NORTH BAY – Canada’s first annual Rural & Remote Broadband Conference has announced additional rural community influencers who will address conference attendees on November 12-14.
Caledon Mayor Allan Thompson, chair of the Rural Ontario Municipalities Association (ROMA) will tell delegates why he believes broadband should be considered an essential service, an idea for which he made headlines.
The first Q&A session will be led by Melanie Pilon, Dubreuilville Ontario’s economic development officer. She is also co-chair of the Northeastern Superior Region Broadband Network (NSRBN) – a group of five First Nations and five municipalities who have come…
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Party would cap wireless prices, too
By Christopher Guly
OTTAWA – Were she to become Canada’s next prime minister, Green Party leader Elizabeth May told Cartt.ca she would “take on Facebook and Google because they’re a threat to Canadian journalism and are sucking out revenues.”
“They’re calling themselves platforms and not wanting to be called publishers, but clearly they’re publishing,” she added.
As part of its 2019 election platform unveiled on Monday, the Greens would reform Canadian anti-trust laws “to enable the break-up of media conglomerates,” and “close the loophole that exempts social media platforms from collecting taxes on…
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KELOWNA — The Canadian Communication Systems Alliance opened its 2019 Connect conference on Monday afternoon by presenting its 2019 Tuned-In Canada awards.
Now in its sixth year, the awards are a nationwide competition highlighting the excellent work performed by CCSA members — independent, local providers of internet, television and telephone services across Canada.
Winners in each category were determined in two ways: 1) by the most votes/highest score received, and 2) by the most votes/highest score received per capita subscribers. Since CCSA is made up of various sized members, this system levels the playing field for all.
Votes for the three public…
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HALIFAX — Attendees of FIN Partners, Canada’s leading international co-production/co-financing market, were treated to some inspiring keynotes and discussions at the industry partnership event held last week in Halifax.
Coinciding with the beginning of the FIN Atlantic International Film Festival, happening this week in Halifax, FIN Partners occurred September 13-14 and featured keynote speakers Finola Dwyer of Wildgaze Films, the Oscar-nominated producer of Brooklyn and An Education, and Mark Slone, president of Pacific Northwest Pictures.
FIN Partners was attended by 154 delegates who came to Halifax in the hopes of securing financing for projects in development and to forge new co-production…
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TORONTO — Blue Ant Studios is bolstering its push into the unscripted programming market with the appointment of Los Angeles-based Jennifer Harkness (pictured) to the newly created role of senior vice-president of unscripted content.
Harkness’s key focus will be to develop, sell and produce unscripted series for the US and global markets, Blue Ant said in a news release Monday announcing Harkness’s appointment, which takes effect immediately.
“Bringing on board an executive of Jennifer’s calibre reflects our commitment to creating and selling premium unscripted programming for the US market and abroad,” said Sam Sniderman, executive vice-president of global production for…
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TORONTO – The Canadian Media Producers Association announced it has promoted Liz Shorten to the newly created position of Chief Operating Officer.
In this role, she will lead staff and oversee organizational operations across the association’s offices in Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver, and work to implement the CMPA’s corporate strategic plan, says the association. She was most recently SVP operations and member services at the CMPA’s B.C. producers branch.
“For many years, Liz has been an extremely effective leader for the CMPA in B.C., and has gone above and beyond to execute the mandate of the CMPA’s B.C. producers branch,”…
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Google, Facebook, Twitter also join BBC-led Trusted News Charter
TORONTO — CBC/Radio-Canada says it is joining forces with other media partners to fight the global spread of disinformation. Canada’s national public broadcaster announced Monday it has joined the Trusted News Charter, a BBC-led initiative to strengthen measures to protect audiences from disinformation.
The charter is the result of the Trusted News Summit, convened earlier this summer by the BBC, and includes a commitment to collaborate on source authentication, civic information, media education, and other responses to disinformation, CBC/Radio-Canada said in a news release announcing its participation in the Trusted News…
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Eight new shows to premiere across several platforms
VANCOUVER — Thunderbird Entertainment Group announced Monday its largest fall lineup in company history, with a record-breaking eight Thunderbird productions set to premiere across several different platforms, as a result of deals with streaming companies such as Netflix and Disney+, as well as ongoing partnerships with NBC Universal, Nickelodeon, PBS/WGBH, Bell Media’s Discovery, Corus Entertainment and the CBC.
Thunderbird said in a news release its fall lineup demonstrates the multiplatform entertainment company’s extraordinary growth, highlighting the first phase of a strategic global development plan initiated 18 months ago.
As part of its fall…
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TORONTO – The Canadian Film Centre (CFC) and Bell Media announced this week one of Canada’s top drama showrunners, Bruce Smith, will be the executive producer in residence of the 2019 Bell Media Prime Time TV Program.
From September to December 2019, Smith will lead the story room as well as the six television writers selected to participate in this year’s program as they work together to develop Smith’s original series.
“Bruce Smith is one of Canada’s preeminent showrunners and an award-winning writer of immeasurable talent,” said Tom Hastings, director, original programming, Bell Media, in the press release. “A passionate…
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TORONTO – The Media Technology Monitor and MTM JR. this week released a new report that shows while online video consumption continues to grow, over-the-top video fans still love their linear TV, too.
While Netflix's growth has slowed for the first time, its competitors have experienced double-digit growth over the past season.
The key findings its latest Over-the-Top reports (which is a sampling of Canadians 2+) include:
Among Anglophones households, Netflix is still the most popular OTT service by a large margin. In contrast to Netflix, competing services such as Crave and Amazon Prime Video have both seen a significant increase in…
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