TORONTO – The Radio Television News Directors’ foundation has awarded over $12,000 in scholarships to five broadcast journalism students across Canada.
More than 40 applications were received from across the country as students submitted samples of their work in one of five categories.
The 2009 scholarship recipients are:
– Stefanie Masotti of Fanshawe College in London, ON who won two scholarships – the $2,000 Marketwire scholarship for the top first year student, and the $2,500 RTNDA George Clark scholarship for the overall winning entry;
– Russ Courtney, also of Fanshawe College, won the $2,000 BNN/Jim O’Connell scholarship for a student interested…
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EVEN WITH CHANNEL Zero’s encouraging purchase of two over-the-air TV stations from Canwest Global this week, we are now left with six small market TV stations whose owners have set August 31st as the final day they intend to have the transmitters turned on.
In case you missed it – and you might have, given the timing of the news – Shaw Communications told CTV late Tuesday that, essentially, it had lost its nerve and was backing down from its confrontation with CTV over local television. The western cableco, despite its now apparently false bravado claims of how…
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GATINEAU – Earlier this week, the CBC attempted to give the CRTC a little advice before the Regulator releases its public notice announcing the September hearing into an overhaul of the regulation of the TV business in Canada this coming Monday.
As reported by Cartt.ca, this past Monday the CBC offered up a proposed new distribution order which would govern new fee-for-carriage negotiations between broadcasters and cable and satellite companies (actually, the broadcasters are trying to “re-brand” the fee-for-carriage battle to one entitled value for signal, but we digress…)
Together, Shaw Communications, Telus, Rogers Communications, Cogeco and Bell…
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GATINEAU – As Cartt.ca reported last week, the CRTC has a big day coming up on Monday. Not only is the network management hearing beginning that day, the Regulator is also launching a new proceeding seeking structural reform of the TV sector while releasing new rules (and potentially a new amount) for its yet-to-be-launched Local Programming Improvement Fund.
The CRTC’s Ontario commissioner Rita Cugini addressed the two broadcasting items in a speech to the Radio Television News Directors Association on Saturday, noting that structural reform for the TV biz seems to be a necessity.
“The Broadcasting Act specifies that…
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TORONTO – Canadian Jewish groups have indicated to the CRTC that they will not oppose making the English version of the Al Jazeera available to Canadians.
CRTC Ontario commissioner Rita Cugini noted that fact in a speech this weekend at the RTNDA ProDev day in Toronto.
The public consultation ended June 8 and sponsor Ethnic Channels Group filed its final reply to the Regulator on June 22.
“Among the submissions we received was one from B’nai Brith Canada, whose representatives had met with Tony Burman, Managing Director of Al Jazeera English (and former head of CBC News). They expressed…
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IT MAY NOT BE UNTIL 2010 when the CRTC holds licence renewal proceedings for the big Canadian TV companies, but the new chief executive of Canada’s national producers association has been working hard on that file for weeks already.
“We believe that the corporate group licence renewal hearings that are coming up in 2010 are probably the most important regulatory event of our generation and will have wide-ranging impact for the next 25 or 30 years,” said Norm Bolen, president and CEO of the Canadian Film and Television Production Association (CFTPA), in a recent interview with Cartt.ca. “It’s very…
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OTTAWA – After dominating the three months worth of hearings earlier this Spring, the House of Commons committee on Canadian Heritage left out any recommendation on the controversial issue of fee for carriage in its report on the state of local television released Friday.
The committee heard testimony from 45 different groups in March, April and May about the issues and challenges facing Canada’s TV industry, from the importance of local television, to the fragmentation of TV audiences, through to declining advertising revenues.
Made up of MPs from all of the federal parties, the standing committee’s report made 18…
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TORONTO – Breaking news from the CBC: It is no longer a TV network but a "content provider." This, according to the CBC’s Richard Stursberg who was a keynote speaker at Tuesday afternoon’s Canadian Telecom Summit in Toronto.
"We will be there on whatever platform you need us to be on," said Stursberg.
The executive vice-president of CBC English Services, brought lots of slides to demonstrate how the CBC is already positioning itself to deliver content online and to mobile devices like the iPhone.
Stursberg said that CBC’s traditional strengths in news and sports position it well on the…
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BANFF – Home Box Office’s (HBO) John Adams was the big winner on Monday as it picked up the Grand Jury Prize as the best of the best – as well as the best drama award at the Banff World Television Awards, or Rockies, ceremony.
“OMFG. We got the big one,” said David Baldwin, executive vice-president of programming planning at HBO, in accepting the Grand Jury Prize. “John Adams was a special project for HBO.”
The U.S. mini-series about U.S. president John Adams also has Emmy and Golden Globe wins.
The Rockie for best Canadian program went to Passage,…
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OTTAWA – CBC/Radio-Canada offered its congratulations to the new appointees to the board of the Canada Media Fund (CMF), and wished them well as they set to tackle the “formidable” challenges ahead.
“The Canadian television industry is at a critical juncture. The model for conventional broadcasting is broken and the future of high-quality Canadian programming is at risk”, read CBC/Radio-Canada’s statement on Wednesday. It went on to express confidence that the CMF “will play a central role in ensuring the continued viability of Canadian programming”.
The statement also stressed the need that the principles laid out earlier this year by the Government…
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