GATINEAU – The broadband video portal Rogers Communications will launch later this year will not only be a boon to Canadians looking for high quality broadband video, it will dramatically reduce the heavy transport and promotional costs for Canadian broadcasters which are making their content available online, company officials said today.
Cartt.ca has previously reported on Rogers’ planned portal but Rogers Cable’s vice-president and general manager, television, David Purdy, put some more meat on the bones in front of the CRTC’s broadcasting in new media panel this morning in Gatineau.
“Today, over-the-air broadcasters distribute much of their content…
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TORONTO – The key to saving local news is the new fund earmarked to improve local TV programming in small markets, said the Canadian Media Guild (CMG).
The Local Programming Improvement Fund (LPIF), announced by the CRTC last year and still under development, could be devoted to supporting initiatives to save local TV stations that CMG says “are being abandoned by the big media conglomerates”.
“What we’ve found over the last decade or so is that the structure of the big media companies has not been friendly to local programming,” said CMG national president Lise Lareau, in a statement. “There…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has given the green light to three new category two channels: one devoted to music, one to travel and world cultures, and one to adult programming.
Glassbox Television Inc., owner of Bite TV, received approval for Aux TV, a national, English-language channel focusing on emerging music and its creation, including programming featuring emerging music and aimed at helping emerging musicians.
The Commission also approved the Glassbox application for Trek TV, a national, English-language service targeted at Canadians between the ages of 17 and 27 devoted to world cultures, travel, geography, exploration and anthropology.
Sex-Shop Television…
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WINDSOR – Windsor City Council is calling on the CRTC and the federal government to “guarantee” local programming, and “protect” markets that are at risk of not having their broadcast licenses renewed by the current license holders.
The resolution, adopted earlier this week, comes in response to CTV’s announcement that it will not seek renewal the broadcast license of the CKNX-TV Wingham and CHWI-TV Wheatley (also known as the Windsor/Essex County station), when its licenses expires in August, 2009.
The station currently operates under CTV’s ‘A’ brand of channels, and will no longer receive local programming. CTV said…
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TORONTO – After combining what Canadian private conventional broadcasters had asked for in their license renewal applications in January with the number of layoffs in the sector and at least $3 billion in collective asset writedowns by the OTA companies, the CRTC slammed the brakes on full license renewal hearings in May for a smaller proceeding meant to more directly address the most pressing concerns of CTV, Canwest, Citytv, and TVA.
The current global economic crisis is making an already bad situation worse for conventional broadcasters. A fragmented ad market could be managed if General Motors, for example, was spending…
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OTTAWA – We’d almost forgotten about it, but the federal government just might release its decision on the Canadian Television Fund next week.
A source with knowledge of the decision’s timing told Cartt.ca this week that Heritage Minister James Moore may have an announcement as early as Monday.
The fund has spent a lot of the past 24 months defending itself and making a few changes in the way it does things. This impending release and any potential changes in how the $250 million in annual TV production money is collected and doled out was spurred on by the…
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GATINEAU – The dangling carrot of more money for the Canadian TV system is always what’s at stake when the Regulator considers letting broadcast distribution undertakings sell the ad time that’s available on American cable channels.
U.S. channels like CNN, A&E, Speed and the Golf Channel make two or three minutes per hour available for U.S. cable, satellite and telco carriers to sell ads on. It’s a multi-billion-dollar business in the States. That time is also available to Canadian carriers but they can’t sell it. Regulations say that 75% of the time must be made available to Canadian broadcasters…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has dismissed a complaint against Canwest Media made by the Communications, Energy and Paperworks Union (CEP), alleging that Canwest breached local programming commitments, and the Commission’s policy on local advertising.
CEP filled its first complaint in November 2007, saying that Canwest’s decision to shift elements of local program production from its television stations to broadcast centres in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto, would “contravene its obligations with respect to the broadcast of local programming”.
Saying the local stations would effectively “operate as rebroadcasting transmitters” and “unlicensed broadcasting distribution undertakings”, it also questioned whether allowing Canwest to…
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TORONTO – With a 700MHz spectrum wireless auction expected to take place in 2010, independent telcos need to be thinking now about strategies to get their concerns heard during the next few months of public consultation.
That was the advice from Peter Barnes, principal at Ottawa-based Tactix Government Consulting, during a Tuesday morning a regulatory update to delegates at the 2009 Canadian Independent Telecommunications Association showcase and seminars held this week in Markham.
Building relationships with public interest groups and local politicians is just one way for smaller telecom players to get their message out, ahead of Industry Canada’s…
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OTTAWA – The “erosion” of local programming at CTV’s A-Channel stations “flies in the face of promises made when the company purchased the network”, says the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP) in response to CTV’s announcement that it cut jobs and local programming at its ‘A’ Channel stations Tuesday.
"CTV’s license approval by the CRTC was partly based on the selling pitch that bigger is better – that the larger corporations would be able to nurture and protect the smaller stations," says Peter Murdoch, CEP’s vice president of media, in the statement. "Yet, at the first sign…
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