Brad Danks | CEO, OUTtv Media Global
Part 7 – CARTT Series: Beyond the Walled Garden
Read – Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7
At this year’s European Film Market in Berlin, a high-level panel titled “Balancing Cultural Diversity, Artistic Freedom and Competitiveness in the Platform Era” felt like a genuine policy turning point. European Parliament First Vice-President Sabine Verheyen summed up the moment: “If a handful of players decide which stories are visible, whose voices are amplified, and which languages are profitable, cultural diversity is no longer guaranteed,…
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CBC announced last week it will increase its investment in documentaries by $7 million and launch a free ad-supported streaming (FAST) channel dedicated to documentary programming this fall.
CBC said the investment will support a range of documentary formats, including an increased number of feature-length films.
“This funding will create more opportunities for a diverse range of storytellers at all levels, from emerging digital creators to established filmmakers, by providing dedicated pathways and new initiatives designed to support the next generation of talent,” CBC said in a press release. More details will be announced at the Banff World…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Culture Minister Marc Miller said Thursday that the $6 billion he said was the projected value of a prospective tax credit for broadcasting news was an “error.”
“On Tuesday, I conflated the projected Film & Video Tax Credits over the next 6 years with the Journalism Tax Credit for the audiovisual news sector, for which we announced consultations in the Spring Update and which has yet to be quantified,” Miller said on X this afternoon. “This error is entirely mine.”
The correction appears to address the confusion about how the minister came up with the figure,…
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Editor’s note: The minister took to X on May 7, 2026 to say the $6B was an “error.”
By Ahmad Hathout
Culture Minister Marc Miller told the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage Tuesday that the implementation of a federal tax credit for broadcasting news could be worth as much as $6 billion.
The federal government’s spring economic update, released last week, includes a promise to hold a public consultation on expanding the Canadian Journalism Labour Tax Credit – currently reserved for written news – to the broadcasting sector.
“For me, it’s not a question of if, but…
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Has been a central request of broadcast industry for years
By Ahmad Hathout
The federal government announced Tuesday that it will consult on extending the Canadian journalism labour tax credit to radio and broadcast news production.
The incentive program allows eligible newsrooms to claim a 35 per cent refundable credit on up to $85,000 in labour costs per employee per year for a maximum credit of nearly $30,000 per employee. The credit, which was introduced by the Liberal government in 2019, was increased 10 per cent in the spring of 2024 and is expected to return to 25 per cent for…
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CBC and BBC Northern Ireland last week announced the greenlight of a new original comedy series, Committed, starring Dustin Milligan (Schitt’s Creek, Hot Frosty) and Diona Doherty (Derry Girls, Blue Lights).
Coproduced by Toronto-based Cameron Pictures and Belfast-based Fabel Productions, Committed is a 10-episode, half-hour romantic comedy that “follows Canadian Peter Hooley (Milligan), a recently divorced accountant, who falls head over heels for Northern Ireland woman Julie Johnston (Doherty) after a whirlwind weekend in Toronto, and crosses the Atlantic to declare his love—only to discover he’s landed in an old-fashioned and eccentric rural Northern Ireland village that’s nothing like…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC ruled Thursday that Rogers does not need to continue putting money into the Shaw Rocket Fund past August 2025, rejecting the fund’s request to extend that date by at least a year.
The Certified Independent Product Fund (CIPF), which bankrolls children’s programming, had asked the CRTC last summer to stop Rogers from pulling the plug on the funding, which was a condition of its acquisition of Shaw. The fund argued that the CRTC’s 2023 renewal of Rogers’s licence to August 31, 2026 is just an extension of the current licence term, which means…
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CBC on Tuesday announced a new spring/summer lineup of original podcasts, including new investigations in its Uncover and Understood series as well as a light-hearted debate podcast hosted by musician Donovan Woods and Tom Power of CBC Radio’s Q.
Launching April 20, The Big Five (10 episodes) features Woods and Power sitting down with a celebrity guest to debate the “big” five of any given category, like ways to cook a potato, types of hats, guys named Paul, slang terms for “butt”, cartoon dogs, and so on. Guests this season include musician and writer Vivek Shraya, filmmaker Jordan Canning, singer-songwriter William…
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By Connie Thiessen
The National Film Board (NFB) and CBC/Radio-Canada have announced a new era of collaboration with the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that will see the two public media institutions move away from project-by-project cooperation toward a more coordinated, long-term approach.
The agreement establishes a framework for “sustained collaboration” across documentary production and programming, archives, new technologies, educational offerings and audience engagement, “identifying new ways of better working together in a rapidly evolving cultural landscape.”
The MOU includes exploring opportunities for CBC/Radio-Canada to offer more NFB documentaries on its channels and platforms, including the potential for new co-productions;…
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Veteran CBC reporter and sports broadcaster Colleen Jones will be posthumously inducted into the CBC News Hall of Fame this spring, CBC News announced Tuesday.
A world champion curler, Jones died in November at the age of 65 after a three-year battle with cancer.
With a career at CBC spanning nearly 40 years across news and sports, Jones was known for her coverage of her home province of Nova Scotia and the sport of curling. She retired from CBC in April 2023.
“Colleen brought the same boundless energy, enthusiasm, discipline and…
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