BANFF – Mountains, cocktails, double espressos and screenings with senators and stars, sure. But the Banff World Television Festival, as with almost every major international entertainment confab, is all about l’argent. Dollars for deals and creators hopes running as high as the bar bills at the Banff Springs Hotel.
The biggest rightnow payoff for those high hopes is the CTV Documart pitch session where a total of $100,000 worth of program development cheques is handed out to three teams of documentary pitchers. Walking away with the top prize of $50,000 Wednesday morning was Brett Gaylor, a producer at Montreal’s…
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OTTAWA – Radio-Canada TV president Daniel Gourd has announced he will retire when he=is contract is up this November.
"When Daniel Gourd accepted the position of executive vice-president of Télévision de Radio-Canada, he indicated to me that it was unlikely he would be seeking a second term," said CBC president and CEO Robert Rabinovitch. "Although I was expecting this, it is still a major loss to the organization. Daniel is a visionary leader and staunch defender of the role of public television.
“The impact he has had since being promoted to executive vice-president nearly three years ago is nothing…
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BANFF – CBC Television has joined Telefilm Canada in a $2 million pilot project to help get feature documentaries in Canadian theatres and on Canadian television.
CBC and Telefilm announced the project at the Banff World Television Festival this week.
For years, feature docs could not be funded through Telefilm’s Canada Feature Film Fund and were hard to program on TV because they need more than the usual one-hour slot.
The pilot project, responding in part to the recent box office success of such doc-style movies as The Corporation, Fahrenheit 9/11, Super Size Me and Bowling for Columbine, aims…
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TORONTO – If diversity was the overriding theme for Friday at the RTNDA annual conference, Saturday’s was enterprise reporting.
The very informative opening Saturday session at the Radio and Television News Directors’ Association annual conference at the Eaton Centre Marriot focused on enterprise reporting – those original ideas that reporters or producers think up which develop into stories only their station will then have.
Enterprise reporting has long been considered a risky proposition because so-called “agenda items” mostly prevent newsrooms from doing as much of it as they would like. It’s costly, the stories might not pan out and…
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BANFF – The federal government is promising better governance and more stable funding for the Canadian Television Fund and has begun addressing those needs with an announcement of $100 million worth of support to the CTF for 2006-07.
Heritage Minister Liza Frulla announced the news as part of a speedy visit to the Banff World Television Festival today.
In a speech moved back one day to Sunday, to allow the politician to be in parliament for Monday morning (never know when those pesky votes might happen…), Frulla hit four main points. First, an oft-heard pledge to secure stable funding…
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TORONTO – The Radio-Television News Directors Association of Canada Central region award-winners were announced yesterday at the association’s national conference in Toronto.
The 2004 TELEVISION winners are:
Bert Cannings Award – Best Newscast THE NEW VR – Barrie, ON – "VR News Live@6" (Medium Market) CFTO – TV, Toronto – Toronto, ON – "CFTO News at 6" (Large Market) An Honourable Mention in this category goes to CFCF News – Montreal, QC – "Death on the 20 – CFCF News at 6"
Charlie Edwards Award – Spot News CHEX Television – Peterborough, ON – "The Flood"
Dan McArthur Award…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC will release its decision on subscription radio on June 16th at 4 p.m.
Applicants include two satellite radio companies. One is U.S. company XM Satellite led by Canadian entrepreneur John Bitove. The XM Canada group also includes investor Corus Radio and others such as Golden West and Rawlco Radio. The other satellite application is SIRIUS Satellite Radio with Canadian partners Standard Radio and the CBC.
CHUM Limited, with Astral Media as a minority partner, have applied for a digital terrestrial subscription radio license.
www.crtc.gc.ca
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TORONTO – The Radio-Television News Directors Association of Canada honoured some excellent television and radio journalism today as the association gave out its annual awards in Toronto today for TV and radio news.
The 2004 national television winners are: Bert Cannings Award – Best Newscast CHAT-TV – Redcliffe, AB – "Newswatch" (Small Market) CTV Regina – Regina, SK – "CTV News Six O’clock Report" (Medium Market) CFTO-TV, Toronto – Toronto, ON – "CFTO News at 6" (Large Market)
Charlie Edwards Award – Spot News ATV News – Halifax, NS – "White Juan" CHEX Television – Peterborough, ON – "The…
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TORONTO – CBC Radio One 99.1 is the latest Canadian radio station to compress its programming into a podcast.
The popular Toronto morning show, Metro Morning, will be available to a far wider audience starting June 13th. The podcast pilot will brings listeners highlights of Metro Morning.
CHUM Radio and Corus Radio are also offering podcasts to its listeners via its web sites (CHUM has bites – or bytes – of Roger, Rick and Marilyn, Corus has The Ongoing History of New Music and Legends of Classic Rock).
CBC Radio listeners will be able to grab up-to-date local stories…
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TORONTO – Look for what’s likely to be a sweeping overhaul of the www.cbc.ca web portal in the coming months.
CBC announced this week that Jonathan Dube, an award-winning journalist and leader in the online news industry, is taking on the role of editorial director for CBC.ca, responsible for all CBC.ca’s editorial programming, including news, arts and sports sections. He joins the company in July.
Dube comes to CBC from Seattle, where he is currently managing producer of MSNBC.com. He is also a columnist with the Poynter Institute in Florida; a board member of the Online News Association; and…
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