WHY DO THE OLD TV sets in the living rooms, garages, kitchens or at the cottages of millions of Canadians deserve to go digital?
As the transition to digital over-the-air TV deadline grows closer and the industry is awakening to the need to act, the question has been asked in some quarters: Why bother?
We can keep fibbing if we want but as an industry we already know it’s now impossible to update our over-the-air television broadcasting system to digital by the August 31, 2011 deadline set years ago by the CRTC. Not “virtually impossible.” Not “challenging.” It is not…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The CBC received CRTC approval Wednesday to operate a new French-language regional television station in Toronto.
The Commission also approved CBC’s requests to amend the broadcasting licences for CBOFT-TV Ottawa and CBOFT-DT Ottawa in order to transfer certain analog transmitters to the new station. The original CBLFT-TV station was closed in 1991 and converted to a rebroadcasting transmitter for CBOFT-TV Ottawa.
CBLFT-TV Toronto must broadcast a minimum of five hours per week, on average on an annual basis, of local programming intended for television viewers in Toronto and a large part of Ontario.
At the CBC’s request, the Commission…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – The CRTC is incorrectly interpreting the BBM statistics on television viewership numbers during its examination of community television policy, says Rogers.
As part of this proceeding, the Commission issued a report on April 8 which Rogers says has been used by some critics of cable-provided community television to "prove" that Rogers TV is not often watched. The report states that in the 2008-09 broadcast year, Rogers’ community television stations generated a 0.2% share of the Canadian English-language television market.
But according to a Canadian Media Research Inc. (CMRI) study commissioned by Rogers TV, that figure is deceptive because BBM share…
Continue Reading
THE TRANSITION TO DIGITAL television in Canada is officially Heritage Minister James Moore’s to deal with, but Industry Minister Tony Clement doesn’t want to see the August 31, 2011 deadline moved.
That was the word we received directly from Industry Minister Tony Clement on Friday during an interview (which you’ll read below) in his Parliament Hill office.
Cartt.ca readers will know we’ve been prodding the industry and the federal government about their inaction on the transition to digital broadcast television. Using our bully pulpit here and directly with the ministers on Twitter (they are @TonyClement_MP and @mpjamesmoore).
In a…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – Edward W. Boyd is the newest member of the board of directors of CBC/Radio-Canada, Heritage Minister James Moore announced Monday.
Boyd has been CEO of 58ninety Inc., a Toronto-based agency that provides digital marketing solutions to clients such as Unilever, Molson Canada, and Expedia, since 2006.
Prior to that, Boyd worked as principal at Counterpart dsr, an agency specialized in maximizing the use of Internet and direct marketing, and also served as president and GM of Iceberg Media.com, a pioneering Canadian Internet broadcaster and provider of custom streamed music solutions.
www.cbc.radio-canada.cawww.canadianheritage.gc.ca
Continue Reading
ON A SUNDAY MORNING three weeks after the earthquake which levelled so much of Haiti, cameraman John Tuk and I found ourselves at the Village of Hope, standing in front of a group of approximately 40 Haitian children (pictured below), ready for their morning church service.
They were preparing to thank God for sparing them from the massive death toll. But before the service began they broke into a beautiful welcome song. As the pastor played the notes on his accordion, the kids stared and sang. John and I were speechless. When the song ended we thanked the curious kids,…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – The Canadian on-line advertising market will top $1.74 billion this year, according to new research from Convergence Consulting Group.
The report ‘The Battle for the North American (Canada & U.S.) Couch Potato: New Challenges and Opportunities in the Content Market’ estimates that on-line TV advertising revenues represented 2.3% ($1.52 billion) of 2009 Canadian broadcast and specialty network TV advertising revenue. That figure is forecasted to grow to 3.1% in 2010.
As in the U.S., Canadian broadcast and specialty networks aim to grow on-line advertising revenue without negatively impacting their traditional TV advertising revenue and programming fees from cable, satellite,…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The CRTC has turned down CBC’s request to amend the broadcast licence of its specialty channel bold, instead giving it a month to come up with another programming strategy.
As Cartt.ca has reported, CBC re-launched its Country Canada category 1 specialty channel as bold on March 27 2008, after telling the CRTC that the change could be done without amending its original nature of service. But the Commission disagreed, and scheduled a hearing to determine whether the way that CBC re-branded the channel had negatively impacted “the integrity of the licensing process”. The CRTC eventually suspended the…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – The majority of Canadians feel that Canadian Content rules should be relaxed, according to a new Ipsos Reid poll.
In ‘The Canadian-Content Conundrum’ survey, 53% of the 1,024 adults polled said that they closely agreed with the sentiment that ‘we should stop worrying about and imposing Canadian content rules on the TV industry because we know what our identity is and we should just care about and value creating good entertainment that anyone will tune into, and if it happens to be Canadian in content and/or production, all the better’. This was particularly true amongst those living…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Score Media will partner with CBC on their coverage of 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa this June.
While the deal excludes live games, The Score can air “extended highlights” of each match plus create additional content such as features and behind-the-scenes coverage of participating teams.
“As a licensed broadcaster, we’re thrilled to have access to extended highlights of every 2010 FIFA World Cup match, along with exclusive access and behind-the-scenes footage from every team as they compete in South Africa,” said Benjie Levy, Score Media’s EVP and COO, in a statement. “We have a strong soccer…
Continue Reading
