EVEN WITH CHANNEL Zero’s encouraging purchase of two over-the-air TV stations from Canwest Global this week, we are now left with six small market TV stations whose owners have set August 31st as the final day they intend to have the transmitters turned on.
In case you missed it – and you might have, given the timing of the news – Shaw Communications told CTV late Tuesday that, essentially, it had lost its nerve and was backing down from its confrontation with CTV over local television. The western cableco, despite its now apparently false bravado claims of how…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – Earlier this week, the CBC attempted to give the CRTC a little advice before the Regulator releases its public notice announcing the September hearing into an overhaul of the regulation of the TV business in Canada this coming Monday.
As reported by Cartt.ca, this past Monday the CBC offered up a proposed new distribution order which would govern new fee-for-carriage negotiations between broadcasters and cable and satellite companies (actually, the broadcasters are trying to “re-brand” the fee-for-carriage battle to one entitled value for signal, but we digress…)
Together, Shaw Communications, Telus, Rogers Communications, Cogeco and Bell…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – As Cartt.ca reported last week, the CRTC has a big day coming up on Monday. Not only is the network management hearing beginning that day, the Regulator is also launching a new proceeding seeking structural reform of the TV sector while releasing new rules (and potentially a new amount) for its yet-to-be-launched Local Programming Improvement Fund.
The CRTC’s Ontario commissioner Rita Cugini addressed the two broadcasting items in a speech to the Radio Television News Directors Association on Saturday, noting that structural reform for the TV biz seems to be a necessity.
“The Broadcasting Act specifies that…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Canadian Jewish groups have indicated to the CRTC that they will not oppose making the English version of the Al Jazeera available to Canadians.
CRTC Ontario commissioner Rita Cugini noted that fact in a speech this weekend at the RTNDA ProDev day in Toronto.
The public consultation ended June 8 and sponsor Ethnic Channels Group filed its final reply to the Regulator on June 22.
“Among the submissions we received was one from B’nai Brith Canada, whose representatives had met with Tony Burman, Managing Director of Al Jazeera English (and former head of CBC News). They expressed…
Continue Reading
TORONTO, HAMILTON and MONTREAL – We’re about to find out if a specialty service model (all-news plus movies) will work on an over-the-air station.
As first reported by Cartt.ca, independent specialty service operator Channel Zero is about to get a whole lot bigger. The company which owns short film specialty Movieola, classic movie channel Silver Screen Classics, film distributor Ouat Media (plus a majority stake in the AOV adult channel brands) announced this afternoon they have signed an agreement to purchase E!-branded CHCH TV Hamilton and CJNT TV Montreal from Canwest Global.
Terms of the deal were not publicly…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – CTV issued a terse press release this afternoon to announce that Shaw Communications will not purchase the broadcaster’s stations in Brandon, Man., Wingham and Windsor, Ont. after all.
In a newspaper ad on April 30, Shaw offered to buy the three stations from CTV after hearing the broadcaster tell the CRTC and the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage that they couldn’t find anyone to buy the, not even for a buck.
Shaw called CTV on it, saying it would take the stations off their hands for a loonie each. CTV then called what has now proved to…
Continue Reading
THE DIGITAL BRITAIN REPORT, an ambitious new plan by the leadership of the U.K. aimed at leading that country into the digital age, has set the year 2015 as the deadline when it will shut off analog transmission of radio station signals.
According to the Daily Telegraph newspaper, the government there is hopeful the continued uptake of Digital Audio Broadcasting, the standard of choice across the Pond, will allow them to make the switch, freeing up additional OTA spectrum for other uses and multiplying opportunity for radio broadcasters. Right now, digital listening already accounts for just over 20%…
Continue Reading
IT MAY NOT BE UNTIL 2010 when the CRTC holds licence renewal proceedings for the big Canadian TV companies, but the new chief executive of Canada’s national producers association has been working hard on that file for weeks already.
“We believe that the corporate group licence renewal hearings that are coming up in 2010 are probably the most important regulatory event of our generation and will have wide-ranging impact for the next 25 or 30 years,” said Norm Bolen, president and CEO of the Canadian Film and Television Production Association (CFTPA), in a recent interview with Cartt.ca. “It’s very…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – After dominating the three months worth of hearings earlier this Spring, the House of Commons committee on Canadian Heritage left out any recommendation on the controversial issue of fee for carriage in its report on the state of local television released Friday.
The committee heard testimony from 45 different groups in March, April and May about the issues and challenges facing Canada’s TV industry, from the importance of local television, to the fragmentation of TV audiences, through to declining advertising revenues.
Made up of MPs from all of the federal parties, the standing committee’s report made 18…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – Asian Television Network International Ltd. (ATN) received CRTC approval for ten new TV channels on Thursday.
ATN already operates 14 multicultural TV channels, and now holds national licenses for two Hindi movie channels; two cricket channels; three South Asian news channels; two Hindi music channels; and a sports service called Asian Sports Network.
The Commission denied ATN’s request for a national, English-language, ethnic Category 2 specialty television channel called ATN Multicultural Channel, and its application for the Commonwealth Broadcasting Network, a national, English- and Hindi-language general interest network that would target Caribbean and African communities.
www.crtc.gc.ca www.asiantelevision.com
Continue Reading
