MONTREAL — “I’ve gotten such great press lately,” Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly joked to break the ice in a speech Friday to Montreal’s board of trade. But despite mounting pressure, especially in Quebec, to impose sales taxes on foreign over-the-top services like Netflix, Joly had no new announcements to make, sticking to repeating the promises made in the Creative Canada plan released in September.
“I hear you,” she told the crowd present, including board president Michel Leblanc, who said during his introduction that he expected Joly to explain the government’s position on this issue. She repeated several times that she’s…
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TORONTO – CBC Sports and Rugby Canada today announced a multi-year partnership agreement this week which will make the broadcaster the home for Rugby Canada games as the men’s and women’s side progress and pursue berths at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
The partnership began last weekend with full coverage of the HSBC World Rugby Series tournament in Dubai at cbcsports.ca and on CBC and will continue with coverage from the second event in the Series from Cape Town, South Africa, Dec. 9–10, says the press release.
In addition, as part of the agreement, CBC Sports will deliver multi-platform annual…
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TORONTO – Radioplayer Canada, the radio streaming app that features more than 500 Canadian radio stations (most of the big and small chains, except Bell Media and Evanov, who joined iHeartRadio), announced this week its streaming service is available with Amazon Echo, powered by Alexa.
Amazon Echo users may now simply ask Alexa to play their favourite radio station on Radioplayer Canada, once the skill is enabled by the listener.
"This integration with Amazon Alexa is great for Canadian radio," said Julie Adam, senior vice president, Rogers Radio, and board chair of Radioplayer Canada. "The integration echoes the mission of…
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Now more than 1,000
TORONTO – iHeartRadio Canada (a partnership with Bell Media and iHeartRadio) launched an enhanced app Monday which now features more than 1,000 live radio stations of every genre from across North America.
The app also added Canadian stations from Evanov Communications, “with more broadcasters set to join in the coming weeks,” says the press release. Most other Canadian stations cast their lots with RadioPlayer, however, which counts 400 Canadian stations in that fold.
iHeartRadio Canada has recorded an average of 1.8 million active listeners each month since its launch in October 2016, says…
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TORONTO – Starting Tuesday, December 5, each of CBC’s 14 regional linear TV channels will be live-streamed along side a whole host of additional CBC content which will be made available direct to consumers in ways the public broadcaster’s content has not before as it takes the lid off of an upgraded app and web portal.
CBC executive vice-president of English services, Heather Conway, told employees in a memo Monday that in order to keep up with the Netflixes of the world, CBC content has to be available on all platforms at all times to all Canadians.
“When we first introduced…
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TORONTO – CBC/Radio-Canada and the Canadian Paralympic Committee announced their first-ever multi-Games partnership renewal that will see the national public broadcaster remain Canada’s Paralympic Network through the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.
The extended partnership begins with CBC/Radio-Canada’s coverage of the PyeongChang 2018 Paralympic Winter Games scheduled for March 9 – 18, 2018.
CBC/Radio-Canada pledged to deliver more broadcast and live-streaming coverage than ever before throughout the 2018 and 2020 Paralympic Games. English-language coverage of PyeongChang 2018 will include daily television broadcasts throughout the 10-day event, including live coverage of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, as well as multiple live competition streams…
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TORONTO – Accessible Media Inc. (AMI) is readying the broadcast premiere of an original documentary detailing one of the worst manmade explosions in history and how it forever changed the lives of Canadians with sight loss.
The Halifax Explosion will air December 3 at 5:00 PM ET, just a few days ahead of the 100th anniversary of the event. On December 6, 1917, two ships – one laden with high explosives – collided in the Halifax Harbour, causing a massive explosion that killed thousands of people and injured more than 9,000. Many people of all ages and from all walks…
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TORONTO – Blue Ant International has sold over 600 hours of 4K and HD programming to several broadcasters in the Asia-Pacific region ahead of Asia Television Forum (ATF).
The distributor has licensed over 25 hours of programming to Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific. In India, Discovery pre-bought the rights to natural history series Deadly Australians, (4×60’4K + HD; Wildbear Productions), Wild Survivors (3×60’4K+HD; Plimsoll Productions), Untamed Valley (3×60’ 4K+HD; Plimsoll Productions – pictured) and lifestyle series I’ve Got Something To Tell You (6×60’HD; Zig Zag Productions for UKTV).
National Geographic Channels International (Asia) acquired returning lifestyle series What’s For Sale? With A View,…
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Internet complaints on the rise; PIAC wants a new code of conduct
OTTAWA – The Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS) said today it saw an 11% increase in the number of complaints received from Canadian telecom customers in 2016-17, a turnaround of a three-year trend of declining complaints.
While Canadians continue to complain most often about their wireless services, they represent a declining proportion of all complaints to the CCTS, says the organization in its press release. What’s on the rise, however, are consumer complaints about their broadband services.
“The CCTS is the administrator of the CRTC’s Wireless Code, and…
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OTTAWA – Decreases in CO2 emissions and water consumption helped to boost results in the CBC/Radio-Canada’s latest corporate Environmental Performance Report.
The report highlights the public broadcaster's environmental performance from April 2016 to March 2017.
Footprint decreases were recorded in most company categories, most notably with fleet vehicle CO2 emissions dropping 10.7% and water consumption decreasing 8.6% versus 2015-2016. In terms of industry benchmarks, the report says that the broadcaster performed better than the BOMA BEST certified building standard for water consumption and the Natural Resources Canada standard for energy consumption.
Other highlights from the report include:
– Electric car charging stations…
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