OTTAWA – John Fitzgerald Young has been named to the CBC/Radio-Canada board of directors.
"I am pleased that Mr. Young is joining the Board of Directors," said Heritage and Official Languages Minister James Moore, in the announcement. "His strong academic background and his involvement on the international front will certainly benefit the Board of the CBC/Radio-Canada."
Young is currently the dean of the college of arts, social and health sciences at the University of Northern British Columbia, and is senior fellow at the International Centre for Law and Religion Studies at Brigham Young University. As well, he is a published author…
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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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THE MORE WE TALK to people and the more we hear, the more it looks like the CRTC wants to try and let conventional local broadcasters charge a wholesale fee for their local OTA signals, paid for by the customers of their cable, satellite and telco TV carriers.
Now, the power brokers on Parliament Hill have made it clear they want no part of being blamed for rising consumer TV bills (because you can bet that any new mandated fee-for-carriage would be identified as a “TV tax” or something on customer bills by those carriers if such a…
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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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TORONTO – CTV and its ‘A’ stations thanked viewers who they say helped to make its ‘save local television’ campaign a “tremendous success”.
The initiative, which CTV describes as “designed to inform viewers of the critical issues facing their local television stations”, hosted over 30,000 Canadians at its 16 open houses held across the country on May 23. The network said that it also received over 50,000 on-line petition signatures, and that more than 25,000 letters were sent to James Moore, the Minister of Heritage, expressing support for fee for carriage.
But with all of the promotional weight that the network threw behind its…
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TORONTO – CTV has ratcheted up its PR campaign in support of fee-for-carriage with the debut of www.savelocal.ctv.ca
The web page says that the future of local broadcasting is “at stake” largely because of “the problem” of current regulations allowing cable and satellite companies to “take” CTV and ‘A’ channel programming without compensation “and then charge you, the consumer, for the programming they take for free.”
“Television service providers, including cable and satellite companies, are reaping huge profits at the direct expense of local Canadian TV stations that are going out of business”, the information says.
The solution? Fee-for-carriage,…
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OTTAWA and TORONTO – The CBC could cut even more jobs, now that federal government has it to participate in its strategic review program which asks government departments to identify up to 5% of spending that may be cut.
The CBC informed staff on Friday that the public broadcaster will have to take part in the program this year, and president Hubert Lacroix encouraged employees to “hang in there”.
“The objective of the strategic review is to evaluate all of our program and spending activities to identify the lowest priorities in terms of carrying out our mandate,” Lacroix said Friday in…
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OTTAWA – Parliament should ensure Canada’s broadcasting legislation “keeps step with the times”, including proper accountability and transparency, even if it means restructuring the CRTC, said Canada’s largest media union.
The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP) told the Heritage Committee on Monday that Canada’s big broadcasting corporations were “supposed to strengthen local stations not close them down”, and the CRTC must share the blame for allowing that to happen.
"Parliament needs to reshape the CRTC, review the Broadcasting Act, and consider whether Canada needs converged communications legislation geared to the 21st century to address consolidated media ownership, telecommunications and…
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WINNIPEG and TORONTO – Canwest Global Communications said this morning that its subsidiary, Canwest Media Inc. and its senior lenders have agreed to extend the waiver of certain borrowing conditions until May 5, 2009.
The members of an ad hoc committee of 8% noteholders, which collectively hold approximately 70% of the outstanding notes, have also agreed not to demand payment of their notes for a period ending May 5, 2009 to coincide with the expiry date of CMI’s waiver agreement with its senior lenders.
This is the latest in a series of extensions as the giant media company struggles…
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