AFTER A DOZEN OR SO years of lobbying the Liberal Party power establishment, the Canadian cable, radio, television and telecom industries will have to start over beginning today.
No matter how long this new Conservative minority government lasts (we sorely hope it’s longer than Joe Clark’s eight months in 1979), those at the Canadian Association of Broadcasters and the Canadian Cable Telecommunications Association, as well as Canada’s large telcos, have brand new friends to make – and influence.
Issues like foreign ownership of telecom and cable companies, or even broadcasters, might get a more friendly hearing under the Conservatives…
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TORONTO – The Canadian Media Guild said Monday it’s worried that culture, and the CBC specifically, is so low on the priority lists of the federal parties.
Only the Conservative and Green parties mention the CBC in their platforms, despite the fact that the public broadcaster faces a license renewal before the end of 2006.
“But there are more questions about the vague position of the front-running Conservatives than answers,” says the Guild release, ominously.
"I recognize that this election campaign has been fought on a handful of core issues. But it is troubling that the future of Canada’s…
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IT IS NOW AS IT WAS in the beginning: If you’re involved in producing programming or commercials in the high definition format, you’re most likely still trying to make video look like film.
But today, almost exactly 16 years after Toronto’s Queen Elizabeth Theatre was on the receiving end of the first major, mainstream HD broadcast seen in Canada – a fight transmitted from Las Vegas pitting Sugar Ray Leonard against Roberto Duran – the momentum in the battle for TV screens here is beginning to favour video.
Producers are becoming accustomed to the idea of originating content on…
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TORONTO – To help mark Human Rights Week, CTV’s Hunt For Justice: The Louise Arbour Story will be screened at the United Nations in New York on Monday. CTV and Galafilm Inc. announced today that Ambassador Allan Rock, Canada’s United Nations representative, Wayne Clarkson, executive director of Telefilm Canada; Hunt for Justice star Wendy Crewson (right) and Louise Arbour, the High Commissioner of Human Rights at the United Nations, will attend the event.
This will be the second pre-broadcast screening for the CTV movie. In October, Bell Globemedia and CTV CEO Ivan Fecan, together with Minister…
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OTTAWA – Charles Boyer, vice-president, external and governmental relations at the Canadian Association of Broadcasters left the association this month.
He will be joining Videotron help lead the company’s regulatory team in Ottawa, cartt.ca has learned.
Prior to his role at the CAB, which he joined in 2003, Boyer was executive assistant to former Canadian Heritage Minister Sheila Copps.
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OTTAWA – After hearing from CBC executives on October 27th, the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage has told Parliament it should appoint a task force to examine the nation’s public broadcaster.
The five-paragraph report from committee chair, MP Marlene Catterall says, “the government should undertake to establish an independent task force to review the mandate role and services of the CBC-SRC; to establish the role the public broadcaster must have and the services it must provide in light of the new media environment and technological advances.
And, the review should “be commenced immediately so the task force report can…
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OTTAWA – ‘Canadians are looking for truth in politics – no spin, no agenda. CPAC viewers get the unvarnished truth, the whole story. Our viewers watch, listen and decide for themselves what the real truth is,’ said Colette Watson, president and general manager of CPAC, in launching the channel’s 14th season today.
A vibrant on-air look and a pledge to renew Canadians’ interest in politics highlight the cable company-owned channel’s new season.
Political scandals, seemingly endless speculation on election timing, a minority government, and partisan bickering have eroded Canadians’ interest in the political process, says the CPAC release. "Political apathy…
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OTTAWA – The Government of Canada Wednesday dismissed complaints filed with the Governor in Council over two CRTC decisions awarding Vancouver radio station licenses.
On July 21, 2005, the CRTC awarded a radio license to South Asian Broadcasting Corporation Inc. to operate a new commercial specialty FM (ethnic) radio station at Vancouver at 93.1 MHz aimed at the South Asian community.
The same day, it also approved an AM radio application by I.T. Productions Ltd. for a new station at 1200 kHz also targeting Vancouver’s South Asian communities.
“The decisions… were found to be consistent with the policy objectives…
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TORONTO – Almost half of Canadian households (49%) are now connected to the Internet via high-speed broadband – and young surfers are using those fat connections to access more and more video, according to new research being released today by Toronto-based Solutions Research Group.
The U.S., it found, lags significantly behind – where only 34% of U.S. households have a high-speed Internet connection. These are among the key findings of two reports of among more than 2,800 randomly-selected Canadians and Americans in May-June 2005.
“Broadband penetration is a significant marker for the delivery of on-demand video content and entertainment…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC Wednesday extended the commentary process on the cable industry’s request to kill the mandatory carriage requirement of local FM radio stations.
As first reported by www.cartt.ca, the Canadian Cable Telecommunications Association has asked the CRTC to repeal section 22 of the Broadcast Distribution Regulations which say that Class 1 and 2 cable systems must carry all local FM stations in their market on their cable plant.
The CCTA told the Commission that about 4% of cable subscribers listen to the radio over cable and that its members could better use the plant capacity to…
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