GATINEAU – “The CTF is gratified that the great majority of interveners strongly support the Canadian Television Fund and emphasize that one of the Fund’s greatest strengths is its adaptability to new challenges faced by the industry,” said Douglas Barrett, chairman of the board of the Canadian Television Fund, in closing the week-long hearing on the future of the fund today.
“When considering changes to the industry’s funding system, the most critical objective is ensuring that, given that the competing demands of stakeholders in the production, broadcast, and distribution system, the interests of the Canadian public, including both taxpayers…
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TORONTO – CBC’s day-long celebration of our national game this Saturday will be a bit more inclusive this year as select games will be made available online in Mandarin, Hindi and Cantonese at cbcsports.ca.
CBC’s eighth annual Hockey Day In Canada gets underway on Saturday, Feb. 9, at 12 noon ET / 11 a.m. CT, as Ron MacLean goes rinkside, live from the Winkler Recreation Complex in Winkler, Man. Also in Winkler: Don Cherry, Cassie Campbell, Scott Morrison and Dick Irvin, while CBC personalities report from satellite locations across the country, including Duncan, B.C.; Black Diamond, Alta.; Cochrane, Ont.;…
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REGULATION IS GOOD. Necessary even. And regulation is already all around us and has been forever, not just enabling, but driving commerce and business success, says Bill Roberts, president and CEO of S-Vox, the company which owns and runs VisionTV, One: The Body, Mind & Spirit Channel and The Christian Channel.
Such statements are an outright abomination to the deregulation set in the electronic media industry in Canada (I’m looking at you, cable operators and other BDUs…), but Roberts makes a case that not only does the broadcast and cable industry still require regulation, but that the companies already…
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GATINEAU – The Canadian Television Fund should be split in two: one with public money to meet government policy objectives, and the other with private money to support hit shows, Rogers Communications told the CRTC on Tuesday morning.
During day two of the week-long hearing into the CTF’s revenue and governance models, executives told commissioners that increasingly the CTF—originally the Cable Production Fund supported entirely by the cable industry—“is viewed as a public policy instrument for the Canadian government” instead of a way to encourage broadcasters to air popular shows, said Rogers’ Vice Chairman Phil Lind.
To qualify for…
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TORONTO – Bell Canada today announced a new agreement with CBC/Radio-Canada to deliver the broadcaster’s coverage of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Summer Games to Bell mobile phone, digital satellite television and high-speed Internet customers across Canada.
Bell and CBC had a similar deal during the Torino Olympics of 2006.
As the official Canadian broadcaster of the Beijing Games, CBC/Radio-Canada will offer extensive and in-depth Olympic coverage, which will be made available to Bell customers across Canada in forms ranging from video streaming on mobile phones to full high definition television feeds of specific sports during the Games.
"This agreement…
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TORONTO – Barbara Williams, Canwest Broadcasting’s executive vice-president, content, made official her new direct reports last week, pulling together the assets of both Global Television and the newly acquired Alliance Atlantis assets.
“What results from the combination of these two teams is that Canwest Broadcasting now has the top talent in every genre and on every platform – lifestyle, comedy, hard news, drama, documentary, magazine, and all the hybrids in between,” said Williams, in a release today. “I am so impressed with the expertise and the experience of each and every person, and am truly excited about the potential…
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HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of new dollars could pour into the Canadian television system under a new fee-for-carriage plan proposed by Canada’s two main private broadcast networks.
Rivals CTVglobemedia and Canwest made a little history Friday by filing a joint submission to the CRTC’s review of its policies governing broadcast distribution undertakings (cable and satellite companies) and specialty services. Those hearings are set to begin April 7th.
Saying conventional television – thanks to the ever-increasing rate of audience fragmentation driven by specialty services and new media outlets – is in “crisis”, the broadcasters want the Commission to add a subscriber…
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TORONTO – CBC/Radio-Canada earlier this week reached an agreement to acquire a new central audio router and control system for all CBC/Radio-Canada radio production and distribution in Montreal and other areas from Lawo.
The upgrade begins in January 2008, with an intended on-air deployment by May 2008. Subsequently, the system will expand to four regional stations that will be integrated into the system by October 2008, with more stations integrating after this. The yearlong, multistage deployment is targeted for completion in December 2008.
The Lawo-designed Dual Self-Healing Star (DSHS) system architecture for CBC/Radio-Canada is built around two Lawo Nova 73…
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TORONTO – Ah, the on demand age is truly a golden age for consumers – where we can all get whatever we want, when we want it, wherever we are, on whatever device – for free or as close to free as possible.
The sense that broadcasters actually hate all that freedom was refreshing to hear spoken out loud at this week’s Canadian Digital Broadcasting Summit. The CBC’s Steve Billinger, while accepting this new paradigm is the way it is and there’s no going back, admitted broadcasters are being dragged kicking and screaming into the new reality.
“We clearly…
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OTTAWA – The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. on Monday released a letter it sent to the Conservative Party, indicating that its reporter Krista Erickson did provide an opposition party member with questions prior to the Ethics Committee hearing in December on the Mulroney/Schreiber affair.
As a result, Erickson has been removed from the story and reassigned to the public broadcaster’s Toronto offices, effective today.
In the letter to Conservative Party director of political operations, Doug Finley, a CBC executive writes that an investigation by CBC News senior management found there “was no bias in related news coverage.”
The publisher of…
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