GATINEAU – After 27 years at the CRTC in various roles, secretary-general John Traversy has decided he will retire as of December 11, 2015.
He has held the position since former SG Robert Morin retired in 2011. Prior to that he was executive director, telecom for five years. The secretary general is the top operations job at the Commission, overseeing all of the administration. Every complaint, submission and other filing which telecom and broadcasting companies make to the Regulator have Traversy’s name at the top.
“Over the years, I had the opportunity to work on countless files in both the Broadcasting…
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OTTAWA – The ongoing rift between CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais and Ontario regional commissioner Raj Shoan appears to have deepened, after Blais allegedly refused to approve Shoan's proposed travel for 2015-16.
According to a Canadian Press report this week, Blais nixed Shoan’s potential trips to Las Vegas, Amsterdam, New York City and Mont Tremblant, travel that totaled $78,000. Shoan later reduced the amount to $48,000 "under protest," describing it instead as a wish list of conferences and meetings from which he invited Blais to pick and choose which ones to approve.
"Given that you have refused to provide me with…
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OTTAWA – Rogers Media resolutely defended its decision to cut all news programming from its ethnic OMNI stations and replace it with current affairs shows before a Parliamentary committee on Wednesday.
Speaking before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, Rogers Media president Keith Pelley (pictured on CPAC.ca, which streamed the meeting) said the company really had no choice but to make changes to its programming. With viewer consumption patterns moving to digital platforms, the ongoing piracy problem, the significant drop in advertising revenue, as well as a plethora of ethnic specialty channels launched in recent…
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LA RONGE, SK – The Missinipi Broadcasting Corporation will receive $380,815 in funding from the federal government this year to support the production and broadcast of up to 168 hours of radio programming per week, including 20 hours per week of new original content in in Aboriginal languages.
Rob Clarke, Member of Parliament for Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River, made the announcement this week on behalf of Shelly Glover, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages.
The programming will be offered in English, Cree and Dene and include current events, local and national news, weather forecasts, sports community announcements, interviews and music. The broadcasts…
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PINEHOUSE, SK – Radio broadcaster Minahik Achimowin Inc. will receive $167,592 in funding from the federal government this year to support the production of up to 45 hours of radio programming per week, including 30 hours per week of new original content in the Michif-Cree language.
Rob Clarke, Member of Parliament for Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River, made the announcement Tuesday on behalf of Shelly Glover, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages.
The programming will include daily news, weather, sports, health messages, storytelling, and interviews about community issues. The content will air on CFNK Radio 89.9 FM, which reaches an audience of approximately 1,400…
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IQUALIT, NU – The Inuit Broadcasting Corporation will receive $1.3 million in funding from the federal government to support the production of 40 hours of original new television programming to be filmed and aired in Inuktitut.
Leona Aglukkaq, Minister of the Environment, Minister of the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency and Minister for the Arctic Council, made the announcement Friday on behalf of Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, Shelly Glover.
Aimed at Inuit living in Nunavut, the IBC will produce five series, including children’s program called Takuginai, a cooking show known as Niqitsiat; a comedy series called Qanurli; a documentary series…
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OTTAWA – CRTC commissioner Raj Shoan this week filed a Federal Court Application seeking a judicial review of CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais over an internal investigation of allegations of harassment made against Shoan.
The investigation, done by an outside third party, found that Ontario regional commissioner Shoan did commit harassment and so chairman Blais imposed five corrective measures which placed limits on how Shoan can communicate with staff. According to the court application, Shoan wants the decision Blais made on the harassment complaints to be cancelled, or that it be remitted to the Governor-in-Council (which appoints CRTC commissioners)…
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OTTAWA – A group representing distributors of Canadian feature films believes Canada’s broadcast regulator should do more to help foster the growth of Canada’s movie industry.
The Canadian Association of Film Distributors and Exporters (CAFDE) and one of its members, Elevation Pictures, told a House of Commons committee Monday that there is a role for the CRTC to play to spur demand for Canadian feature films, possibly through a quota system imposed on broadcasters or by bringing so-called over-the-top (OTT) content providers under the regulator’s jurisdiction.
“One of the most difficult challenges we face is that these OTT services…
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WE COULD WALK through the various undertakings and final replies filed by the many contributors to the CRTC’s TV Policy Review, but we’ve done more than 40 stories on the whole proceeding. The issues are well known and have been dismantled and well-explained repeatedly here – but it’s the final brief filed by American broadcaster Viacom which has set tongues wagging.
(Ed note: Yes, the filings and oral presentations of both Netflix and Google have been stricken from the record as threatened since neither company responded to the October 2 compliance deadline set by the Commission)
In its final reply…
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OTTAWA – Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, Shelly Glover issued a warning late Monday evening to the CRTC in a statement responding to day one of the Commission's TV Policy Review hearing.
It's an unusual thing for a cabinet minister to publicly interfere with a CRTC hearing but she (well, the Prime Minister's Office really, we're told) made it very clear that the federal government is mostly concerned about pick and pay – and will not stand for TV regulations being applied to new media outlets. The statement (which was e-mailed to some reporters and still can't…
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