OTTAWA – CTVglobemedia may have declined all comment today on the CRTC’s decision to approve its takeover of Chum Limited – without CHUM’s key TV assets, the Citytv stations in Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver – but some observers and commissioners have said much of what CTV CEO Ivan Fecan and colleagues must be thinking.
As first reported on cartt.ca yesterday, the regulator approved the transfer of effective control of CHUM Ltd. to CTVglobemedia Inc., but the collection of new assets CTV would obtain is significantly different than what it proposed in its application. (With the public hearings…
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HALIFAX – RTNDA Canada presentedits easternmost awards this weekend at the Association’s annual Atlantic Regional Professional Development Seminar in Halifax.
This year RTNDA Canada created five new award categories to recognize outstanding videography, use of sound, new media, information programming and diversity. The RTNDA "Diversity Tool Kit" which was released across the country in January offers practical solutions to bring diversity to our stories and to our newsrooms.
To acknowledge those accomplishments RTNDA created a new Diversity Award. Congratulations to CBC Radio Halifax for winning the inaugural award in the Atlantic region. Five television and eight radio stations received…
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TORONTO – The National Film Board’s website www.nfb.ca/filmmakerinresidence has received the Canadian New Media Award for excellence in news and information. It beat out competition that included the Ottawa Citizen’s Tracks to Freedom (www.ottawacitizen.com/features/freedom) and CBC.ca/news.
The Filmmaker-in-Residence website consists of an online documentary that fuses full-screen video, photos, audio and text-based narrative to tell the story of the National Film Board of Canada’s residence project.
Built by Subject Matter, www.nfb.ca/filmmakerinresidence went live during the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam in fall 2006.
The NFB program allows citizens to use their art for social change. The program’s pilot project…
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TORONTO – A historical mini-series about the life of Henry VIII called The Tudors was among the new programming, much of which was reality TV, unveiled this week by CBC Television for fall 2007.
Other new homegrown fare coming to the CBC’s airwaves:
• The reality TV show No Opportunity Wasted (NOW), which gives Canadians the chance to try something they’ve always wanted to do. It is hosted by The Amazing Race’s Phil Keoghan. • Heartland, a family drama set in the Alberta Rockies. • Richler’s St. Urbain’s Horseman, a TV mini-series based on a book by Mordecai Richler…
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OTTAWA – The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. as a public broadcaster should foster democracy, and needs stable long-term funding to operate effectively, says new CBC board chairman Timothy Casgrain.
Appearing Tuesday before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, Casgrain told the committee though that CBC Television, unlike public radio, shouldn’t be totally free of advertising.
“CBC Radio doesn’t compete with Hollywood and CSI and Lost, and you the viewers make that choice,” he said. “CTV and Global are a rebroadcast of U.S. shows with different commercials – that’s what the CBC is up against. Should we come to the House…
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TORONTO – CanWest Media Works trumpeted the fact it had more shows in the top 10 than it did a year ago in a media release Wednesday. But according to Global’s figures, rival private broadcaster CTV still leads in the three key markets of Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary. And it was the CBC – not Global – that showed the most improvement in Vancouver and Calgary.
In spring 2006 in the Toronto market, CTV had eight of the top-10 shows, Global two and the CBC none. This spring, Global gained one top 10 show for a total of three,…
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TORONTO – Tom Hastings has been hired as executive in charge of production for TV Drama, Arts & Entertainment at the CBC. He started last week.
He comes to the CBC from Alliance Atlantis and has over 11 years of television and documentary production behind him. At AA, Hastings was responsible for a number of programs on both HGTV and the Food Network. In addition to managing over 15 series, he "played a major role in shifting both networks toward more documentary-based formats," says the CBC release.
Previous to his time at these channels, Hastings worked at National Geographic…
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ST. JOHN’s – The CBC plan to expand its supper hour news programs from 30 to 60 minutes without increasing local news budgets is a bad idea, says TV watchdog group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting.
"We know from the St. John’s experience that you can’t produce a 60 minute news program that people will want to watch on a 30 minute budget. CBC management in Toronto should know this well," said Noreen Golfman, chair of Friends’ Steering Committee, in a press release today.
The CBC regional TV news show in St. John’s was expanded from 30 to 60 minutes in…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The folks at MaxTrax and Galaxie may be wondering about their futures on Rogers Cable today.
The CRTC granted a pay audio license to Rogers Communications this morning. The company plans to launch a 30-channel service of music and spoken word programming. Currently, CBC-owned Galaxie and Corus Entertainment-owned MaxTrax are both carried by Rogers, which hasn’t said when or how it will launch its own service.
The regs require that any carrier which owns a pay audio license must also carry a non-affiliated service meaning that when Rogers launches, it only has to carry one of Galaxie…
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OTTAWA – "It’s a missed opportunity," says Guy Mayson, summing up the Canadian Film and Television Production Association’s overall reaction to the CRTC’s new over-the-air TV policy.
Speaking to Cartt.ca from the streets of Cannes, France, where he’s attending the film festival, the CFTPA president explained that while the policy shows the CRTC has noted producer concerns about the need to increase broadcaster investment in original, Canadian, priority programming, it delayed taking action.
“We’re a little disappointed that the Commission didn’t act” to require conventional TV broadcasters to meet minimum program expenditures and to schedule more of this programming…
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