By Etan Vlessing
ANN ARBOR – Inside a production truck around 100 yards from Michigan Stadium, known to many as “The Big House” on the campus of the University of Michigan, CBC Sports director of production Joel Darling is making rapid-fire decisions about how the 2014 Winter Classic between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Detroit Red Wings game will be captured for Canadian TV.
"It's the biggest show we do all year," Darling tells Cartt.ca as he directs an army of behind-the-scenes CBC staffers in front of computer and TV screens finalizing graphics, video clips and statistical nuggets to broadcast when…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Canadians will soon be able to subscribe to any homegrown news service they want, either in theme packs or a la carte, the CRTC announced Thursday.
“Canadian news services are an important part of our democracy,” said CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais, in a statement. “With the rules we are announcing today, Canadians, as citizens, will have access to the news services that are of interest to them and will therefore have an opportunity to be exposed to a variety of opinions on matters of public concern.”
The move is like Christmas coming early for struggling Sun News Network which…
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By Greg O’Brien
AS A YOUNG CANADIAN growing up in Timmins (hometown of NHL legends Frank and Peter Mahovlich, among several others) Saturday night hockey on TV was as regular, or normal, or expected, as church on Sunday. As reliable and loved as our family’s dog.
Hockey Night in Canada wasn’t just a staple. It was as much a part of life as eggs and cereal for breakfast or snow on the ground in the winter. We had a single-dial television in the mid-1970s that caught the few stations we had off-air. I was my dad’s remote control, standing by the…
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OTTAWA – Canadians self-identifying as visible minorities spend more time with online audio and TV than other Canadians, according to a new report from Media Technology Monitor (MTM).
Since its inception, the MTM has looked at how language, region, gender and age affect the adoption and use of media technology. For the first time this year, however, MTM added a new report on how visible minority status contributes to the way Canadians interact with technology.
The Visible Minorities and Media Consumption report profiles Canadians who identify themselves as visible minorities and their ownership and use of media technology. Highlights from…
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FOR A YEAR NOW, Sam Norouzi has been working tirelessly toward getting a new conventional television station on the air.
It's not something you see much these days. Unlike specialty channels, where applications come in by the bucketload (but are launched by the thimbleful…), the number of conventional television stations has only shrunk over the past decade. In 2006, there were 101 private commercial stations in Canada, according to the CRTC. By 2012, after the bottom had fallen out of the advertising market, that had dropped to 91.
Even tougher for Norouzi, his station, dubbed ICI, is an ethnic station –…
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ROGERS COMMUNUCATIONS' BLOCKBUSTER NHL deal puts a direct focus on the sheer costs of sports programming for distributors and their customers, the Canadian consumer.
Cartt.ca interviewed several executives across the Canadian television industry (including some distributors who spoke to us on the condition they not be identified) to discuss the impact sports is having on broadcasting in Canada and whether or not the business can survive the spiralling costs of this rich content.
Alyson Townsend, president of the independent cable group Canadian Cable System Alliance, said no one should be surprised by the consistent price increases consumers have paid for cable…
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ST. JOHN’S – Phil Keeping, proud Newfoundlander and founder of cable companies including N1 Cable TV and Cable Bahamas, died suddenly in Mount Pearl, NL on December 9. He was 65. He fell from a mechanical scissor lift inside a Harley Davidson dealership he owned, reportedly while changing a light fixture.
Keeping was involved in the telecommunications and cable TV industry for more than four decades. After starting his career in the early 1970s as a coast guard in the telecommunications group of Transport Canada, he left to found N1 Cable TV Ltd. in 1986 which, in partnership with Canadian…
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WHILE THAT LOGIC HAS BEEN applied to real estate, sports networks are using it when it comes to insulating themselves from ever-increasing rights fees.
Buoyed by the success it has achieved since the late Ted Rogers bought the Toronto Blue Jays basically as programming for Sportsnet back in 2000 (not to mention as part of the huge “Rogers” branding exercise as wireless phones took off), the media company is looking at owning even more sports properties – and in a deeper fashion.
It began last year when Sportsnet got wind that that the Grand Slam of Curling might be coming on…
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I’VE BEEN COVERING this business since 1997 but not until now do I have my first ever actual submission, well co-submission, to the CRTC. It’s not a traditional one but I do hope Cartt.ca readers – and anyone else for that matter – find it interesting.
When we first heard of the Commission’s idea for flash conferences as a way to inform its overhaul of the policies governing television in Canada, I immediately wondered what I could do in Cartt.ca’s hometown of Hamilton, Ont. It’s a neat idea and kudos to whomever came up with it at the Regulator.
Since I’m…
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– BEVERLY HILLS, Calif – Netflix has extended and expanded its licensing agreement with the CBC to offer new shows and new seasons of homegrown favourites to Canadian members.
The deal will add the popular Murdoch Mysteries (pictured) to the service for the first time, plus include new seasons of currently available CBC TV shows including Republic of Doyle, Heartland, Mr. D, and Dragons' Den.
"Through this agreement Canadians will continue to enjoy a range of CBC programming on Netflix," said Bob Kerr, senior director, licensing division, CBC Revenue Group. "We are delighted that Netflix continues to invest in CBC as…
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