OTTAWA – After Canada’s major English-language performers’ union and a community TV association testified before the Heritage Standing Committee about Canadian TV content rules, a specialty broadcaster raised concerns about getting carriage for the content once it’s made.
Wednesday’s testimony will help form part of the committee’s study on the evolution of the television industry in Canada and its impact on local communities, which launched March 25 and will conclude next week with a return visit by CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein.
Actors union ACTRA led off by reiterating many of the points it raised during its appearance on…
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TORONTO – When we talked to David Purdy about two weeks ago, Rogers still hadn’t quite settled on a brand name for the broadband video portal it will launch this year.
It probably won’t be called the “Purdy Portal” as CRTC commissioners dubbed it back in March during the Regulator’s New Media Hearing. We’re betting the name of the company founder will be in there somewhere, but the impromptu working title is an apt one for now since Purdy, RCI’s vice-president of video product management (yes, he’s in charge of video distribution across all platforms), has been the…
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OTTAWA – Canadian television programming can be, and is, profitable for Canadian broadcast groups, says a study by consulting firm Nordicity Group.
The report, which was widely referenced at the CRTC’s licence renewal hearings for conventional broadcasters, found that large corporate broadcast groups that own conventional and specialty TV channels are “well-positioned” to generate positive financial returns from Canadian programming, primarily through repeating the programming multiple times across their various platforms.
The study was commissioned jointly by ACTRA, the Canadian Film and Television Production Association (CFTPA), the Directors Guild of Canada (DGC), and the Writers Guild of Canada (WGC)….
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OTTAWA and GATINEAU – The greater Montreal region will get a new area code next year.
The CRTC said that starting in October 2010, new telephone numbers assigned in the 450 region may be given area code 438. In 2003, area code 438 was introduced to deal with the shortage of telephone numbers in the region served by area code 514.
The Canadian Numbering Administrator told the CRTC last year that area code 450, which is adjacent to the 514 region, is expected to run out of telephone numbers by February 2011.
www.crtc.gc.ca
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has asked for comments regarding the addition of Middle East-based news and current affairs channel Al Jazeera English (AJE) to the lists of eligible satellite services for distribution in Canada.
The Commission received a request on February 27 from Ethnic Channels Group Limited (ECGL) to add AJE to the lists of eligible satellite services for distribution on a digital basis.
In Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2009-254, the Commission asked that parties wishing that AJE not be authorized for distribution in Canada should provide detailed support for their position before June 8, 2009.
www.crtc.gc.ca…
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OTTAWA – Parliament should ensure Canada’s broadcasting legislation “keeps step with the times”, including proper accountability and transparency, even if it means restructuring the CRTC, said Canada’s largest media union.
The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP) told the Heritage Committee on Monday that Canada’s big broadcasting corporations were “supposed to strengthen local stations not close them down”, and the CRTC must share the blame for allowing that to happen.
"Parliament needs to reshape the CRTC, review the Broadcasting Act, and consider whether Canada needs converged communications legislation geared to the 21st century to address consolidated media ownership, telecommunications and…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – May 7, 2009 – Is Cancon a cost centre or a break-even proposition for Canada’s over-the-air broadcasters? Among all the issues raised Thursday by independent producers, writers and directors at the CRTC’s licence renewal hearings for conventional ‘casters, this subject accounted for the most words per intervention.
The groups representing much of the Anglophone creative contingent brought forward a study concluding Canadian programming need no longer be seen, automatically, as a loss leader, a necessary evil, a perennial balance sheet pariah. The success of this hypothesis depends in large measure, however, on whether broadcasting ownership groups would…
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GATINEAU – ACTRA underscored its earlier plea that the CRTC “stand firm and resist calls for rolling back Canadian content obligations” during its appearance at the Commission’s hearings on private TV broadcaster licence renewals on Friday.
ACTRA’s national president Richard Hardacre, who was joined by performers Julie Stewart and R.H. Thomson, accused the private broadcasters of “using the economic downturn to hold Canadians hostage” on the issue of fee-for-carriage, and insisted that Canadian programming “should not suffer in the rush to respond to current challenges facing the broadcasting industry”.
“Rather than cave into private broadcasters’ demands for far fewer Canadian content rules,…
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GATINEAU – While CRTC commissioners, Canadian politicians and the usual industry suspects try to figure out how best to alter the regulation of the Canadian TV business, the electronic media world around us continues on its merry path of explosive growth.
Lost a little on this side of the border, amid the swirl of chatter on issues like fee for carriage, the viability of local content, whether or not conventional broadcasters can survive a battered economy, and if television stations can really sell for a buck, was the announcement that Disney is spending US$100 million to take a…
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HE HAS A PAIR OF BlackBerrys on his desk, but his iPhone is what’s tucked in his jacket pocket. It goes with him always and everywhere.
He was first elected as MP in 2000, at the age of 24, in his Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam, B.C. riding, but his official bio lists the former radio and TV reporter/commentator’s occupation as “broadcaster.”
He’s mentioned every now and then as a candidate for much higher office that the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages.
And while his cabinet colleagues struggle with the multi-billion dollar requests from the likes of car companies…
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