TORONTO – The Tragically Hip’s 2016 cross-Canada tour, which culminated in a charged and powerful concert in their hometown of Kingston, Ont., aired nationally by CBC, captured the heart of the country, so Bell Media is teaming up with Banger Films, in association with Shed Creative (a division of Universal Music Canada), and one of the country’s most celebrated documentary filmmaking teams, Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier, to take viewers on-stage, in the crowd and behind-the-scenes of this historic tour.
Commissioned by Bell Media and coming to multiple Bell Media channels and platforms in 2017, Man Machine Poem…
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VANCOUVER – Thunderbird Entertainment (which produces the CBC’s Kim’s Convenience, among other titles) announced the appointment of Matthew Berkowitz to head of development at its subsidiary Atomic Cartoons. He has been brought on to develop and grow the studio's expanding IP and co-production slate, says the release.
Berkowitz spent seven years at Arc Productions, where he oversaw the studio's IP slate and established animation production relationships with Sony Animation, DreamWorks Animation, Amazon Studios, Lego, Zodiak and Sprout. Prior to Arc, he held positions at Film Roman, and Strike Entertainment.
As we redefine our approach to development at Atomic,…
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TORONTO – A former CBC human resources director is suing the public broadcaster for more than $1 million after alleging that senior management conspired to fire her.
A Financial Post report says that Serena Thadani-Anthony, who served as executive director of HR from January 2015 to December 2015 in an interim capacity, after her predecessor Todd Spencer was fired in the wake of the Jian Ghomeshi scandal, alleges that senior HR staff plotted to fire her while she was on medical leave and that CEO Hubert Lacroix breached his duties in refusing to review the matter
Claiming a combined annual salary — including pensions,…
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OTTAWA – CBC’s top executives were asked to defend the public broadcaster’s perceived competition with private media during a hearing of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage on Tuesday.
The two-hour hearing, which included about 10 minutes of demonstration of a CBC virtual reality video project, didn’t see any new announcements about what the broadcaster plans to do with the additional $150 million a year it will get in parliamentary appropriations, or the accountability plan it needs to present in exchange, but CEO Hubert Lacroix (pictured above in a Parlvu screen cap) reiterated projects that have…
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REGINA – Elections Saskatchewan said that its current system would be unable to support a potential referendum relating to the sale of SaskTel.
According to a CBC News report, Saskatchewan’s chief electoral officer Michael Boda told provincial politicians last month that Saskatchewan’s current legislative and regulatory framework for conducting provincial referendums and plebiscites is “out-of-date and largely unworkable”, noting that it has not been updated over the past 25 years.
“I am concerned that the province's current legislative and regulatory framework would not allow Elections Saskatchewan to administer a referendum/plebiscite in an efficient and economical manner or at service levels…
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TORONTO – CBC and Comedy Central in the U.S. have commissioned new comedy series from Trailer Park Boys creator Mike Clattenburg.
Crawford will center around a young man who, after a run of bad luck, moves back in with his parents and turns his natural ability to relate to raccoons into a successful business, all while navigating life with his eccentric family.
The 13×30 series is produced by Halifax-based Rabbit Square Productions, Laura Michalchyshyn and Mike Clattenburg’s company. Michalchyshyn is executive producer and recording artist Mike O’Neill is the series’ co-creator. Production will begin in Toronto in 2017.
“This fresh and unique…
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TORONTO – It’s a little complicated (and raises the spectre of the long-gone iCraveTV), but a Bell Canada injunction says VMedia can’t apply the BDU regs to its new OTT vice service.
Bell says that the independent ISP and BDU is in the wrong by claiming it can distribute CTV and CTV2 as a retransmitter under section 31 of the Copyright Act.
“There is nothing in the Act, or otherwise at law, that permits VMedia to do so,” Bell writes in an October 3 injunction filed with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice against the Continue Reading
OTTAWA – More screens and more content sources means that Canadian-made content must be both easily available and easy to find for it to succeed in a competitive local and global market. But according to new research from the Media Technology Monitor (MTM), just over a third of all Canadians say that finding new TV content they want to watch is easy.
This past year, the MTM worked with a consortium of researchers at the Canadian Media Fund (CMF), the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and Telefilm Canada as it asked Canadians about how they discover TV content. The…
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CUSTOMERS OF Shaw Direct, Northwestel, Xplornet, and Bell Mobility experienced service disruptions Sunday due to a “technical anomaly” with Telesat’s Anik F2 satellite.
According to a CBC News report, the satellite cut out around 5:00 PM EDT Sunday, impacting customers in northern Quebec and Nunavut. The bird helps provide cellphone, television and Internet service, though the outage also impacted ATMs and aircraft in some communities.
Telesat had the problem fixed by early afternoon EDT on Monday.
“The satellite is performing normally and all of its subsystems appear healthy”, reads the company’s statement. “Satellite anomalies like the one that affected Telesat’s Anik F2 yesterday are highly…
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TORONTO – CBC has commissioned a new original drama series that takes viewers into the fiercely competitive and high-stakes world of an under-21 soccer academy, following the players and coaches who risk it all for a shot at the pros.
Produced by PMA Productions and Generic Productions, 21 Thunder is an eight episode, one-hour series that is set in Montreal. Production began in late August and will continue until November 15, with the series set to premiere in summer 2017 on CBC.
“We are excited to be working with the team at PMA and Generic to pull the curtain back on the thrilling and…
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