TORONTO – Jesse Wente has been appointed director of Canada’s Indigenous Screen Office, a role he will assume starting February 1, 2018, it was announced today.
The ISO is an initiative first announced by the Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Canadian Heritage, at the Banff World Media Festival in June.
A film expert, broadcaster and cultural industries leader, Wente (pictured) has spent two decades working in the creative community and advocating for Indigenous rights. He has been director of film programmes at the TIFF Bell Lightbox for the past seven years, and has contributed to CBC Radio as a critic,…
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CELA FAIT PLUS DE 25 ans que la législation qui régit le secteur des communications a été promulguée. Malgré des changements mineurs, la Loi sur les télécommunications et la Loi sur la radiodiffusion sont essentiellement restées inchangées, leurs objectifs demeurant les mêmes. Elles ont résisté à l’épreuve du temps selon certains. D’autres, en revanche, exposent l’impact phénoménal de l’Internet pour demander des changements significatifs à ces Lois.
"L’Internet est devenu le mode de communication principal dans nos vies et pourtant nous demeurons avec des lois qui font encore une distinction entre la radiodiffusion et les télécommunications et aussi entre les communications…
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IT’S BEEN MORE THAN 25 years since legislation guiding the communications sector came into force. There have some minor changes, but both the Telecommunications Act and the Broadcasting Act have remained largely the same – their objectives essentially left untouched. They have stood the test of time, some say. Others, however, point to the enormous impact of the Internet in arguing for big changes to these laws.
“The Internet has really become the central communication mode in our life now, and yet we have legislation that makes a distinction between telecom and broadcasting and also between wireless and wireline. It…
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TORONTO – Digital developer TribalScale has hired Kirstine Stewart as president and chief revenue officer, effective immediately.
In her new position, Stewart will be responsible for the company's continued international expansion and will lead the sales and revenue growth of the organization. Sheetal Jaitly will remain CEO of TribalScale.
"Today, technology is vital to an organization's survival – it's no longer on the fringes, all companies should be tech companies. TribalScale provides essential, innovative services unlike anything I've seen and has the means to invest in and create new tech businesses through its Venture Studio arm. I believe this is where…
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TORONTO – Winning the struggle to get Canadians to pay attention to the financial problems of content producers hammered by the digital revolution will depend on how the debate is framed, experts told a digital media conference Saturday in Toronto.
“Words matter and how we frame our thoughts matter, and how one frames an issue has a huge impact on the outcome,” Michael MacMillan, CEO of Blue Ant Media, a Toronto-based international content producer, distributor and channel operator, told the fourth annual Digital Media at the Crossroads conference.
“We’ve been attacking the CRTC for 40 years,” he said, and try to…
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TORONTO – The Canadian film, television and print production industry “is in a death spiral” that only government action can halt, several experts agreed at a digital media conference held Saturday in Toronto.
The former Harper government, current Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly, the CRTC and private broadcasters came in for heated criticism for failing to give content producers the tools to fight the falling advertising which print publications have been seeing – and the flight of viewers from conventional television to Netflix, Facebook, Google and others.
There were no shortage of solutions offered, but speakers on a film and TV panel…
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Proposes new agency to battle billion-dollar problem
OTTAWA – FairPlay Canada, a new coalition of Canadian artists, content creators, unions, guilds, producers, performers, broadcasters, distributors, and exhibitors is has filed an application with the CRTC urging the Regulator to have Canadian ISPs shut down access to websites which enable content piracy.
According to the coalition, the jobs of hundreds of thousands of Canadians who work in the creative sector (songwriters, set builders, TV writers, makeup artists, reporters, as well as cable technicians, engineers and customer service reps) are at risk as a result of increasing online piracy…
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TORONTO – Broadcast and music industry pioneer Denise Donlon will be awarded the 2018 Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award by the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS).
Named after famed Canadian publisher and trailblazer Walt Grealis, the award recognizes industry leaders who have vastly contributed to the growth and development of the Canadian music industry.
Donlon began her career in the Canadian music scene in 1985 as a host and producer of Much Music’s The NewMusic. In a few short years she rose to the executive level, appointed MuchMusic/CityTV director of music programming in 1992 and vice president and general…
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TORONTO – One in four Canadians tuned-in to Saturday’s 12 ½ hour marathon broadcast of Scotiabank Hockey Day in Canada on Sportsnet, City and CBC.
The broadcast, live from Corner Brook, NL, included a two-hour pre-game show followed by four games which included all seven Canadian NHL teams across three channels. The annual event, now in its 18th year, reached a total of 9.1 million viewers, says a news release from Sportsnet quoting Numeris data.
Additional key audience highlights of the 2018 Scotiabank Hockey Day in Canada include:
– Average minute audience of 1.23 million Canadians marked a 7% increase over the 2017…
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Q HOST TOM POWER is a good interviewer. But even he can’t penetrate Heritage Minster Mélanie Joly’s ability to avoid giving a direct answer to a direct question.
The Minister appeared on CBC’s Q last week (screen-capped at right) to talk about the #MeToo movement (she was in Toronto to meet with a number of groups on that topic) as well as discuss Canadian content in the new, digital era. We’ll pick up the chat at the 6:40 mark.
After mentioning Netflix’s planned $500 million investment in making content in Canada, which was the centrepiece of Minister…
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