TORONTO – "Work. Live. Play. – The Infinite Potential of Wireless", is the theme of the 2006 Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association annual conference.
The gathering, backed by major sponsors Bell Canada, Rogers, Telus and Nortel, will explore new business opportunities, converging technologies and life beyond 3G.
Set for May 16 and 17, 2006 at the Hilton Toronto Airport, the two-day symposium will feature more than 65 industry experts, business leaders and government officials in a series of panel discussions and workshops centred around three main tracks:
* Freedom to the Worker – Wireless Solutions for Business * Living in…
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OTTAWA – Those expecting the first Conservative budget in 14 years to throw any more money at the Canadian culture sector came away from today’s federal budget disappointed.
Then again, nothing was taken away, either.
Just a few lines of the budget made mention of culture, when the government committed $50 million more over two years to the Canada Council.
It was silent on Telefilm, the Canadian Television Fund and the CBC, for example.
ACTRA, the performers union, offered up typical criticism, calling it a "different cast, same script," in its press release.
"Our culture defines us as an…
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NEW YORK – In its quarterly report filed Tuesday, American company Sirius Satellite Radio referred to its Canadian operations in a single line, which read: "For the first quarter of 2006, the company recorded ($4.4) million for its share of SIRIUS Canada, Inc.’s net loss."
That’s in U.S. bucks and for the January to March 2006 time frame. Given the 20%-40%-40% ownership structure (Sirius-CBC-Standard Broadcasting) of the Canadian company, that puts Sirius Canada’s Q1 ’06 losses at US$22 million or so – with CBC and Standard on the hook for US$8.8 million each.
While Sirius Canada is a private…
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WINNIPEG – The Radio-Television News Directors Association of Canada has honoured the best in electronic journalism in the Prairie region in 2005. The coveted RTNDA Awards were presented at the Association’s annual Prairie Regional Professional Development Seminar in Winnipeg, last weekend.
The 2005 TELEVISION winners are: Bert Cannings Award – Best Newscast
§ CBC North in Yellowknife for CBC News: Northbeat – (Small Market) § CTV Regina for CTV News Six O’Clock Report – (Medium Market) § CTV Winnipeg for CTV News @ 6:00 PM – (Large Market)
Charlie Edwards Award – Spot News
§ CTV Calgary for River…
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OTTAWA – With new finance minister Jim Flaherty promising a GST cut – and perhaps a personal income tax cut – to go along with some spending cutbacks, the gossip mill in Ottawa is spinning wildly this week among those in the culture industries.
According to a few reports, the budget will likely curtail government spending on culture, perhaps changing the funding picture for Canadian TV production and the CBC, for example.
Surf back to cartt.ca later today and on Wednesday as we look at how the Federal Budget, which will be released at 4 p.m. this afternoon, will…
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TORONTO – Ray Carnovale (pictured), vice-president and CTO for CBC/Radio-Canada, has been named president of the North American Broadcasters Association. He takes on the role from Peter Smith, v-p, advanced technology, NBC Universal, who was elected to serve as one of two v-ps for NABA. Leonardo Ramos, director, high technology projects for Televisa was re-elected for another term as veep.
The NABA board confirmed the new executive at their Board meeting on April 4.
The North American Broadcasters Association (NABA) is a non-profit union of broadcasting organizations throughout North America "committed to advancing the interests of…
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OTTAWA – On Wednesday, the CRTC said Canadian cable companies should be allowed eliminate most of the radio stations they currently carry on their systems.
Section 22 of the Broadcasting Distribution Regulations says that Class 1 and 2 cable companies must offer all local radio signals over their cable systems to subscribers. Trouble is, said the cable industry in its CRTC filing last year, hardly anyone listens to the radio on cable.
The now-defunct Canadian Cable Telecommunications Association told the CRTC it needed the additional capacity to add channels, specifically, HDTV services, as reported by www.cartt.ca.
The Canadian Association…
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TORONTO – A total of 79 employees who worked on CBC set design, studio and remote production, post-production, and network presentation got layoff notices this morning, a CBC spokesperson told www.cartt.ca.
CBC was one of very few remaining broadcasters with an in-house set building crew and these functions will now be contracted out or handled by independent producers.
In addition, 20 more positions will not be filled.
A note to staff from executive director of regional programming and television production and resources, Fred Mattocks, and Doug Broadfoot, director, Toronto Production Centre, said the move is part of a broader…
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TORONTO – Mark Starowicz has been appointed to the new position of executive director of documentary programming for CBC Television, the Corp announced today. In his new role, Starowicz (left), an acclaimed documentarian (he made Canada: A People’s History) will have overall responsibility for the development, commissioning, production and co-production of documentary programming, including science programming. CBC Television will continue to offer a mix of independent and in-house documentaries on all of its platforms.
“We have seen in recent years an exponential growth of interest in documentary and factual programming among television audiences,” said Richard Stursberg, executive…
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TORONTO – Global Television’s Peter Kent will be presented with the Radio-Television News Directors Association Canada president’s award at the group’s annual gathering in June in St. John’s, NL.
The deputy editor of Global Television News, Kent began his broadcast career in the 1960’s in talk radio in Vancouver. Soon he moved to television as a foreign correspondent for CBC, CTV and NBC. He has reported on major world events including the evacuation of Saigon and the fall of the Berlin Wall and has been on assignments that took him to Uganda, Cambodia and Vietnam.
He also anchored CBC’s…
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