FOR SEVERAL YEARS, CANADA’S TV launch season has followed a logical path, with the odd new bit added here or there to spice up the mix. This year, the industry expected broadcasters to introduce new shows, dangle tasty bits of multi-platform potential, parade the talent, wow the buyers and let the 2006 upfront selling frenzy begin.
Observers could then cue the standard questions: will Global build its list of Top-20 gains at CTV’s expense? Will CBC’s new-look programming represent an alternative or even an addition to hockey as a must-buy? Will specialties and digi-channels continue to grow? And will…
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OTTAWA – Given the impending TV Policy Review and broadcast technology report the CRTC must pen for the Heritage Minister, the CRTC made official Monday what it had told the CBC months ago – it would get an administrative license renewal until these things are sorted out.
The CBC’s TV licenses were renewed until August 31, 2008.
www.crtc.gc.ca
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OTTAWA – As everyone knows, teenagers have dramatically reduced their radio listening over the past several years.
However, according to 2005 data released by Statistics Canada today, the drop appears to have flattened.
Among the various groups based on age and sex, teenage males aged 12 to 17 reduced their listening time the most during the past five years. In the fall of 2005, they reported listening for an average of 8.6 hours per week, down from 10.1 hours per week in 2001.
However, their listening time appears to have stabilized in the past three years as that 8.6 figure…
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BOSTON – "Clearly, I was wrong," David Purdy told CTAM Summit delegates today.
The Rogers Cable vice-president and general manager of television was talking about his (formerly) held opinion that making sports available on demand wouldn’t work – that viewers wouldn’t want to see games and events hours or days after they happened.
And then the number of users of the MSO’s Winter Olympics on CBC on demand blew away even the most optimistic usage projections. The Rogers on demand project won first place in the free division in CTAM’s On Demand Case Study competition and Purdy presented the…
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OTTAWA – Bell Globemedia’s $1.7 billion offer to purchase CHUM Ltd. last Wednesday is sounding some alarm bells among producers and journalists, especially given CHUM’s layoff of 281 people also announced the same day.
Groups representing producers and journalists – and even one Toronto city council hopeful who was once a Citytv talking head – have sounded notes of caution but – perhaps encouraging for BGM – they have not come out against the deal.
"This is a major transaction which could signal a major restructuring of the Canadian broadcasting environment," said Guy Mayson, president and CEO,…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC today announced it’s allowing RDI to increase its hourly advertising by up to 50%, amending its licence from a former maximum of eight minutes per hour, to a new maximum of 12 minutes.
The CBC applied for the RDI change, saying it would give the French-language information channel the same maximum as its English-language Newsworld service. The CBC also pointed out that most specialty channels can air up to 12 minutes of ads in each clock hour.
The proposal was opposed by private broadcasters, including TVA, Astral, Cogeco Radio-Télévision, and Corus, who were upset that…
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TORONTO – A program to teach business skills to those working in film and television will be piloted over the next few years.
The Business Learning Initiative will be the first-ever standardized business training certificate program for professionals in the industry. It’s being created by Women in Film and Television—Toronto (WIFT-T) with support from the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities.
Falling under WIFT-T’s training branch, The Centre for Media Professionals, the initiative will teach the business skills needed to compete in the global entertainment field.
The program is “a significant leap forward,” said Sue Sheridan, WIFT-T Interim…
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TORONTO and NEW DELHI – After 31 years at CBC, veteran journalist Paul Workman has joined CTV News.
He will be the Canadian network’s South Asia Bureau Chief based in New Delhi, India. The announcement was made today by Robert Hurst, president of CTV News. Workman will join foreign correspondent Matt McClure in covering South Asia. The two will rotate between New Delhi and Kandahar and lead CTV News’ expanded coverage in the region with a special emphasis on the ongoing efforts of the Canadian troops in Afghanistan.
"Paul is recognized as one of the world’s best foreign correspondents….
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OTTAWA – The CBC program Radio Active did not breach the CRTC’s radio regulations, the Commission announced today.
Between May 2003 and November 2005, the Commission received six letters of complaint from one individual, James Darwish, alleging that a radio interview broadcast on 23 October 2002 by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), as a segment of the afternoon daily public affairs radio program Radio Active on CBX Edmonton, contained abusive comment and false and misleading information, contrary to the prohibitions contained in section 3 of the Radio Regulations, 1986 (the Regulations)," says Monday’s CRTC release.
The subject of the…
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TORONTO – George Stroumboulopoulos will be the one pre-empting Peter Mansbridge, as the veteran Canadian broadcaster and music expert will host the new American reality program The One: Making a Music Star on both ABC and CBC beginning next week.
The series will follow eleven contestants attending a state-of-the-art music academy in Los Angeles as they compete for a major recording contract. It premieres live July 18 at 9 p.m. on ABC and CBC Television with the live results show airing the following night, July 19 at 8 p.m. on ABC and CBC Television.
This is the show pre-empting…
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