MONTREAL – Stingray celebrated 10 years of growth by announcing Friday that it is expanding its Montreal head office and hiring 400 new employees over the next five years.
Stingray president,co-founder, and CEO Eric Boyko (pictured centre, between Montreal mayor Denis Coderre and Canadian Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly), said that the company’s headquarters in Old Montreal requires an additional 30,000 square feet to accommodate the new employees that are needed “to keep pace with our growth".
"We recently announced unprecedented annual results for fiscal 2017”, Boyko said in the news release. “Our revenues have surpassed the $100 million mark. Recent acquisitions…
Continue Reading
AS OF THIS WRITING, it appears the next CRTC chair will be an interim one – someone who will keep the lights on and the bills paid through the summer, at least.
It could be vice-chair telecom Peter Menzies (although according to sources he’s made it known to associates and others he does not want the job), one of the other four remaining commissioners (Yves Dupras, Stephen Simpson, Chris MacDonald and Linda Vennard) or perhaps the recently departed interim vice-chair broadcasting Judith LaRocque will be asked to return for another six-month stint, except this time as interim chair.
This was not…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage is apparently going to call for a 5% levy on ISPs in order to pay for Canadian content in a new report to be published Thursday, says a story in the Globe and Mail.
The committee has been studying the Canadian media landscape for a year and the report, dubbed Change and Churning in Canadian Media calls for the new money to be directed towards the paying for Canadian media creation.
This is where it’s worth noting the Supreme Court already said no to this in 2012, that broadband…
Continue Reading
WELL, GIVEN THAT WE'RE celebrating media in Alberta, let's just start by saying that CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais demurred from simply mumbling "adios" and riding quietly into a western sunset.
This was his final Banff rodeo as CRTC chair and he went out with hot guns a blazing. (At right is an artist’s conception of the CRTC chair and his speechwriter leaving Banff for the Calgary airport Tuesday…)
To put it mildly, some of the delegate chattering classes were upset with the bullets, many of which – they winced – were dipped in venom.
In my view, there was nothing conceptual in…
Continue Reading
“I will be presenting my vision for the creative sector in September”
OKAY, FULL TRANSPARENCY, I wasn't going to scribble about this.
I went to the advertised keynote partly to hear the Minister of Canadian Heritage "discuss how digital technology is transforming our world, and explore the role of government in supporting innovation and creativity to create new opportunities to bring the best of Canada to the world.”
Yikes there's a mouthful.
Also partly because the smart money at Banff was betting that she wouldn't have anything new to say, that we would get the same old drone we've been hearing for…
Continue Reading
THE ANNUAL CANADIAN MEDIA LEADERS panel at the 2017 Banff World Media Festival pivoted from the future of production, development, and broadcast screen-based content to the onslaught of streaming opportunities commanding the increased attention of domestic advertisers and viewers.
Those leaders included: Rick Brace, president of Rogers Media; Randy Lennox, president, Bell Media; John Brunton, chair and CEO of Insight Productions; Sally Catto, general manager, programming, CBC; and Barbara Williams, EVP and COO, Corus Entertainment.
Running throughout the discussion was a strong sentiment that non-Canadian OTT services should be paying their fair share of domestic taxes and other tithings for the…
Continue Reading
BANFF – Canada’s Indigenous screen-based sector received a boost Monday with the announcement of a dedicated Indigenous Screen Office tasked with supporting the development, production and marketing of Indigenous content.
Speaking at the Banff World Media Festival, Canadian Heritage Mélanie Joly said that the move is the result of collaboration between the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN), the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation/Radio-Canada (CBC/SRC), the Canada Media Fund (CMF), Telefilm Canada, the Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA), and the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). Associated partners include Bell Media, the Harold Greenberg Fund and Vice Studio Canada.
“Too often, Indigenous creators have…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – ACTRA and its recording artists’ collecting society, known as ACTRA RACS, have joined a coalition of Canadian writers, performers and songwriters aiming to draw government attention to the challenges facing cultural creators in the digital age.
The coalition, known as Focus On Creators, is seeking signatures on a call to action asking Canadian Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly to put creators at the centre of cultural policy decisions.
“ACTRA is proud to join other members of Canada’s creative class to ensure the government hears the voice of creators when it comes to federal policy,” said ACTRA National president David…
Continue Reading
QUEBEC – Quebec’s culture minister Luc Fortin is calling on the federal government to review, and perhaps override, parts of the CRTC's recent licence renewals for large French language TV groups.
In a statement earlier this week, Fortin said that the Commission’s decision to remove certain conditions of license, citing the example of Corus-owned Series+, allows that broadcaster to opt out of its obligation to spend $1.5 million annually on original French-language dramas.
Fortin added that the new policies may also encourage ownership groups to simply dub English-Canadian programs for their French-language specialty channels, rather than invest in the production of original French-language Canadian…
Continue Reading
MONTREAL – An impressive billing of Canadian film directors and producers are banding together to oppose a move that would merge Telefilm Canada, the Canadian Media Fund and other unnamed crown corporations to form a "super agency”.
In a letter to Prime Minister Trudeau and Heritage Minister Joly, heavyweights including Denys Arcand, David Cronenberg, Xavier Dolan, Atom Egoyan, Paul Gross and Sarah Polley say that such a proposal, yet to be made public, would “deal a devastating blow to Canadian cinema”, and urged that Telefilm Canada remain as a standalone funding agency.
The letter, dated April 19, 2017, credits Telefilm as the “keystone”…
Continue Reading
