OTTAWA-GATINEAU – On Thursday morning, the CRTC will release its new report into the future distribution models for content in Canada, which it was asked to do by the Governor-in-Council in September 2017.
The report, called “Harnessing Change: The Future of Programming Distribution in Canada,” is meant to aid an overhaul of the Broadcasting and Telecom Acts by answering the three main questions which were posed by the Order-in-Council from Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly:
the distribution model or models of programming that are likely to exist in the future
how and through whom Canadians…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – CBC must stop destroying its “irreplaceable” original radio and television programming after digitizing them, says the Canadian Broadcast Museum Foundation (CBMF).
According to the charitable foundation, CBC’s English Services has trashed almost a million acetate transcriptions, audio and video tapes, and other legacy master-recordings – or eight decades of Canada’s English-language radio and television history – since the beginning of April, despite pleas from stakeholders such as ACTRA, Actra Fraternal Benefits Society, and Friends of Canadian Broadcasting seeking to preserve them.
The CBMF says the move flies in the face of internationally accepted standards and best practices of audiovisual…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
Part V in our series on rewriting the Broadcasting and Telecom Acts. An exclusive interview
BACK IN 1999, WHEN Pierre Karl Péladeau was the CEO of the world’s largest printer and a significant Canadian newspaper publisher, he didn’t know or care about the CRTC’s New Media Exemption Order, released that year. Why would he?
Back then, cell phones were still-new devices that primarily just made phone calls – which only about one in five of us owned.* Everyone got their TV off-air or via cable and just over a quarter of Canadians reported a home internet connection – upon which precious…
Continue Reading
Part IV in our series on rewriting the Broadcasting and Telecom Acts
THE CANADIAN TV INDUSTRY faces a growing crisis. Financial contributions from the broadcast distributors to support the production of Canadian stories are on the decline. This is combined with the fact that online TV providers, namely Netflix, aren’t required to pay into the Canadian system like their Canadian competitors.
Since Netflix has emerged as a major competitor to traditional broadcasting services, many have called for the U.S. company to being paying into the Canadian system. Some have suggested taxing internet service providers is the best approach. Others have simply…
Continue Reading
IF YOU’RE AGAINST THINGS like theft and plagiarism, then support of the FairPlay Coalition is a no-brainer.
Over 25 companies, unions, associations and other groups have banded together to file an application to the CRTC to try to curb blatant content piracy in Canada. The group (a list of organizations who are often at each other’s throats) is calling themselves the FairPlay Canada Coalition and the application (to which Cartt.ca was granted early access) calls for the creation of the Independent Piracy Review Agency, an independent, third party organization with a strong mandate to protect both net neutrality as well…
Continue Reading
