WHEN HERITAGE MINISTER Mélanie Joly delivered her Creative Canada vision statement last Thursday in Ottawa I was extremely pleased on behalf of Canadian screenwriters — at last, a vision for Canada that puts creators at the centre.
While “creator” can mean many things, when it comes to screen-based entertainment, it means the showrunners and screenwriters that the Writers Guild of Canada represents. However, I wasn’t only pleased for WGC members because I also felt genuine hope — for the first time in a long time (remember the long, Canadian-arts-and-culture-dry years of the Harper government?) — for Canada. The direction of…
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Looks like Netflix is chilling with Ottawa
OTTAWA – The Canadian TV biz held a three-hour, industry-wide affair in Ottawa on Wednesday evening, where the Canada Media Fund showcased internationally competitive primetime broadcast TV series to local bureaucrats and politicians (and juuust before Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly outlined her vision to change a bunch of things.)
Netflix and other foreign Internet players, and their impact on local producers and broadcasters, loomed large at the National Press Center event and Joly only sent along her Parliamentary Secretary, Sean Casey, to address the industry gathering and praise Canadian TV producers.
In stage-side comments to…
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OTTAWA – In a speech today at an Economic Club of Canada event, Minister of Canadian Heritage Melanie Joly officially unveiled the federal government’s long awaited digital content strategy. Dubbed 'Creative Canada', the plan has angered some and sated others and calls for increased investments to support both domestic production as well as the promotion of Canadian content abroad.
The release of the strategy comes a day after news leaked that the federal government had inked an agreement with Netflix that would see the online broadcaster and distributor invest a minimum of $500 million in Canadian productions over the next…
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GATINEAU – On Thursday, new CRTC chairman Ian Scott received his “welcome letter” from the two ministers who oversee the Commission, Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly and Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains.
The former government called such letters “mandate letters” which sounded a lot more like directives so this welcoming letter is more visionary, even though it uses the word mandate in its opening paragraph. We’ve copied it below and highlighted what we think might be the most important parts.
However, this being Ottawa, where everything is infused with politics, we’ll leave the reading between the lines to…
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OTTAWA – The Governor-in-Council, as directed by Minister of Heritage Mélanie Joly, has told the CRTC to get cracking on a new report – which must be done by June 1, 2018.
The new Order-in-Council, released Friday – just in advance of the Minister’s release of her review of Canadian content in a digital world today, tells the Commission, with all the appropriate “wherases”, that:
“Whereas Canada ratified, in November 2005, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions; Whereas the Government of Canada has announced a review of…
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Like, will broadcaster rules now apply to the streamer?
REPORTS LATE MONDAY said that the centrepiece of Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly’s 17-months-in-the-making strategy to energize, or backstop, the production of Canadian content in our always-on-and-everywhere digital age is that she has secured a commitment from Netflix to spend $500 million over five years “on the production and distribution” of Canadian content.
On the face of it, this is welcome news. Who in the creative industries wouldn’t like to see another $100 million spent annually on Cancon?
However, I hope this plan, which Minister Joly will officially announce in Ottawa today, has a…
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MONTREAL – More than 270 members of Canada’s film and television industry are demanding that U.S. web-based media giants like Google, Facebook, Netflix and Amazon play by the same rules as Canadian media.
In an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Heritage Minister Melanie Joly and Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland dated September 26, the groups ask that the multinational media companies be regulated and taxed like their Canadian competitors.
“Unlike regulated Canadian companies, these foreign companies do not provide any information on their activities in Canada as required by CRTC regulations. They do not pay taxes. They do not pay…
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TORONTO and MONTREAL – The Bell Fund is marking its 20th anniversary with the launch of the first of four pilot programs that will provide grants to Canadian media content makers.
The Bell Fund receives annual contributions of approximately $17 million from Bell TV as part of its broadcast distribution undertaking (BDU) contributions to the industry. Since 1997, the Fund has invested over $200 million in 2,000 Canadian digital media projects and television programs, plus offered training, research, professional development and promotion for the Canadian media production industry.
Created in response to the CRTC's update of the Policy Framework for Certified…
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OTTAWA – Canadians may soon have more teleshopping options after the CRTC was urged to reconsider its earlier decision denying U.S.-based television shopping service QVC a place on Canadian TV screens.
The Federal Court of Appeal ruled earlier this month to allow an appeal of the Commission’s April 2016 decision that rejected an application by VMedia Inc. to add QVC to the list of non-Canadian programming services and stations authorized for distribution in Canada.
In that decision, the Commission concluded that if authorized, QVC would be carrying on a broadcasting undertaking in whole or in part in Canada, a move that…
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BURLINGTON, ON – The Reverend David Mainse, founder of Crossroads Christian Communications and the first host of religious talk show 100 Huntley Street, passed away Monday after a five-year battle with leukemia. He was 81.
Under Rev. Mainse's leadership and direction, what began in 1962 as a weekly 15-minute broadcast that aired after the nightly news on a small Pembroke, ON television station grew to become an expansive family of not-for-profit ministries that included international multimedia programming, an international relief and development organization, a broadcast school, and a national prayer centre with more than 100 volunteers who field 30,000 calls…
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