TORONTO – CBC English Services is merging its Drama and Comedy departments into a single division as a result of its recent budget cuts, the national broadcaster announced Wednesday.
The reorganization, which is effective immediately, will “focus the department’s resources on content creation and ensure a streamlined, cost efficient business model is in place”, the announcement reads. “Consistent with this new direction, production executives will now be responsible for development and production in both Drama and Comedy”.
The move means that CBC’s Commissioned and Scripted department will trim three positions, including Creative Head of Drama, Tom Hastings.
The new division, to be called Scripted…
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TORONTO – Stornoway Communications has named Kate Tinnerman as director of sales and affiliate relations.
Tinnerman has over 20 years of expertise in sales, marketing and customer relationship management. Her expertise includes profitable content acquisitions, production, distribution, customer relations, brand development, partnership and retail marketing for international artists and brands including Disney, Sesame Street, Nickelodeon, MTV, CBC, CTV, Corus, Sony Wonder, Marvel, Mattel, and Hasbro.
Her primary focus in this new role will be to support all aspects of affiliate relations with Stornoway’s broadcast partners, develop new partnering opportunities, and to assume responsibility for the direction and management of all sales revenues.
“Kate has…
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OTTAWA – The CBC is moving forward with its plan to shut down 620 over-the-air analog television transmitters, a move announced in April as part of its budget reductions.
The national broadcaster received CRTC approval this week to have its broadcasting licences and transmitters revoked for CBIT Sydney, which operates as a re-transmitter of CBHT Halifax, and CBKST Saskatoon, which operates as a re-transmitter of CBKT Regina.
The Commission also agreed to amend the licences for 23 English- and French-language CBC television stations to delete all references to analog transmitters. These amendments are effective August 1st, and the CBC said…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The controversial Local Programming Improvement Fund (LPIF) will be phased out by August 31, 2014, the CRTC announced Wednesday.
Citing the advertising market’s recovery and the completion of the digital transition, both of which have helped to improve the financial situation of the country’s local television broadcasters, according to the Commission, the Fund’s contribution rate will be reduced from 1.5% to 1% for the 2012-2013 broadcast year, and to 0.5 % for the 2013-2014 broadcast year before being discontinued entirely effective September 1, 2014.
“While the implementation of the LPIF was appropriate to address the issues facing local stations at the…
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OTTAWA and TORONTO – Reaction from the broadcasting industry to the CRTC’s plan to depose of the Local Programming Improvement Fund (LPIF) was swift and virtually unanimous.
Mirko Bibic, chief legal and regulatory officer and EVP at Bell, told Cartt.ca that while his company is still “analyzing the new model and its financial impact”, the decision could serve to reignite the value-for-signal/fee-for-carriage debate.
“There’s no doubt, however, that local stations in small and medium-sized markets will receive significantly less revenue”, he said. “At a time when conventional television continues to be under tremendous financial pressure, including from a soft advertising…
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OTTAWA – More than 2,000 Canadians have contacted the CRTC to protest the CBC’s plans to shut down 620 analog over-the-air transmitters by the end of this month, according to the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS).
The organization, which has urged communities and CBC viewers to demand that the transmission equipment be made available for local public use, said Friday that over 2000 of the requests specifically requested that CBC consult with the affected communities.
CACTUS has proposed that some of the affected communities could not only use the equipment to maintain free access to CBC TV,…
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CALGARY – An explosion and electrical fire at Shaw Communications’ Calgary headquarters on Thursday morning has knocked out telephone and Internet services to some of its customers. No one was hurt in the incident.
According to a CBC report, the Shaw building is a "key hub" for national, provincial and municipal networking infrastructure and its back up systems failed to kick in. The cause of the fire remains unclear.
“We absolutely apologize for what has happened, and we're doing our best to restore services and we are in an emergency restoration process”, said Shaw president Peter Bissonnette. “So it may seem it's…
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TORONTO – CBC News has appointed Gemini, Emmy and Peabody award-winning news producer Fiona Conway as the new Executive Director of Programming, CBC News and Centres, effective July 23.
“I am thrilled to welcome Fiona back home to Canada,” said Jennifer McGuire, Editor in Chief of CBC News. “Her career accomplishments to date are tremendously impressive, and her talents will only enhance what is already one of the world’s finest news organizations.”
Most recently the Executive Director of ABC News Services and Client Services, Conway (right) began her career at CFRA Radio, moving to Global and then on to CTV, where she…
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By Steven James May
REMEMBER WHEN YOU COULD take a little TV set with you, put its antenna up and presto – your local TV stations would flicker to life (perhaps inside a tent) for no fee? With a little innovation and work, those days are returning with digital broadcast and mobile devices, except for here in Canada, that is.
With our country’s ATSC digital television transition in mandatory digital markets now complete (excluding CBC/Radio-Canada), these regions are ripe for ATSC Mobile DTV (MDTV) broadcasting. While ATSC digital television broadcasting allows for the distribution of both SD and…
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WINNIPEG – Karyn Pugliese is joining the APTN network as the director of news and current affairs beginning July 9.
“Karyn is a great leader, and we are pleased that she has taken on the challenge of leading APTN’s award-winning news and current affairs team,” said Jean LaRose, CEO, in a press release. “I know she will work hard with her team and the entire network to carry out APTN’s mission of sharing our people’s stories.”
Pugliese (right) has more…
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