-year quantitative study that examines data on official language minority community (OLMC) Canadian content production,…
Continue Reading
By Ahmad Hathout
A paper published in the Canadian Bar Review last spring that called federal jurisdiction over online streamers “suspect” was studied by Canadian Heritage, according to heavily redacted briefing material obtained by Cartt, and the author believes the Online Streaming Act is “inevitably going to be challenged” on that basis.
Michael Ryan, a lawyer specializing in Canadian telecommunications and broadcasting law and regulation, told Cartt in an interview that he was “expecting, frankly, somebody to come forward and challenge this law before now they inevitably will.
“It’ll be an American streaming company or somebody else who feels that they’d…
Continue Reading
By Doug Barrett, adjunct professor in the Arts, Media & Entertainment MBA Program at the Schulich School of Business
On June 3, Culture Minister Marc Miller scored an own goal on Canadian cultural sovereignty by announcing that the government will develop new policy directions to the CRTC to “adjust” the implementation of the Online Streaming Act, presumably by scrapping the requirement that foreign online undertakings make financial contributions to the production of Canadian programming.
This move — just 21 days after the CRTC decided to increase their financial obligation to the system — constituted a…
Continue Reading
Ana Serrano has been reappointed as a member of the National Film Board of Canada (NFB)’s board of trustees for a three-year term.
Serrano was first appointed to the NFB board in January 2023.
Currently serving as president and vice chancellor of OCAD University in Toronto, Serrano was previously chief digital officer of the Canadian Film Centre (CFC), where she also served as managing director and founded the CFC Media Lab.
She brings more than 20 years of leadership experience in building award-winning digital experiences, securing large public and private sector investments, creating…
Continue Reading
By Howard Law, author of MediaPolicy.ca and Canada vs. California: How Ottawa took on Netflix and the streaming giants (Lorimer, 2024)
This week’s announcement by Culture Minister Marc Miller that the federal government is striking down the CRTC’s ruling on streamer contributions to Canadian content is perhaps more shocking in its timing than its substance.
After all, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government has an appetite for jettisoning government policy that he considers unwanted baggage. Recall the climb down from the Digital Services Tax, the carbon tax, and the suite of Trudeau-era environmental policies.
Miller will be sending…
Continue Reading
