TORONTO – The North American Broadcaster Association (NABA) has elected Leonard Ramos to serve a second term as its president, while Michael Starling and Robert Winteringham were named as vice presidents.
Ramos, a longstanding member of the NABA board of directors and executive, is Grupo Televisa’s director of high technology projects. Starling is executive director and CTO of National Public Radio Labs, and Winteringham is deputy general counsel for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
NABA also elected the following members to its board of directors at its annual general meeting in New York City:
– Dany Harrison, General Manger, Technical Production, CBC/Radio Canada;-…
Continue Reading
AS OF YESTERDAY, there were 17 months left for Canada to make the transition from analog over-the-air TV broadcasting to digital. Given the lack of action so far, hitting the August 31, 2011 deadline for the shut off of analog TV is now nearly impossible.
Everyone in and around the industry knows it. Everyone. It was openly talked about during the two CRTC hearings in the fall. It was as if the deadline meant nothing. But few want to acknowledge the industry’s and the federal government’s failure to act. In fact, as you’ll read, the federal government still hasn’t even…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The CBC is taking a ‘wait and see’ approach to the new Canada Media Fund.
In a statement released shortly after the CMF’s guidelines were unveiled on Friday, the network called the rules “a source of considerable concern for CBC/Radio-Canada”.
While initially optimistic when the new funding agency was announced last year, particularly its aim to inject money in the production of original prime-time programming, the public broadcaster said that it now “appears that less money will be invested in television production this year and that many independent producers will not have access to funding for their projects”.
“For the…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The broadcasting industry is opposing a plan by Industry Canada to allow fixed and mobile services – in addition to broadcasting – in portions of the L-band. Aerospace players say they want a piece of the band as well to accommodate testing of aeronautical mobile telemetry (AMT).
The L-band is divided into three sub-segments: 1435-1452 MHz is used for subscriber radio systems (SRS); 1452-1492 MHz is allocated to digital audio broadcasting (DAB) and has some SRS services; and the 1492-1525 MHz has an SRS and mobile satellite services allocation. This upper part of the band is the least used.
The…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – With almost three months to go before the first match, CBC has announced that it will pull out all the stops during its coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa.
From June 11 through July 11, CBC Television, Radio-Canada Télévision, CBC’s digital channel bold, CBCSports.ca and Radio-Canada.ca will broadcast more than 1000 total combined hours of the 64-game tournament in English and French.
All matches will be streamed live and on-demand on Radio-Canada.ca/FIFA (launching in May) and CBCSports.ca/fifaworldcup, the pub ‘caster announced Wednesday. Both sites will also offer live in-game chats, video highlights, feature stories and blogs…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The CBC was specifically denied inclusion into the value for signal club on Monday by the CRTC.
The Broadcasting Act specifically says the CBC has to be made available to the largest number of Canadians possible. But, the new value-for-signal regime would let broadcasters pull their signals in a contract dispute.
Those two ideas don’t go together, said the Commission.
“(T)he Commission notes that section 3(1)(m)(vii) of the Act states that the programming provided by the CBC should ‘be made available throughout Canada by the most appropriate and efficient means and as resources become available for the purpose,’” says the…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – Canadian content exhibition requirement for over-the-air broadcasters were lowered to 55% from 60%, and the broadcasters seem to have been given a break on spending requirements, according to the CRTC decision from proceeding 2009-411 released today.
Under the CRTC’s new group-based TV regulatory policy, the CRTC will now require Canada’s three largest English-language networks to spend at least 30% of their gross overall revenues on Canadian programming.
CTVglobemedia, Canwest, and Rogers will also be given a specific spending requirement for their OTA networks during licence renewals, but will have the flexibility to shift some of their expenditures to their specialty channels….
Continue Reading
LOS ANGELES – For broadcast organizations that require a fibre connection between Toronto and Los Angeles, The Pacific Television Center has added standard- and high-definition television circuits to Toronto in order to provide direct access between the two locations.
Local connections include the CBC, Global TV and Bell Canada’s TOC.
“As the demand for HD content continues to grow around the world, we are thrilled to add Toronto to our global network,” said Pacific Television Center president Richard Neri, in a statement. “In addition to expanding our global footprint, this fibre will help our clients deliver programming, such as…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – In yet another collaboration of competing media entities, CanWest, CBC, Astral and Corus have agreed to partner on this year’s Genie Awards.
The 30th annual Genie Awards will be broadcast live on CanWest-owned Independent Film Channel and via live webcast on CBC.ca on April 12 at 9:00pm EDT. Additionally, the show will be re-broadcast on Astral Media’s The Movie Network and Corus Entertainment’s Movie Central at a later date.
"This year’s Genie Awards broadcast will be an unprecedented collaboration among some of Canada’s major broadcasters – a truly amazing way to celebrate the Award’s 30th anniversary," said Sara Morton,…
Continue Reading
LONDON, ON – CBC Hockey Night in Canada’s annual street hockey tournament ‘Play On!’ will take to a street near you starting this May.
Open to boys, girls, men and women of all ages and skill levels, the event bills itself as the “nation’s largest annual sports festival”. Since its inception in 2003, more than 300,000 Canadians have taken part across the country through one of the thirty-five events held to date.
This year’s events will be held over the full course of a weekend in St. John’s, NL; Halifax, NS; Moncton, NB; Montreal, QC; Ottawa, ON; Oshawa, ON; Toronto, ON; Hamilton,…
Continue Reading
