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…
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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…
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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…
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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”…
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MONTREAL – The Community Media Advocacy Centre (CMAC) is accusing the CRTC of “systemic and overt racism and a colonial mentality” and wants the Governor General, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Canadian Heritage to investigate.
CMAC describes itself as a non-profit organization comprised of academics, legal advisors, policy consultants and community media practitioners working towards equitable representation and access for underrepresented communities within the broadcasting system, including the CRTC.
In a letter dated April 24, CMAC called for action “to ensure the CRTC supports racial equity and the sovereignty of Indigenous peoples”. It referenced its recent…
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OTTAWA – CBC executives will be called on the carpet at some point soon to explain “mistakes” some say it made in its recent show The Story of Us to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.
Since this group of politicians have apparently little else better to do than quibble publicly about artistic, editorial decisions made by writers and directors, CBC leaders will be called to appear, soon. The series raised some complaints from certain quarters by people who were offended by portions of the docu-drama which was never intended to be a literal, factual, historical…
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OTTAWA – The Department of Canadian Heritage said Tuesday it is beginning a Canada-wide search for two new members of the Canada Media Fund Corporation’s board of directors.
This “open, transparent and merit-based selection process will result in the recommendation of high-quality candidates and will strive for gender parity and to truly reflect Canada’s diversity,” the department said in a release. CMF board members are chosen by Heritage and will be nominated by Minister Mélanie Joly.
The CMF, of course, fosters, promotes, develops and finances the production of Canadian content and relevant applications for all audiovisual media platforms. It is…
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THE SUBSCRIPTION TELEVISION industry likes to say that outright cord-cutting (defined as when a consumer abandons a TV subscription altogether) is still a pretty small phenomenon.
So far, overall, that remains technically true. The latest numbers show about two percent of Canadian households with a TV subscription have chosen to cut the cord and stop subscribing to traditional TV. Generally, it’s been a story of “flat is the new up”, while inside of the likes of Rogers, Shaw, Cogeco, Bell and others, hardworking employees are doing their best to swallow hard every day and manage substantial…
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New FUN portal aims to revive its spirit
TORONTO – Ed the Sock creator Steven Kerzner and former MuchMusic staffers have created a new online channel aimed at reviving the energy of the old MuchMusic, which they say has been murdered.
(Ed note: Hmmm… That hilarious video to which the above link was supposed to take you was live earlier Wednesday but has now been taken down due to "a copyright claim by CTVglobemedia Inc.", which is odd because that company no longer exists, having long ago been replaced by Bell Media. In that video's place is a…
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TORONTO – The Canada Media Fund (CMF) has set its 2017-2018 program budget at $349.7 million, some $21 million less than last year’s budget.
The CMF program budget is supported by revenue estimates for the coming year based on contributions from the Government of Canada; Canada’s cable, satellite and IPTV distributors; and recoupment and repayment revenues from funded productions. The program budget reflects a stable contribution from the Government of Canada and an expected decline in Broadcast Distribution Undertakings’ contributions to the CMF for the year to come.
“We understand that a program budget decrease of 5.8 per cent will have…
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