TORONTO – The Canadian film, television and print production industry “is in a death spiral” that only government action can halt, several experts agreed at a digital media conference held Saturday in Toronto.
The former Harper government, current Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly, the CRTC and private broadcasters came in for heated criticism for failing to give content producers the tools to fight the falling advertising which print publications have been seeing – and the flight of viewers from conventional television to Netflix, Facebook, Google and others.
There were no shortage of solutions offered, but speakers on a film and TV panel…
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THERE WAS NO PROUDER champion of Canadian television, Canadian creativity, and all the people working in it than Jay Switzer – and the industry is poorer today without him in it.
Switzer, 61, former CEO of CHUM Limited, founder of movie service Hollywood Suite and launcher of an untold number of careers, died Monday surrounded by family after a several months long bout with brain cancer.
He really was born to be in TV. Jay’s late mom Phyllis was a journalist who covered the Canadian broadcasting industry and then later was a co-founder of CityTV, while his late dad Israel (“Sruki”)…
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IF YOU’RE AGAINST THINGS like theft and plagiarism, then support of the FairPlay Coalition is a no-brainer.
Over 25 companies, unions, associations and other groups have banded together to file an application to the CRTC to try to curb blatant content piracy in Canada. The group (a list of organizations who are often at each other’s throats) is calling themselves the FairPlay Canada Coalition and the application (to which Cartt.ca was granted early access) calls for the creation of the Independent Piracy Review Agency, an independent, third party organization with a strong mandate to protect both net neutrality as well…
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Proposes new agency to battle billion-dollar problem
OTTAWA – FairPlay Canada, a new coalition of Canadian artists, content creators, unions, guilds, producers, performers, broadcasters, distributors, and exhibitors is has filed an application with the CRTC urging the Regulator to have Canadian ISPs shut down access to websites which enable content piracy.
According to the coalition, the jobs of hundreds of thousands of Canadians who work in the creative sector (songwriters, set builders, TV writers, makeup artists, reporters, as well as cable technicians, engineers and customer service reps) are at risk as a result of increasing online piracy…
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OTTAWA – Canada’s telcos have until March 31, 2019 to implement caller ID technology for calls made over Internet Protocol (IP), the CRTC said Thursday.
The Commission also ordered the CRTC Interconnection Steering Committee (CISC) to submit an industry report card twice a year, beginning six months from the January 25th date of this decision, to help track the progress being made on caller identification authentication.
The telcos were also directed to develop a call traceback process for VoIP nuisance calls, and the CISC was also asked to file a progress report on this process within the next nine months.
The CRTC…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has turned down a request from three consumer advocacy groups to review and vary its basic service objective decision over the affordability of telecommunications services.
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now Canada (ACORN), the National Pensioners Federation (NPF), and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC), collectively known as ACORN-NPF-PIAC, filed a review and vary request last April over the decision, decrying its lack of an affordability funding mechanism for low-income telecommunications users.
The Commission dismissed the request Thursday after determining that it did not err in fact or in law, and that there has…
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OTTAWA – As reported earlier this week, Bell Media filed for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada the CRTC’s Super Bowl simultaneous substitution policy – and along with that filing earlier this month it requested the court stay, or suspend, the CRTC policy for this year’s game, scheduled for February 4th.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court dismissed the request for a stay, meaning the policy is staying in place. However, the court did grant Bell’s request to consider its leave to appeal on an expedited basis, meaning…
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OTTAWA – Music channel Vintage TV Canada has received its broadcasting licence from the CRTC, just over a year after its launch.
The Toronto-based service, which Cartt.ca profiled here, was exempt from licensing until it hit the 200,000 subscriber mark, in keeping with Broadcasting Order CRTC 2015-88.
The Commission considered its application back in September and officially approved its licence on Tuesday. The licence will expire on August 31, 2024.
www.crtc.gc.ca
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Q HOST TOM POWER is a good interviewer. But even he can’t penetrate Heritage Minster Mélanie Joly’s ability to avoid giving a direct answer to a direct question.
The Minister appeared on CBC’s Q last week (screen-capped at right) to talk about the #MeToo movement (she was in Toronto to meet with a number of groups on that topic) as well as discuss Canadian content in the new, digital era. We’ll pick up the chat at the 6:40 mark.
After mentioning Netflix’s planned $500 million investment in making content in Canada, which was the centrepiece of Minister…
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Viceland Canada (in its current form) to end March 31st
TORONTO – Rogers and Vice Media today announced the end of their joint venture in a deal which will see Vice take 100% ownership of all Vice Canada assets, which is primarily the library of content and the Vice studio in Toronto. No financial terms were disclosed.
The JV was part of the splashy entrance made by former Rogers Communications CEO Guy Laurence who invested $100 million of the company’s money into Vice Media in 2014. Then, the partnership was supposed to be a pillar around which the company would “build…
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