TORONTO – The Directors Guild of Canada filed comments yesterday with the CRTC in support of public disclosure of aggregate financial data for over-the-air television and radio broadcasters.
DGC requested that revenue and expenditure information for media giants such as CTVgm, CanWest and Rogers be made public “in order to evaluate the manner in which CRTC policies are being applied, and the extent to which broadcasters are contributing to the system,” says the Guild’s release.
"This information is critical for analytical purposes. Without this data, industry stakeholders cannot properly participate in the public process," said Brian Anthony, DGC national…
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GATINEAU – Licensing a new network based on the fact that it is promising to air its content in high definition is not a good enough reason to add to an already crowded TV market, interveners told the CRTC today during its hearing into licensing a pair of new HDTV broadcasters.
“Ultimately, HD is just a technical format,” said Rael Merson, president and CEO of Rogers Broadcasting, who noted that most Canadian broadcasters are offering many hours of high definition content already. “It is quality content, not technology that drives demand,” added Marie Griffiths of intervener CHCR.
Entrepreneur John…
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GATINEAU – Just like fictional detective John McClane has always been the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time, Canadian Association of Broadcasters president and CEO Glenn O’Farrell had a similar way of describing the two over-the-air high definition license applicants on Tuesday:
“Put simply, we believe these are the wrong applications, for the wrong licences, at the wrong time,” he said.
HDTV Networks is a bid for a national over-the-air broadcast network with transmitters in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax. YES TV is a license request for a Toronto-only high…
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TORONTO – The last remaining Toronto independent cable holdout has decided to sell to the big red machine.
Rogers Cable announced this afternoon that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Aurora Cable, subject to CRTC approval. Aurora Cable provides cable television, Internet and telephony services in the Town of Aurora and the community of Oak Ridges, in Richmond Hill, Ontario.
(Ed Note: While the purchase price was not release by either company, Aurora serves approximately 16,000 customers, offering cable, digital cable, high speed Internet and voice in a wealthy demographic. Using a conservative guesstimate of $2500 per subscriber,…
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GATINEAU – On the one hand, John Bitove says his proposed company, HDTV Networks, wouldn’t take local ad revenue away from existing TV broadcasters because he wouldn’t want to do much local programming.
On the other hand, if you’re going to be a conventional, over-the-air television broadcaster – complete with all the rather favourable must-carry and simultaneous substitution regulations – part of the deal is you must be in local programming, reflecting each community in which you have a transmitter, back to itself.
Bitove, founder and chairman of Canadian Satellite Radio – owners of XM Canada – wants a…
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GATINEAU – XM Canada owner and serial entrepreneur John Bitove will go before the CRTC Tuesday urging the panel to grant him a nationwide high definition over-the-air television license.
All the established players have come down against it (no one else bid in competition) – and the application for a regional request for Toronto (called YES TV). Click here for background and watch for Cartt.ca’s coverage of the hearing this week.
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein tells Shaw Communications CEO Jim Shaw in a letter that the three commissioners overseeing the public hearing on the Canadian Television Fund (CTF) “have the most experience in the broadcasting industry.”
“Their in-depth understanding of television production is essential to achieve the above-mentioned goal ,” states his February 4 letter to Shaw.
Von Finckenstein’s response comes after Shaw sent a letter to the CRTC…
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GATINEAU – The Canadian Television Fund should be split in two: one with public money to meet government policy objectives, and the other with private money to support hit shows, Rogers Communications told the CRTC on Tuesday morning.
During day two of the week-long hearing into the CTF’s revenue and governance models, executives told commissioners that increasingly the CTF—originally the Cable Production Fund supported entirely by the cable industry—“is viewed as a public policy instrument for the Canadian government” instead of a way to encourage broadcasters to air popular shows, said Rogers’ Vice Chairman Phil Lind.
To qualify for…
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OTTAWA – To kick off today’s CRTC hearings on the Canadian Television Fund (CTF), actors, producers, writers and directors release results of a new poll that said “a strong majority (71%) of Canadians believe it is important to have access to Canadian television programming distinct from American programs.”
And, “the poll also reveals that an overwhelming majority of Canadians feel the government and cable and satellite TV companies should invest resources to help ensure that Canadians have access to television programs that reflect Canada and its people,” reads the release.
The Harris/Decima poll commissioned by the Directors Guild, the…
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AFTER SPENDING A LOT OF time thinking about and writing about the idea of charging a new fee for something people can get for free – over-the-air, broadcast television, that is – there’s always one inescapable conclusion: It’s going to make them mad.
It was a front-page issue in the conventional TV policy hearing in late 2006 (and was ultimately denied due to lack of evidence) and it’s now part of the 2008 broadcast distribution undertaking and specialty service policy hearings coming in April: So should conventional broadcasters get a subscriber fee or not?
On the one hand, broadcasters –…
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