MONTREAL – The CRTC has granted adult entertainer Anne-Marie Losique the French and English rights to the new adult programming channel called Vanessa.
The category two digital channel dedicated to adult lifestyle entertainment is scheduled to launch in March 2010, in SD and HD, in both official languages. Sex-Shop Television Inc. received CRTC approval for the channel early last month.
Calling Vanessa “Canada’s answer to the Playboy Channel”, Losique said that the channel’s original programming will be created and produced in Montreal.
"What I love about Quebec is our affinity for local talent, it’s as traditional as it is sexy. Vanessa will…
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TORONTO – ACTRA said that it is “concerned” by media reports that the government may offer financial support to local television programming, but not to the “struggling” CBC.
The Canadian Press and the Globe and Mail have reported that the federal government is considering a $150-million fund to help keep community TV in business, after national networks CTV and Global indicated recently that they were willing to walk away from money-losing TV stations in small markets rather than absorb further losses.
CTV has announced plans to close a station in Brandon and two outlets in Windsor and Wingham, ON, while…
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TORONTO – It’s a years-old Commission file that is over a pretty small amount of money when you consider the size of the companies involved, but Rogers Communications intends on going to court to resolve a six-year old battle over punctuation, contract rights, and paying a million dollars more for renting space on about 100,000 hydro poles in New Brunswick.
This week, the CRTC issued what will probably be its last decision on what’s become known as the “comma case”, effectively dismissing Rogers’ complaint yet again.
With the help of RCI’s EVP…
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The 2009 Canadian Telecom Summit is fast approaching.
Held June 15 – 17 in Toronto, the event promises to cover all segments of the Canadian telecommunications and IT industries, and bring together leaders from all constituencies – service providers, manufacturers, applications providers, policy makers and regulators.
This year’s Summit will feature 17 keynote addresses, 70 speakers, three days of programming, plus networking opportunities with hundreds of industry leaders and customers.
Confirmed participants to date are Mike Lazaridis, president and co-CEO of Research In Motion, and Nadir Mohamed, president and CEO of Rogers Communications. The Chair of the CRTC, Konrad von…
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OTTAWA – Quebecor Media’s Sun TV and TVA Group, and Canwest Television have received CRTC approval to be governed by the new Journalistic Independence Code established by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC).
The code, which was approved by the Commission in Broadcasting Public Notice 2008-95 last October, ensures a diversity of editorial voices in companies where there could be issues around cross-media ownership.
The move means that the networks are no longer subject to the CRTC-imposed Statement of Principles and Practices which was included as a condition of license, so long they remain members in good standing of the CBSC.
The…
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TORONTO – Canwest Broadcasting interim president Peter Viner told staff in a memo today that while there has been interest in the company’s small chain of E!-branded TV stations, it will wait until after this summer to decide what it will do with the stations.
With employees reporting recent visits to some of the TV stations by several “anonymous suits,” one such employee told Cartt.ca Viner likely felt it was time to re-address the troops and provide an update. Canwest announced earlier this year that it is attempting to sell the stations [Hamilton (CHCH), Victoria (CHEK), Montreal (CJNT),…
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GATINEAU – The Commission has added to what it wants discussed at next month’s conventional TV station license renewal narrow-hearing.
With the economic crisis fully blasting conventional TV’s ad revenues and threatening local content because that’s primarily where the private broadcasters have decided to cut costs, the Regulator is looking at ways to immediately help out the OTA sector.
Last year, the CRTC’s new policies governing Broadcast Distribution Undertakings and specialty channels said, among many things, denied the broadcasters’ requests to be able to charge a new fee for carriage of local signals, but said that they could charge…
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MONTREAL – Calling itself “one of the country’s largest private investor in English and French-language content”, Astral Media said it invested close to $150 million in Canadian content development in fiscal 2008 through its pay and specialty television networks.
"Since we started in this business in 1983, we have invested more than $1.3 billion in the film and television industry," said André Bureau, chairman of the board, in a statement. "Many know Astral Media for the quality of its media properties and the strength of its financial performance, but we are also very proud of the support we offer to…
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OK, SO INCLUDE ME in as one of the drones buzzing about Twitter (even our headline here, I’m sure, has been used already, somewhere). We like it so much actually, that Cartt.ca added a Twitter widget to the home page this week as a way to provide additional quick bursts of teeny tiny opinionated news bites.
Like many, I questioned the value of the micro-blogging site, when I first learned about it some months ago at a conference. Twitter, which seems to have no discernable way yet to earn a living, by the way, gives users 140 characters…
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TORONTO – In two submissions on separate files, independent broadcaster High Fidelity HDTV has asked the CRTC to allow more open competition among Canadian specialty service operators, or to perhaps clamp down harder on the foreign channels permitted to be carried here.
A letter filed by the company on March 13th supports Rogers Broadcasting’s application to expand what sorts of programming Outdoor Life Network may carry. Rogers has asked the CRTC to let it add some pro sports and other shows, such as comedy, to its license terms.
Even though a changed OLN might compete somewhat with HiFi’s…
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