TORONTO – Recognizing that the digital transformation is changing fundamentally how audiences consume and interact with audiovisual media, the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) announced a new five-year Strategic Plan at the Hot Docs festival on Monday night.
“In a digital era, the need for the NFB as Canada’s public producer and distributor is more essential than ever to undertake the kinds of risks that an audiovisual industry in constant state of change and turmoil cannot afford to take,” the NFB states in its Strategic Plan (2008-2013).
The NFB said key aspects of its mandate include supporting creators,…
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CALGARY and OTTAWA – Shaw Communications CEO Jim Shaw told Prime Minister Stephen Harper in a letter yesterday that the CRTC is bent on derailing the conservative government’s goals.
The five-page letter date April 16th, which was also sent to Industry Minister Jim Prentice, Heritage Minister Josee Verner and CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein, first outlines Shaw’s broad support for the government’s deregulation thrust on the telecom front and then decries the actions, or lack of action, Mr. Shaw feels is happening on the broadcasting and cable file.
“(W)e were the only broadcast distributor to support your Government’s move…
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OTTAWA – Canadian Heritage has announced that Yvon Belanger is joining the board of Telefilm Canada as a part-time member.
During his career, he worked for major accounting firms, including more than 25 years at the firm of Mallette. As certification partner, Belanger had very broad responsibilities that allowed him to gain substantial experience in the issues of standardization and presentation of financial statements. He is a member of the Ordre des comptables agrees du Quebec as well as the Chambre de commerce du Quebec. Now retired, Belanger is a chartered accountant.
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OTTAWA – Canada’s independent producers on Thursday called on a Senate committee to amend Bill C-10 so that the Criminal Code becomes the standard for determining what’s “contrary to public policy.”
Currently, the bill includes provisions that would allow the Canadian Heritage minister to develop guidelines for determining which productions would not be eligible for tax credits because they were "contrary to public policy.”
Representatives of the Canadian Film and Television Production Association (CFTPA) and the Association des producteurs de films et de télévision du Québec (APFTQ) told the senators that employing the Criminal Code will “ensure the continuation…
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IT’S FUN TO PROGNOSTICATE. To try and read the tea leaves and make educated (or not) guesses about certain things. Sports (pro and amateur) is utterly built around such predicting, thanks to the billions of dollars bet on the games every year.
Similarly enormous amounts of money and the fate of our industry are collectively at stake beginning this week when the cable, satellite, telco and specialty broadcasting community take their turn in front of a panel of CRTC commissioners who will largely determine how the broadcast distribution undertaking and specialty services industries will be run for perhaps the…
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OTTAWA – The creative community will be expressing their concerns about Bill C-10 to the Senate Standing Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce on April 10. Controversial Bill C-10 that includes provisions allowing the Canadian Heritage minister to deny tax credits to film and TV productions if they are deemed “contrary to public policy” amounts to censorship, claim most in the creative community.
Due to appear before the Senate standing committee are the Association des producteurs de films et de television du Quebec, the Canadian Film and Television Production Association, FilmOntario, the Writers Guild of Canada, the Alliance of…
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TORONTO – Seven broadcast journalists will be honoured this spring with lifetime achievement awards presented by RTNDA Canada – The Association of Electronic Journalists.
The seven are Doug Collins, Vicki Gabereau, Vern Coop, Mike McCourt, Tom Young, Dan McLean, and Gord Harris.
The awards will be presented at the RTNDA Regional Pro Dev Seminars in Kamloops on April 26th, in Calgary on May 10th, Fredericton on May 31st, and at the Central Awards Banquet June 19th during the RTNDA National Conference in Ottawa.
“On behalf of RTNDA Canada, let me congratulate these exceptional broadcasters,” said Bob McLaughlin, President of…
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OTTAWA – Saying that “community radio stations will continue contributing to the visibility and vitality of Canada’s minority official-language communities,” the federal government today announced a number of grants totaling $539,471 for a number of French language community radio projects.
Pierre Lemieux, Parliamentary Secretary for Official Languages and Member of Parliament (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell), on behalf Josee Verner, Minister of Canadian Heritage, Status of Women and Official Languages, made the announcement today, the International Day of La Francophonie, in Ottawa.
The funding will, among other things, be used to establish and manage community radio stations
"The Government of Canada knows that…
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VANCOUVER – An amendment to the Federal Income Tax Act that affects the granting of tax credits for Canadian films and television shows is seen by many Canadians as a threat to artistic expression, a new Angus Reid Strategies poll has found.
In the online survey of a representative national sample, almost half (48%) of respondents think Bill C-10 – which would allow the Heritage Minister to grant tax credits only to productions that would “not be contrary to public policy” – should be rejected because it amounts to censorship and jeopardizes artistic freedom in Canada.
Conversely, 36% of…
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TORONTO – The Canadian Television Fund said on Monday that it will provide $275 million to Canadian television producers for the 2008-2009 fiscal year.
Through the Broadcaster Performance Envelope (BPE) system, the CTF will allocate $173 million to English-language broadcaster envelopes and $79 million to French-language broadcaster envelopes.
These funds will support English and French programming in the genres of Drama, Children’s and Youth, Variety & Performing Arts, and Documentaries. The 2008-2009 BPE allocations are listed on the CTF website, www.ctf-fct.ca.
Initiated in 2004, with English Drama being incorporated two years later, the Broadcaster Performance Envelope system “is a…
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