TORONTO – Consultations around the Canada Media Fund (CMF) will be ongoing forever, and any issues not captured in its inaugural guidelines could be incorporated later, Canadian Television Fund (CTF) president and CEO Valerie Creighton noted during a virtual townhall held Thursday.
The guidelines must be finalized and approved by the CMF board by April 1, the date the new fund is set to replace the CTF. The $300-million-plus CMF will have two streams – convergence (TV component with a tie-in to at least one other platform) and experimental (no TV connection needed).
Given the deadline to produce the guidelines, there…
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VANCOUVER and TORONTO – The federal government will conduct eight weeks of nationwide consultations to solicit Canadians’ opinions on the issue of copyright.
In order to be as inclusive and transparent as possible, the discussions will include many ways for Canadians to voice their opinions, from an on-line forum, a web-based submission centre where participants can upload their own position papers so that other people can view their work, to ‘round table’ discussions for stakeholders, and town hall meetings.
"Canadians are concerned with copyright and its implications in our increasingly digital environment,” said Industry Minister Tony Clement in Monday’s announcement. “Our goal is…
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TORONTO, MONTREAL and OTTAWA – Three of Canada’s largest BDUs were quick to express their mutual disappointment with Monday’s CRTC decision, and hinted that it will be the consumer who will be hit the hardest.
Rogers said that the introduction of the “major new consumer TV taxes” should have Canadian consumers “very worried”, and vice-chair Phil Lind predicted that the new fees could cost its customers an additional $50 – $100 per year depending on their cable package.
“Today’s CRTC announcement says that, not withstanding earlier rulings by the CRTC and notwithstanding the lack of support by the Canadian…
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GATINEAU – As Cartt.ca reported last week, the CRTC has a big day coming up on Monday. Not only is the network management hearing beginning that day, the Regulator is also launching a new proceeding seeking structural reform of the TV sector while releasing new rules (and potentially a new amount) for its yet-to-be-launched Local Programming Improvement Fund.
The CRTC’s Ontario commissioner Rita Cugini addressed the two broadcasting items in a speech to the Radio Television News Directors Association on Saturday, noting that structural reform for the TV biz seems to be a necessity.
“The Broadcasting Act specifies that…
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TORONTO – CTV issued a terse press release this afternoon to announce that Shaw Communications will not purchase the broadcaster’s stations in Brandon, Man., Wingham and Windsor, Ont. after all.
In a newspaper ad on April 30, Shaw offered to buy the three stations from CTV after hearing the broadcaster tell the CRTC and the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage that they couldn’t find anyone to buy the, not even for a buck.
Shaw called CTV on it, saying it would take the stations off their hands for a loonie each. CTV then called what has now proved to…
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THE MORE WE TALK to people and the more we hear, the more it looks like the CRTC wants to try and let conventional local broadcasters charge a wholesale fee for their local OTA signals, paid for by the customers of their cable, satellite and telco TV carriers.
Now, the power brokers on Parliament Hill have made it clear they want no part of being blamed for rising consumer TV bills (because you can bet that any new mandated fee-for-carriage would be identified as a “TV tax” or something on customer bills by those carriers if such a…
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IT MAY NOT BE UNTIL 2010 when the CRTC holds licence renewal proceedings for the big Canadian TV companies, but the new chief executive of Canada’s national producers association has been working hard on that file for weeks already.
“We believe that the corporate group licence renewal hearings that are coming up in 2010 are probably the most important regulatory event of our generation and will have wide-ranging impact for the next 25 or 30 years,” said Norm Bolen, president and CEO of the Canadian Film and Television Production Association (CFTPA), in a recent interview with Cartt.ca. “It’s very…
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OTTAWA – After dominating the three months worth of hearings earlier this Spring, the House of Commons committee on Canadian Heritage left out any recommendation on the controversial issue of fee for carriage in its report on the state of local television released Friday.
The committee heard testimony from 45 different groups in March, April and May about the issues and challenges facing Canada’s TV industry, from the importance of local television, to the fragmentation of TV audiences, through to declining advertising revenues.
Made up of MPs from all of the federal parties, the standing committee’s report made 18…
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BANFF, AB – The Canadian Television Fund (CTF) helped to create 2,210 hours of new Canadian programming last year, through 475 productions and 325 development projects.
The organization released funding highlights from its 2008-2009 fiscal year, which ended on March 31, 2009, from the Banff Television Festival.
Its $2 million digital media pilot program launched to “extraordinary demand”, with all funds allocated within the first six weeks, supporting 20 English and 10 French productions. The $5 million production incentive pilot program, designed to support English production in Quebec and Atlantic Canada where volumes had dropped "significantly", was also entirely allocated, benefiting…
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BANFF – An optimistic Canadian Heritage minister said he was “not worried” about Canada’s culture, including its film and TV industries.
Opening the Banff World Television Festival Sunday night, James Moore predicted “there will be better days ahead,” although today was also not a bad time for the industry.
“There have never been more choices for consumers. There have never been more opportunities for producers. We’ve never had the vastness of the audiences we have right now,” he stated.
While Canadians are consuming more media than ever, they are doing it in a different manner than the 32-year-old minister…
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