QUISPAMSIS, NB – The Canadian Cable Systems Alliance (CCSA) conference and annual meeting, including a bulk purchasing trade show, is set for September 21-22 in Mont-Tremblant, Quebec.
The event is an opportunity for CCSA members, programmers, equipment suppliers and other delegates to discuss industry needs and learn about hot topics. The topics of formal presentations on September 22 have not yet been released, but the day also features the trade show, board meeting, CRTC reception for CCSA members only, and a dinner hosted by the board of directors.
The President’s Reception is on September 21, while golf at Le…
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BANFF – Government policy for real new media, including social networks, should not focus on culture, but instead on industrial development, Telus recommends in a white paper on new media released during the Banff World Television Festival.
This approach will provide the flexibility needed to harness the opportunities of new media, suggests the report, entitled “A Friendly Future for New Media.”
“There are huge economic opportunities with new media. We should think about the world as a whole as the market for new media content,” said Telus vice-president of wireless, broadband and content policy Michael Hennessy.
The big western…
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BANFF – Former CHUM president and CEO Jay Switzer and former Standard Broadcasting president and CEO Gary Slaight are among a group of Canadian broadcast executives who have invested $5 million in GlassBOX Television, which runs digital specialty service Bite TV.
Other executives contributing the new venture and strategic capital to GlassBOX are former Alliance Atlantis Communications executive managing director of international television Ted Riley, former XM Radio Canada president and COO Stephen Tapp, and former QuickPlay executive Raja Khanna.
Khanna was named co-CEO of GlassBOX. Tapp, who also headed Chum Television, will be an advisor to the company…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC said today that while many things should change about the Canadian Television Fund, Shaw Communications and Quebecor Media still have to pay into it – and in a timely manner.
And, while the Commission also said it would alter the BDU regs to make monthly contributions to the CTF mandatory, the report says it won’t make that move until the federal government has dealt with the substantive issues covered by the report.
That means distributors could still choose to withhold monthly payments in favour of quarterly or annual ones until Heritage Minister Josee Verner and…
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GATINEAU – Count commissioner Michel Morin as someone who isn’t buying Canadian independent television producers’ traditional “poor me” stance.
In his dissent against a piece of the CRTC’s report to the federal cabinet on the $250 million Canadian Television Fund, Morin ripped the public image of those independent producers and called for more accountability on how they spend the 75% of CTF they are guaranteed.
“(T)he Auditor General put in words what everyone had known for more than a decade: the famous 75% quota allocated to independent producers has not lived up to expectations, as they have invested next…
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WHEN IT COMES TO reading the CRTC, or predicting, or crystal-balling, everyone resorts to their own brand of “reading the tea leaves.”
So take what we have to say next with a grain of salt (hmm, that’s three clichés in less than 50 words, so we’d better get to it!).
Yesterday’s Canadian Television Fund recommendations from the CRTC came with a dissent written by commissioner Michel Morin. As we report here, he was defending Quebecor Media Inc.’s proposal for a new fund aimed solely at producing more French dramatic television and multiplatform content.
In defense of QMI’s TVA and…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC will make public its recommendations for the future of the Canadian Television Fund at 2 p.m. today.
It’s a story Cartt.ca has been following closely for about 18 months and the release should be a sensation at the Banff World TV Fest beginning this weekend in the Alberta town (Cartt.ca will be there, of course, covering that gathering).
In December of 2006, cable companies Shaw Communications and Quebecor Media decided to withhold their contributions to the fund, citing numerous issues the companies had with the fund, from its corporate governance to the types of programming being…
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QUEBEC CITY – Just in case their scepticism towards Remstar’s plan to save Quebec’s sinking TQS network wasn’t clear enough after a third day of public hearings, the CRTC has spelled it out and given the company a final chance to make its case for a broadcast licence.
After wrapping up its hearings Wednesday, the Commission sent a list of issues it wants addressed in the next week, and asked Remstar to submit a “new programming proposition” that includes Category 1 regional or local news programming, “in a format of its own choosing,” said the CRTC.
But it added…
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TORONTO – One of Aesop’s centuries-old fables is a good way to summarize Canadian broadcasters and their desire for a new fee-for-carriage, according to the vice-president and general manager of television services at Rogers Communications.
David Purdy was responding to a Cartt.ca story earlier this week quoting CTVglobemedia executive vice-president Paul Sparkes, who, in response to a recent speech made by RCI vice-chairman Phil Lind, said Canadian cable companies are desperate fear-mongers when it comes to the possibility the CRTC might adopt a fee-for-carriage model for local conventional broadcasters.
The issue was front and centre during April’s hearing into the policies governing…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC said today that while many things should change about the Canadian Television Fund, Shaw Communications and Quebecor Media should not be able to opt out of paying into it.
As reported today by Cartt.ca, The Commission today submitted its report on the CTF to the Minister of Canadian Heritage. It contains 11 recommendations relating to the CTF’s mandate and governance structure. (Click here to follow the links to the full background of this story.)
“It is our hope that the recommendations we have put forward will assist in resolving the issues surrounding the CTF,” said…
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