By Christopher Guly
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed his displeasure Friday with actions by Google to take its opposition to bill C-18, the Online News Act, to users of its search engine.
This week, The Canadian Press broke the story that Google would limit access to news content – including from Canadian broadcasters and newspapers – for under four percent of its Canadian users over about a five-week period.
“It really surprises me that Google has decided that would rather prevent Canadians from accessing news than actually paying journalists for the work they do,” Trudeau said…
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MARKHAM, Ont. – Effective immediately, Allison Lenehan is no longer the president and CEO of Xplore, according to a press release Thursday.
That title in the interim now belongs to Francis Shammo, chairman of the Xplore board of directors and former chief financial officer of Verizon.
Lenehan will now be a senior advisor on the board, “where he will focus on strategic initiatives,” the release said. Lenehan has spent 10 years as the company’s head, with a total of nearly 30 years with the company.
“The Board has commenced a search for a permanent successor and, recognizing the company’s strong Canadian heritage…
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OTTAWA – Canadian Heritage has released Friday the job posting for the Quebec representative on the CRTC.
The job ad says the department will review applications starting March 20 for the position that was recently vacated by Alicia Barin, who became the full-time vice-chair of broadcasting in December.
With the Barin announcement came the appointment of commission head Vicky Eatrides and vice-chair of telecommunications, Adam Scott. Then, late last month, Heritage appointed Bram Abramson for commissioner of Ontario.
The Quebec commissioner position is the final piece to complete the nine-person commission, which received a new policy direction from Innovation…
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OTTAWA — The Canada Media Fund is later this month launching its national survey to get perspectives from the audiovisual sector on how the current definition of Canadian content should evolve in light of bill C-11, the legislation that will empower the CRTC to force foreign streamers to contribute to domestic content.
The 10-minute survey, which will be open on February 27, was designed in collaboration with firms La Societe des demains and Humain Humain and was “informed by input from the CMF’s annual industry consultations and preliminary in-depth interviews with dozens of individuals from diverse backgrounds and perspectives,” the…
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Government “disagreed” with incumbent arguments about direction usefulness and legality
By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Innovation Canada has kept its proposed policy direction to the CRTC largely intact, as the final version released Monday shores up language to reinforce the government’s perspective on the importance of competition and affordability in the wireline and wireless sectors of the telecommunications industry, while maintaining that the direction will encourage innovation and network investments.
The department clarified language in the final version that made clearer the importance in CRTC decisions of network reliability, fair roaming rates, and “just and reasonable” rates at which smaller internet service…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Canadian Heritage and Innovation Canada are emphasizing the speed at which the CRTC makes decisions in a mandate letter to new head of the regulator, Vicky Eatrides.
“There is a perception that the CRTC is taking too long to make decisions,” the Monday letter said. “CRTC regulatory decisions are essential to creating a stable, competitive, and innovative business environment.
“Undue delays create uncertainty and potentially impact investment decisions and service offerings for Canadians,” the letter added. “As the pace of technological change continues unabated, timely decision making will only be more critical in responding to the needs…
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OTTAWA – Canadian Heritage announced late last month the appointment of two members to the National Film Board.
Ana Serrano of Toronto and Victoria Wing Chi Chan of Merritt, British Columbia, have been appointed for a term of three years, the latter on a part-time basis.
Serrano is the president and vice chancellor of OCAD University, an art and design, practice and research institution. She is also a managing director at the Canadian Film Centre. A Cartt search of Chan did not yield much information.
The board was created in 1939 as an agency of Heritage to create, produce and distribute audiovisual…
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By Christopher Guly
OTTAWA – As bill C-11 faces a final vote in the House of Commons this week, “it’s unclear as to how it will work in practice” and whether streaming giants will be able to “simply repurpose” already made Canadian programming to qualify as Canadian content and how they would pay their fair share toward broadcasting distribution undertakings (BDUs) that require private broadcasters to make a contribution of at least 5% of their broadcast revenues to CanCon and production, according to CBC/Radio-Canada president and CEO Catherine Tait.
The Senate’s passing of the Online Streaming Act last week was…
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By Christopher Guly
OTTAWA – As bill C-11 sat on the doorstep of passing third and final reading in the Senate, Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez – who introduced the Online Streaming Act a year ago to the day on Feb. 2, 2022 – told a packed audience at the Canadian Media Producers Association’s annual Prime Time conference in Ottawa on Thursday that he expected the bill could return with amendments to the House of Commons, where it passed last June and which could become law by next week.
Should that happen, Rodriguez said it…
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By Connie Thiessen
English-language film and television production remains at an all-time low in Quebec, according to a new report published by the Quebec English Language Production Council (QEPC).
The Canadian Audiovisual Regional Production Report 1996-97 to 2019-20 shows that English-language Canadian content production in Quebec was equal to $166 million in 2019-20, an all-time low of just 7% of the $2.3 billion in total English-language Canadian content production. That number was consistent in three of five years prior to 2019-20, down from a record high of 26% in 1997-98.
Co-authored by Nordicity, the report offers a glimpse into how film and television production in Canada’s official languages…
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