OTTAWA – As talk of Canadian broadcasters battling Netflix and needing online scale dominated last week’s Prime Time conference, spare a thought for kids TV producers also struggling to reach audiences on tablets, smartphones and TV Everywhere.
It turns out a combination of streaming VOD services buying up high end kids fare to entice new subscribers and reduce churn, and the global explosion of YouTube and user-generated content is putting the squeeze on kids content creators.
"The trend is the middle is going away. You're either producing something very high cost, industrial, or entering the space by doing something low cost…
Continue Reading
Also, own your IP
OTTAWA – As Netflix gobbled up most of the attention at Prime Time – roughly equal to the dominance it has gained over the wider Canadian TV market – conference delegates were also offered a panel on alternative streaming services where consumers are also spending their time, and money
And the conclusion from content creators and streamers assembled is the web series may be the new TV pilot as they help build and sustain online audiences.
"We're now in a position where the web series is the next TV pilot," said Steve Hulford, CEO of Toronto-based Underknown, a…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Production company Big Coat Media is expanding into scripted content and growing its factual division with the return of Christine Diakos.
Diakos, who takes on the role of SVP of development and production for scripted and factual, previously worked with several production companies and television networks in Toronto including CBC, CTV and Slice Network, both in front and behind the camera. Most recently, she was the SVP of content for Peacock Alley Entertainment where she helped oversee the second season of A Users Guide to Cheating Death, as well as produced a new, yet-to-be-announced North American version of…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – The CBC should be forced to track how it creates awareness of Canadian authors and their works, the federal panel looking at Canada's communications legislation has been told by a prominent publisher.
"What CBC says it does and its mandate and its commitments to Canadian content are very strong and positive,” James Lorimer, head of his namesake publishing company, told the Broadcast and Telecom Legislative Review (BTLR) panel Saturday at the annual DM@X conference at the University of Toronto,
But "follow though" in terms in measuring whether it meets targets is missing, he said.
"The writing and publishing of books…
Continue Reading
TWO WEEKS AFTER THE DEADLINE for filing comments with the Broadcast and Telecom Legislative Review panel – and on the eve of this week’s CMPA Prime Time conference in Ottawa, Netflix made its submission public.
Stephane Cardin, Netflix’s director of public policy, Canada, told the Canadian Press that since he was going to be on a panel with other stakeholders which had made their positions public, it was appropriate to do so. Bell Media, Corus Entertainment, CBC, CMPA and BTLR panel chair Janet Yale will be with him on the panel on the first day.
(That said, neither Bell nor…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Over-the-top video providers like Netflix offer many benefits to countries outside the United States, but they are also a threat to film and TV makers, a digital media conference has been told.
“If we don't do something about bringing the OTTs into the domestic regulatory sphere, the disparity in treatment between domestic and international services will grow” in countries that have local content or spending rules, warned Stuart Cunningham, a professor of media and communications at Queensland University of Technology in Australia.
At the same time, he added, the pressure from local content creators to eliminate those minimum rules…
Continue Reading
MONTREAL – With just days to go before Bell Let's Talk Day on January 30, Bell issued a public thank you to the Canadian organizations supporting the initiative and promoting its messages around mental health.
"Everyone's engagement in mental health is crucial to making progress, and we can all join the conversation on Bell Let's Talk Day by sending messages of support to fight the stigma, call for action and directly drive Bell's funding for mental health programs”, said Bell Let's Talk chair Mary Deacon, in the news release. “We're grateful to these leading organizations for encouraging everyone to get engaged in the…
Continue Reading
THE START OF GOOGLE’S submission to the Broadcast and Telecom Legislative Review panel may be just be a boilerplate presentation of what they do (“Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”), but when it gets to the subject at hand, boing!
The digital giant’s submission calls out the discrepancy between the Creative Canada Policy Framework (former Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly’s pet project) and the policy objectives in Broadcasting Act (the Principles).
“Most of the policy objectives articulated in the Broadcasting Act are primarily focussed on cultural policy, namely the protection and preservation of…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – A new report by the Media Technology Monitor (MTM) seeks to understand how different audiences connect with media content.
The Canadian Viewing Profiles report examines the different viewing profiles of Canadians based on self-reported MTM TV/video viewing data. It identifies and describes the following five different viewing profiles based on their demographics, their viewing habits, and their subscription to various services: Traditionals, Testers, Hybrids, Have It Alls and Online First.
Key findings from the Segmentation Analysis report include:
– The Traditionals spend 90% or more of their time viewing TV and video content on a TV set through a…
Continue Reading
THE BROADCAST AND TELECOM Legislative Review panel has received some 2,000 interventions and they had decided to make them public.
The news release on September 24th read “These written submissions will be publicly available after the deadline for submissions on November 30, 2018.”
That was before it was decided the deadline for those submissions would be pushed to Friday, January 11th. However, they won’t yet be made public. In fact, it won’t be for a while. “These inputs will form the backbone of the panel's What We've Heard Report which will be published no later than June 30th. At that time,…
Continue Reading
