OTTAWA – Three of the country’s largest media companies – Cogeco, Quebecor, and Eastlink – are banding together in their opposition of Bell Canada’s proposed acquisition of Astral Media.
The trio staged a press conference Tuesday morning in Ottawa calling the $3.38 billion deal an “unprecedented concentration of media ownership” and unveiled a website called SayNotoBell.ca that it says lays out “the risks” and “potential harm” to consumers and the Canadian TV industry should the transaction be approved. It also encourages Canadians to voice their concerns by submitting a letter through the website to Canada's Ministers of Heritage and Industry,…
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OTTAWA – Industry stakeholders are lamenting the anticipated shutdown of 623 CBC and Radio-Canada analog transmitters on Tuesday, a move that ends free access to the national broadcaster over the air in hundreds of small Canadian cities, towns and rural areas.
Despite the protests of more than 2,000 Canadians and a proposal by the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS) on how the equipment could be repurposed, the CRTC approved CBC/Radio-Canada’s plan to mothball the transmitters and repeaters with no conditions and no requirement to reach out to the affected communities.
"The CBC-TV and Radio-Canada analog transmitter shutdown…
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OTTAWA – The Copyright Modernization Act received Royal Assent last week and is expected to become law this fall, once its regulations have been published. Parliament will review the law every five years.
"We never doubted that we would see this day but it has been a long road, in particular for creators, whose livelihoods have been deeply eroded by piracy. We commend the government and Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore in particular, for their tenacity in pursuing a modern copyright framework and legislation that will enable Canada to ratify the World Intellectual Property Organization Internet Treaties," says Graham Henderson,…
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OTTAWA – The passage of Bill C-11 in the House of Commons trumpeted by the government Tuesday was met with trepidation by some industry stakeholders.
The Bill, known as the Copyright Modernization Act, seeks to bring Canada’s antiquated copyrights law in line with current international standards by implementing provisions of the World Intellectual Property Protection Organization (WIPO) Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty.
Industry Minister Christian Paradis and Heritage Minister James Moore said in a joint announcement that the legislation balances the everyday activities of Canadians while “giving creators and copyright owners the tools they need to protect…
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BANFF – The Canada Media Fund (CMF) has released two new publications that it says provide new perspectives on the convergence of television and connected platforms and the state of financing of the interactive media sector in Canada.
Unveiled at the Banff World Media Festival, the first research project, New Directions for the Financing of Interactive Digital Media, examines the state of financing of digital media in Canada and the effectiveness of financial mechanisms, including those from the private sector. Published by the Canadian Interactive ALLIANCE interactive canadienne (CIAIC) with research by MDR, the research is the result of a…
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TORONTO – CTAM Canada has declared its first CTAM Canada U course “a huge success”, and promises to return with another session next year.
More than 40 Canadian CTAM members packed the inaugural class last month at Corus’ Toronto headquarters to hear Harvard Business School Professors Bharat Anand and Rajiv Lal present five cases, including an analysis of the strategies used by Apple and Netflix, as a starting point to explore key issues in today’s highly competitive environment.
The students, who hailed from Astral, CCSA, Corus, Stingray Digital, WFN, the CRTC, Rogers, AOV, A&E, Hollywood Suite, Super Channel, Teletoon, TV5 Quebec, Ogilvey…
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OTTAWA – After months of rumour and innuendo, the federal government made one of the many rumours official and appointed Jean-Pierre Blais as chairman of the CRTC, effective June 18, 2012.
“Mr. Blais is well qualified for the position of chairperson of the CRTC,” said the Prime Minister in the press release. “He brings a strong legal background and a comprehensive understanding of the broadcasting and telecommunications sectors and the role of the…
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CAN’T. HELP. MYSELF.
I’ve told everyone who’s listened to me of late that I won’t write any more speculation on who will be the new chair of the CRTC. “I look foolish,” and “I’m tired of being wrong,” is what I keep telling people. We’ve speculated here throughout the year, we’ve been wrong quite a bit, and since these are real people with real feelings and aspirations, we do take these sorts of stories seriously before putting names out there into the ether, even if our tone sounds a little flippant.
That said, a good publication is also supposed to reflect…
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RICHARD STURSBERG CAN be a polarizing figure. He knows he rubs some people the wrong way (and I think he kinda likes being the thorn in some sides).
You can read that personality throughout his recent book, Tower of Babble: Sins, Secrets and Successes Inside the CBC. He admits as much on many pages, calling himself “arrogant”, “insouciant” and “insubordinate” and reading through some of what he describes about his time at the Corp., it’s hard not to disagree with his self-assessment.
Stursberg was actually my first interview when I started covering the electronic media industry in…
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(Ed note: We ran this column back in May 2012 with our overall investigation into the CBC. Given the Corp's news this week – that it will still air, but has lost control of, NHL hockey – we thought it made sense to give it a re-print, as it were, on November 27, 2013.)
AT CBC ENGLISH TELEVISION’S fall 2012 programming launch last Thursday, you could hear how the massive recent budget cut – along with the constant hectoring of the Corp. by so many Canadians –…
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