TORONTO – The Canadian Film Centre (CFC) and Bell Media have unveiled the four participants selected for the 2014 Bell Media Showrunner Bootcamp.
The participants are:
– Sherry White, a Canadian-based screenwriter and filmmaker who is currently writing and producing for CTV’s hit series Saving Hope, and is the co-executive producer on the ABC/Global series Rookie Blue. Sherry has also written for Rookie Blue for five seasons. Previously, she has written for series such as MVP: The Secret Lives of Hockey Wives, 18 to Life, and Hatching, Matching & Dispatching. Sherry is currently developing series for both ABC Studios and Warner…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has denied requests from the CBC and Bell Media to average their respective weekly local programming requirements on a quarterly basis, rather than weekly, throughout the broadcast year.
Bell asked the Commission last October to amend the standard conditions of licence applicable to its English-language conventional television stations, whose licences were renewed as part of the Commission’s group-based licence renewals in 2011, to average their weekly local programming obligations quarterly throughout the broadcast year.
That prompted the CBC to file an application to amend the condition of licence applicable to its English-language conventional television network and stations to…
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OTTAWA – CBC will eliminate the equivalent of 657 positions as part of $130 million in budget cuts over the next two fiscal years, the national broadcaster announced Thursday. It will also incur one-time severance costs of $33.5 million.
The cuts are necessary to balance its current budget, said president and CEO Hubert Lacroix, in a press release. He blamed the loss of the NHL, an industry-wide softening of the advertising market, disappointing schedule performance in key demographics on CBC Television, and lower-than-expected ad revenues from Espace musique and CBC Radio 2.
Lacroix also said that CBC and Radio-Canada will no…
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LOSING THE NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE rights (and revenues) will move from the realm of “what if” to real, tangible cuts which will be felt directly by many CBC staffers today (Thursday) when senior management hosts a series of town hall meetings to address the Corporation’s future.
We don’t know what, exactly, will happen but given the massive revenue hit the broadcaster will take next season – when it will still air games, but earn no revenue from hockey at all, while still being on the hook for Saturday night’s game productions – not to mention the very soft ad market…
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OTTAWA – Various parties continued to question the level to which Rogers Media will use its recently acquired NHL hockey content as a component of its Canadian programming expenditures (CPE) commitments at the company’s licence renewal hearing before the CRTC while Rogers said they need not worry.
The Canadian Media Production Association (CMPA), in its opening remarks on Wednesday fretted that Canadian content will suffer because Rogers will use the NHL to account for its CPE commitments, particularly if the Commission approves Rogers request to be treated under the group licensing framework (GLF).
“We have to wonder if hockey fans will…
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TORONTO – This is why big events like the Olympics are very important to mutliplatform media providers.
According to research conducted right after the Sochi Winter Olympics, 81% of Canadians who followed the Games were able to name at least one Olympic sponsor, with an average of 1.8 brands mentioned top-of-mind according to the independent survey of viewers by Solutions Research Group.
Among the key findings of the research:
TV was the leading source of coverage reaching 79% of those who followed on any platform, but digital made a very big showing: Online, mobile and social media reached 59%, combined.
17% of all…
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OTTAWA – One in seven Canadians live without a paid TV service and Anglophones are twice as likely to be thinking about cutting the cord as Francophones, according to two new reports from Media Technology Monitor (MTM).
The Off-Air and Tuned-Out Canadians report examines two unique groups, ‘Off-Air’ and ‘Tuned-Out, and looks at why they have chosen to live without paid TV service, how these groups compare to each other, and how they compare to those who do pay for TV service.
Highlights from the report include:
– Canadians without a paid TV service are less interested in television…
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BASED ON THE DOZENS of submissions from radio companies and other groups to the CRTC, the answer is a resounding… maybe.
Whether to bring the proprietary digital broadcasting format which has been deployed in most major markets Stateside to Canada was just one of many questions the CRTC put to the public about changes to radio policy. The questions were raised on Oct. 30, and the deadline for replies to comments was last Tuesday.
In general, broadcasters and interest groups supported the idea Canadian stations should be allowed to experiment with HD Radio, but most were against the idea that there…
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TORONTO – Independent ISP and IPTV service provider VMedia launched its brand new VCloudTV PVR on Wednesday which it said (and we’re pretty certain it’s true) is Canada's first cloud-based TV distribution technology. For the first time, Canadians will be able to record and enjoy their favourite TV shows without expensive hardware in their homes.
VMedia, whose services are available throughout Ontario, marked the first anniversary of the launch of its TV service at an event Wednesday afternoon at Brassaii Restaurant in Toronto with the introduction of the new cloud-based DVR, what the company is billing as a “solution which…
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OTTAWA – A lack of clear direction from the federal government is the biggest problem facing CBC/Radio-Canada, according to Richard Stursberg, the former head of English language TV services at the public broadcaster.
In an appearance before the Standing Senate Committee on Transportation and Communications on Tuesday, April 1, he argued that because there is no clarity on what the CBC should be to Canadians it has been pulled in multiple directions with often contradictory objectives. There have been a number of schools of thought about what the CBC should put on its network, ranging from elite programming, or as…
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