TORONTO and BANFF – Monday’s opening keynote session at the Banff World Television Festival will see Lionsgate Studio co-chairman and CEO Jon Feltheimer interview Richard Stursberg, CBC/Radio-Canada’s EVP of English Services – and Cartt.ca will be there too.
The two industry leaders will provide “critical insights into the major issues currently shaping the direction of television production, distribution and digital media”, and will discuss what it takes to make great television, the announcement read.
Feltheimer will also accept an Outstanding Achievement Award on behalf of Lionsgate Television at a luncheon later that day.
The 30th Banff World Television Festival…
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ACCORDING TO A POLL commissioned by broadcast industry watchdog Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, most Canadians believe that the CBC is “being starved of funds by a government with a vendetta against it”.
The group hired public opinion research firm Pollara to survey Canadians’ attitudes about and expectations for the CBC, and apparently found that most Canadians believe “that Prime Minister Harper is intent on hobbling the CBC”.
The press release also stated that:
– 63% of respondents agreed that "Prime Minister Harper and the Conservative government are hostile to the CBC and would like to diminish public broadcasting in Canada";…
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TORONTO – CBC Radio One ranked first in Toronto and Vancouver between March 2 and April 26, 2009, according to BBM’s S2 2009 top-line results.
Its share of listening increased from 8.9% in S1 to 10% in the competitive Toronto market, and CBLA’s Metro Morning with Andy Barrie remains the city’s top morning show with a record 14.2% share of listening. In Vancouver, CBU captured a 12.4% share for the March through April period, up from 11.0% in S1, and its morning show, The Early Edition with Rick Cluff, also ranked first with an18.2% share.
When coupled with Radio 2’s…
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TORONTO – In recognition of National Access Awareness Week running May 31 through June 6, The Accessible Channel (TACtv) is promoting media access for the more than 6.6 million Canadians who are blind, vision-impaired, deaf or hard of hearing.
The Accessible Channel, which has been on the air for almost six months, is a must carry for all BDUs as part of their basic digital service. Viewers who cannot see the television screen do not require additional equipment in order to access TACtv.
In partnership with content distributors such as CBS International, CBC, CTS, Rogers-Citytv, CTV, Canwest, Movieola, and…
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TORONTO – One of Canada’s best-known broadcast executives and “industry trailblazer”, Trina McQueen, will be awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Banff Television Festival on June 8, 2009.
The Lifetime Achievement Award acknowledges outstanding and unique contributions to the broadcasting industry throughout an individual’s career. McQueen’s career of achievements extends to both private and public television as president and COO of CTV, founding president of the Discovery Channel Canada, and head of news, current affairs and Newsworld at CBC.
McQueen is currently on the board of the CBC and is an adjunct professor of broadcast management at the Schulich School…
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TORONTO – CBC union Canadian Media Guild said today that 350 jobs are to be cut in French and English services outside of Quebec.
Of these, 100 are due to non-renewal of contract employees, 158 are due to layoffs of permanent employees, and 19 are vacant jobs being abolished. In addition, 73 employees are taking retirement incentives.
The cuts look to be smaller than the Corp predicted earlier this year.
“We are losing very experienced people who have devoted years to the CBC and we’re also losing people who were beginning what should have been long and bright careers…
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TORONTO – nextMEDIA Banff and the 30th edition of the Banff World Television Festival both begin next week at the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel – and Cartt.ca will be there too.
New this year is the Telefilm Canada TV 360 program, established to provide cross-platform development opportunities for Canadian producers, writers and directors to successfully pitch and market projects to Canadian and international broadcasters and funders. Participants will also receive coaching on social media, mobile, gaming, design and technology to help steer the projects from TV series to the dot-com world.
Organizers have also announced the nominees for the interactive…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has suspended its public hearing into CBC’s re-branding of its specialty channel ‘Country Canada’ to ‘bold’, after the public broadcaster acknowledged that bold’s programming may, in fact, be inconsistent with its nature of service condition of licence.
The hearing, scheduled for June 2, was to determine whether the way that CBC re-branded the channel had negatively impacted “the integrity of the licensing process”. CBC re-launched its category 1 specialty Country Canada as bold on March 27 2008, after telling the Commission that the change could be done without amending the nature of service of Country…
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Don’t miss your chance to register for the 2009 Canadian Telecom Summit, only a few weeks away.
Held June 15 – 17 in Toronto, the event promises to cover all segments of the Canadian telecommunications and IT industries, and bring together leaders from all constituencies – service providers, manufacturers, applications providers, policy makers and regulators.
Some of the confirmed participants to date are Mike Lazaridis, president and co-CEO of Research In Motion, Nadir Mohamed, president and CEO of Rogers Communications, CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein, and Richard Stursberg, executive vice president of English Services for CBC.
Sessions include social networking; new…
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ONE OF THE FORMER rules of thumb when it comes to opinionating was: Never Use “I”.
Saying “I think” or “I believe” in a column is redundant and lazy. To paraphrase what more than one editor has said in my presence over the years: “Readers already know it’s what you think, your name’s at the top of the piece. Be more creative in how you write.”
So, with apologies to all of my former bosses, I must say: I have a headache. I’ve grown just a little weary of thinking about the so-called crisis in conventional television. And judging…
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