OTTAWA – The Westin Hotel will play host to over 600 people from feature film, television, interactive media, broadcasting and telecommunications industries during the Canadian Media Production Association’s Prime Time conference, beginning Thursday morning.
CMPA CEO Reynolds Mastin kicks things off at breakfast, followed by morning keynoter John Penney, Chief Strategy Officer, Starz.
Other notable speakers over the next two days include Minister of Canadian Heritage Mélanie Joly, the CBC’s Heather Conway, Shaw Media’s Barbara Williams, Bell Media’s Tracey Pearce, DHX Media’s Steven Denure, Freemantle Media’s Jens Richter, Shaftsbury’s Christina Jennings, and many others.
Sessions on advertising, branding, partnerships, international success stories,…
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TORONTO – CBC has unveiled a pilot project designed to make Canadian public radio available to the estimated 1-3 million deaf and hard-of-hearing Canadians.
With the help of a grant from the Broadcasting Accessibility Fund, CBC will make text transcripts of CBC Radio One’s The Current available to the public on CBC.ca on a daily basis, and will film, edit and post one American Sign Language (ASL) interpreted radio documentary from the program on CBC.ca each month, starting this week.
Hosted by veteran journalist Anna Maria Tremonti, CBC’s award-winning radio program The Current…
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GATINEAU – CBC told the CRTC on Friday that if it decides there should be a fund dedicated to supporting local news production in the Canada, then it should only open it to broadcasters which commit to produce additional news programming.
The Commission has been exploring the concept of a Local News Incentive Fund (LNIF) during local and community TV hearing and the idea has been endorsed in various forms by many intervenors.
“The purpose of the LNIF would be to provide incentive funding for incremental expenditure on and exhibition of local news programming beyond a specified threshold,” Bev Kirshenblatt (pictured),…
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GATINEAU – Many parties to the CRTC’s local and community TV consultation have proposed funding approaches (each with their own acronyms we’re having trouble keep track of) which could financially support these struggling services. Rogers Communications Inc. has now joined them, unveiling its own approach to a local programming fund.
In its appearance before the Commission on Thursday, the media and communications giant argued while it still prefers its original proposal calling for greater flexibility to move local programming funds from larger to smaller markets, it offered up another model that it says is workable and would provide financial benefits…
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OTTAWA – Radio Canada veteran Guy Gendron has been appointed CBC/Radio-Canada’s French Services ombudsman, effective March 8, 2016.
Gendron (pictured) is replacing the retiring Pierre Tourangeau who will stay on until March 31. Gendron brings over 30 years of journalistic experience at Radio-Canada to the role of ombudsman, including experience as a local and national reporter, foreign correspondent, parliamentary correspondent, investigative reporter, interviewer, anchor, and chief editor. He worked on Enquête, Enjeux and Zone libre, and hosted Tout le monde en parlait before going on to become chief editor of Le téléjournal 22 h and Les coulisses du pouvoir.
Completely independent…
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OTTAWA – The Broadcasting Accessibility Fund will award $723,500 in grants to seven projects designed to advance accessibility to broadcasting content for Canadians with disabilities.
The projects represent the first ever selected by the Board of Directors for grant awards. The inaugural recipients are:
– Accessible Media Production Course, Mohawk College: $80,000 – Student journalists will receive mandatory, intensive training in producing content that is accessible across all media platforms.
– Making CBC Radio Accessible, CBC: $62,000 – New speech-to-text conversion technology will be used to post daily transcripts of CBC’s award-winning radio program The Current to CBC.ca. The Current reaches some 2.3 million Canadians each…
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TORONTO – Kids’ CBC has hired Marie McCann and Drew Mullin as executives in charge of production for children’s content, the public broadcaster said Monday.
Mullin, an international award-winning writer, director, producer and composer, has been creating children’s media, performing arts programs and commercials for two decades. He has co-developed and directed more than a dozen multi-platform series for TVO and helped to shape its live programming block.
McCann returns to CBC, after holding the same role from 2007 to 2012. McCann previously headed-up the preschool team at TVO, where she led the creation of programs including Gisele's Big Backyard and Kids' Canada. She is also the author…
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VANCOUVER – Former CBC Radio exec Chris Boyce has joined podcasting and branded content start-up Pacific Content as it seeks to expand east into the Toronto market.
Boyce (pictured) was formerly executive director of radio and audio for the national broadcaster but departed in April 2015 in the wake of a workplace investigation report into inappropriate behaviour by fired radio host Jian Ghomeshi.
In his new role as a principal, Boyce will establish a Toronto presence for the rapidly expanding Pacific Content team, which has grown from two to ten people in the past three months. Pacific Content said that…
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OTTAWA – As more Canadians abandon their landlines in favour of wireless, these “cell phone only" households are distinct in their media habits, says a new report from Media Technology Monitoring (MTM).
According to the latest Statistics Canada findings, 21% of Canadian households are now reported to be using a cell phone as their sole form of telephone service. The report Cell Phone Only Households: Analysis of the Canadian Market provides an overview of the cell phone only individual with respect to demographics, technology ownership and media use, and compares this group to cell phone owners who also have a…
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TORONTO – Bell Media has revealed the five applicants selected to participate in the 2016 Executive Producer Accelerator Lab program that kicks off on January 11.
Now in its third year, the two-part program provides mid-level television producers with unique hands-on training to assist their career advancement within Canada’s television industry.
About the recipients:
– John Griffith (Toronto)
A business affairs consultant for the film and television industry, John is also the producer of the award-winning feature A Little Bit Zombie, which was screened at a number of festivals, and the half-hour CBC comedy pilot Human Town, winner of the 2015 National…
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