VANCOUVER – The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) has inked two new deals in the People’s Republic of China which will see Canadian animation and documentaries titles available on CCTV-10, the science and education channel of China Central Television, as well as the Bilibili web portal.
The agreements include more than 70 NFB titles, including new and classic films alike, with the bulk of NFB works available online on Bilibili for a five-year period. The deal with CCTV-10 was arranged through the Hubu Media Group.
The two deals are the latest agreements between the NFB and China, and…
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OTTAWA – Heritage Minister Melanie Joly has embarked upon Canada’s first creative industries trade mission to China.
She is accompanied by a delegation of almost 60 Canadian companies and organizations representing several sectors of creative industries, after issuing an open invitation last October for those seeking to build partnerships and business-to-business relationships in China.
Canadian Heritage said that the objective of the trade mission, which is scheduled for April 8 – 13, is to facilitate new market entry, leverage existing networks and renew partnerships.
“Additionally, it will serve as a platform for participating organizations to explore new business opportunities, advance ongoing…
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Goldbloom named new chair; three new board members added
OTTAWA – Long time film, television and digital content maker Catherine Tait has been named president and CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada, Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly announced this morning. She will be the first woman to hold the top job at Canada’s public broadcaster.
She replaces Hubert Lacroix, who has been CEO since 2008.
Tait has a long and successful track record in film, television and digital-content in Canada and beyond. She was a co-founder and has been president of independent content producer Duopoly for 15 years and in 2006, she also founded iThentic, an…
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OTTAWA – The Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology last week announced a work plan under which it will conduct the statutorily mandated review of the Copyright Act (it’s required every five years).
The committee will conduct the review in three phases and hear testimony from:
Witnesses representing specific sectors of activity, including publishing, visual arts, software and telecommunications (phase I);
Witnesses representing a range of stakeholders involved in multiple sectors of activity, such as Indigenous communities and various interest groups (phase II); and
Legal experts, including individual lawyers and academics, along with professional associations (phase III).
The Committee will also travel…
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TORONTO – The Canada Media Fund (CMF) has set its 2018-2019 program budget at $352 million, up $2.3 million from last fiscal year due in part to a “stable contribution” from the federal government announced last month in Budget 2018.
The CMF program budget is supported by revenue estimates for the coming year based on ongoing and new contributions from the Government of Canada; Canada’s cable, satellite and IPTV distributors; and recoupment and repayment revenues from funded productions. This year’s budget reflects the Feds’ contribution with the addition of a top-up of up to $15M to offset declining contributions…
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And what about the Radiocom Act?
THE 2017 BUDGET ANNOUNCED the following legislative review.
“To ensure that Canadians continue to benefit from an open and innovative Internet, the Government proposes to review and modernize the Broadcasting Act and Telecommunications Act.
In this review, the Government will look to examine issues such as telecommunications and content creation in the digital age, net neutrality and cultural diversity, and how to strengthen the future of Canadian media and Canadian content creation.”
The government is to be commended for conducting a review of the broadcasting legislation and telecommunications given that the present legislation stems from the 1980’s…
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MONTREAL – The National Film Board of Canada is offering over 200 films by Indigenous creators for free streaming through a new collection known as Indigenous Cinema (#NFBIndigenous).
Developed as part of the NFB’s three-year Indigenous Action Plan, Indigenous Cinema makes it easier than ever to find Indigenous stories and perspectives – searchable by subject, director’s name or Indigenous people or nation – along with curated and contextualized playlists for different age levels, plus filmmaker biographies.
The titles include both feature-length films and shorts from 1968 through 2017, and the films are sharable in a web story or on social…
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TORONTO and HALIFAX – Afroglobal Television is now available to Eastlink customers after launching on channel 886 earlier this month.
Based in Toronto, the channel informs, empowers, uplifts and entertains with the best of Africa and the Diaspora, including Canadian success stories, reads the news release. Programming includes two movies daily, music, biographies, documentaries, talk shows, drama, sports, reality, faith, current affairs, and children's programming showcasing the rich heritage of Africa, the Caribbean and Canada.
Afroglobal added that it will air documentaries, current affairs and biographies from Atlantic Canada, including town hall events.
"African Canadians have contributed to the development of the Maritimes for over…
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OTTAWA – The federal government has followed through on its commitment to top up the Canada Media Fund in the face of declining contributions from broadcast distribution undertakings (BDUs). Minister of Canadian Heritage Melanie Joly first made the announcement last September when she unveiled Creative Canada.
Budget 2018 has committed $172 million more dollars over five years, starting this year, to maintain the CMF’s funding” at 2016-2017 levels. CMF will receive $15 million this year, $29 million in 2019-20 and then $42.5 million in the following three years.
The Liberals noted that the actual amount of money will vary each year…
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FOR MANY DECADES, THE Canadian TV market had the luxury of being a walled garden protected by the limits of technology. We even carved out a national production industry and nurtured significant cultural achievements next door to the world’s largest content market.
Now, however, digitalized content has climbed over the garden’s walls and caused content markets to globalize and flatten.
We responded to this change with the defensive strategy of vertical integration. We tried to create barriers, concentrating our domestic market, but the problem was this just deepened our dependence on our domestic market and made us less competitive globally. We’ve…
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