OTTAWA – Calling next month’s digital transition “an unprecedented opportunity for community broadcasting, rural broadband and cell service”, the Canadian Association of Community TV Users and Stations (CACTUS) is encouraging communities to consider launching their own rebroadcasting systems.
The group has posted information on its website aimed at communities that stand to lose their over-the-air television signals on September 1st. Noting that more than 100 communities in Canada already maintain their own broadcasting towers and retransmit TV signals, CACTUS spokesperson Cathy Edwards said that the information provides clear explanations of the technology and helps communities estimate the cost of establishing their own rebroadcasting…
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PLAY A GAME WITH THE average English-language Canadian: “Name a Canadian television show”. Exclude Hockey Night in Canada and news. Watch them furrow their brow.
“Uh, Flashpoint?” says one friend, with whom I had an animated discussion about how Canadian TV can be as polished as American TV, and referenced Flashpoint.
Corner Gas will likely come up and another friend mentions Being Erica. Depending on your age, Degrassi (the original) may come to mind, too, or Street Legal. Perhaps Dragon’s Den.
Aside from these, and maybe Rookie Blue and Combat Hospital because they’ve been getting so much press, in the…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Canada’s 654 commercial radio stations saw 2010 revenues increase by only 2.9%, according to data released Wednesday by the CRTC.
For the broadcast year ending August 31, 2010, FM stations reported higher revenues and profits on the strength of improved local and national advertising sales, but there was little change in the results for AM stations. Total revenues for AM and FM stations increased to $1.55 billion, while expenses rose by 1.5% to $1.21 billion. As a result, profits before interest and taxes (PBIT) climbed from $271.6 million in 2009 to $298.4 million in 2010, and the PBIT margin went…
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OTTAWA and TORONTO – Wait just a minute: we didn’t mean that the whole licence renewal hearing should be postponed.
That was the message from the Canadian Media Production Association (CMPA) and the Documentary Organization of Canada (DOC) after learning that the CRTC decided to push back the CBC’s licence renewal process from September to June, 2012. While acknowledging that they both supported a request from the Quebec English-language Production Committee (QEPC) for more detailed financial data from the CBC, the two organizations were quick to issue statements expressing their collective disappointment with the Commission’s decision to delay the…
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TORONTO – Chris Boyce has been named executive director, radio and audio at the CBC, replacing Denise Donlon who has parted ways with the national broadcaster.
Effective immediately, Boyce (pictured) assumes responsibility for the operations of CBC Radio and the execution of its strategic plan, in addition to his existing duties leading radio programming. He will report to Kirstine Stewart, EVP of CBC English Services.
"Chris brings to his new role a wide range of experience, a deep passion for what we do as a public broadcaster and an…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC has postponed the CBC’s licence renewal hearing from this September until June 4, 2012.
The Commission said Friday that the decision was made for two reasons. First, in response to a request by the Quebec English-language Production Committee (QEPC) for the ‘pub caster’s “aggregate financial production information”, similar to that made available by the private English-language television broadcasters for their group-based licence renewals last April.
“The (CBC’s licence renewal application and appendices) do not provide the data that the commercial broadcasters publish in their annual independent production reports, such as the number of projects, aggregate length, region…
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TORONTO – Broadcast executive Tony Burman is returning to Canada to teach at Ryerson University where he has been named as the Velma Rogers Graham Research Chair. The former editor-in-chief of CBC and head of Al Jazeera’s international English-language news channel will also write a weekly column on international affairs for the Saturday edition of The Toronto Star.
“We are honoured to have one of Canada’s most acclaimed and experienced news executives join Ryerson’s School of Journalism,” said Alan Shepard, provost and vice-president academic, in the announcement. “Tony Burman has been involved in every major news event of our time, understanding,…
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MANY TAKE IT AS GOSPEL in this business that without rules to force Canadian broadcasters to make (or at least pay for) and air Canadian content, they just wouldn’t. Instead, they’d more cheaply buy foreign (i.e. U.S.) television shows to fill out their entire schedule.
Go ahead. Ask anyone. We’ve all said it.
The record of regulatory resistance over the years mostly bears that opinion out – as do the prime time schedules of the major private conventional broadcasters. What I’m not sure about is whether that will continue to hold true in the future.
Now, the only prognosticating I’ll allow myself…
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LESS THAN A DECADE AGO, the television landscape was a lucrative landscape of BDUs and broadcasters who understood the terrain. Laws were established. Rules followed. Peace (sort of) reigned.
Then over-the-top video (OTT) with all of its possibilities blew into town, creating a wild west that many believe leaves traditional players without a strong weapon while a new, lawless breed takes over, driving consumers to cut, or trim, their TV subscriptions.
“OTT is more important than we thought,” says Alain Gourd, chair of The Working Group on Online Broadcasting (formerly the Over-the-Top Working Group), a conglomerate of 13 BDUs, broadcasters…
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OKAY, WE’LL ADMIT IT. Sometimes it does get a little difficult in maintaining one’s attention on the fifth day into a CRTC hearing.
The questions, and quite often the answers, grow more similar as minutes turn into hours, turn into days. Those repeated questions and answers, though, do tend to allow followers of the hearing to divine just what the commissioners and the industry are aiming for. If you read between enough lines, maybe you can even predict, a little, what’s coming.
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WE’VE ALREADY EXPLAINED what the primary topics are during our extensive coverage of the CRTC’s…
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