TORONTO – Canadian actors used CanWest Global’s upfront presentation today to protest the purchase of American programming for airing on prime time on Canadian broadcasters.
CTV and Global each revealed their fall broadcast schedules to advertisers, the media and others this week, much of which is focused on popular American fare, purchased recently in Los Angeles for hundreds of millions of dollars (although with our dollar approaching 95-cents U.S., the price may seem less steep this year).
"These private shindigs the broadcasters threw for themselves are disgraceful. And so was their latest junket to Hollywood to sell out their…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Citing the "questionable business practices" of independent cable co-op Campbell River TV Association, Shaw Communications declined earlier this year to renew the contract of its Shaw Pay-Per-View service with the small cable company.
When Shaw made it known to CRTV that the contract would not be renewed, the co-op filed a complaint with the CRTC under section 6.1(1) of the Pay Television Regulations, 1990, which prohibits a licensee from giving an undue preference to any person, including itself, or subjecting any person to an undue disadvantage.
While CRTV said the PPV or VOD options available to it…
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CALGARY – Proposed changes to bylaws coming at next week’s annual general meeting of the Canadian Television Fund "seems to fly in the face of common sense," says a tersely-worded letter sent Friday by Shaw Communications CEO Jim Shaw to the fund’s chair Douglas Barrett.
Shaw noted that while Star Choice received notice of the meeting, Shaw Communications did not and that after looking at what the organization has planned for the June 12 meeting during the Banff World Television Festival, "(w)e were surprised that you and the board of the CTF have decided to pursue an aggressive and…
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TORONTO – Larche Communications and Rogers Communications today announced a swap of two Ontario radio stations.
Larche, which already operates another station in central Ontario, agreed to acquire CICX FM Orillia (105.9 Jack FM), from Rogers while RCI bought Larche’s 50% ownership of CIKZ FM (The Beat 91.5) in Kitchener. (CanWest owns the other half of the station, but announced in October it was selling its two Canadian radio assets to Corus Entertainment. The Commission has not yet made a determination on that sale.)
Financial terms of today’s deals were not disclosed.
"This swap makes great strategic sense for…
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CALGARY – At a VIP luncheon at the Palliser Fairmont Hotel in Calgary, Canada’s Telecom Hall of Fame revealed the names of the four 2007 Telecom Laureates who have been nominated and selected for induction later this year into the industry’s Hall of Fame.
The Class of 2007 Telecom Laureates are: Michael Kedar, Toronto (Champion of Telecom Services Competition), Robert W. (Bob) Jones, Ottawa and Kelowna (Canada’s Radio Spectrum Ambassador), Frederic Newton Gisborne, St. John’s, (Colonial Telegraph Trailblazer), and C.R.O. (Bob) Munro, Montreal (Patron of Federally Regulated Telecom). In addition, the Hall of Fame’s coveted Special Recognition Award for…
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OTTAWA – The foreign-owned, Hindi-language movie channel Sony Max is being considered for digital distribution in Canada. In Broadcasting Public Notice CRTC 2007-58, issued Thursday, the CRTC states it will “rely primarily” on comments filed on the application to determine if the channel is totally or partially competitive with existing Canadian TV channels.
The commission wants parties arguing the service is competitive to name the specific pay or specialty service with which they consider the channel would compete, and to provide details to support their views, such as comparisons of programming schedules.
The CRTC also notes that in assessing…
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TORONTO — Telehop Communications Inc. recorded a net profit of $196,315 on revenues of almost $5 million in the first quarter ended March 31, 2007, according to financial results released Wednesday. Profits were down from the net income of $262,903 recorded in the same quarter a year earlier and from $253,762 made in the fourth quarter of 2006.
“Our margins are strong due to effective control of telecom costs and our marketing costs are in line with our plan. We continue to build our subscriber base and look forward to increasing revenues while maintaining profitability,” said Telehop president and…
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TORONTO – With Canadian broadcasters in Los Angeles now viewing this fall’s potential U.S. hits (not to mention the great big misses) – and making commitments to buy, too, Canada’s actors union says the process is nothing but a big bet.
"Canadian performers are angered that executives of Canada’s private broadcasters are in L.A. this week gambling hundreds of millions of dollars on new American shows for the fall television season while neglecting our own domestic industry," shouts the press release.
“Canada’s private broadcasters are eager to hand over more than $250 million dollars on new American dramas and reality…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The folks at MaxTrax and Galaxie may be wondering about their futures on Rogers Cable today.
The CRTC granted a pay audio license to Rogers Communications this morning. The company plans to launch a 30-channel service of music and spoken word programming. Currently, CBC-owned Galaxie and Corus Entertainment-owned MaxTrax are both carried by Rogers, which hasn’t said when or how it will launch its own service.
The regs require that any carrier which owns a pay audio license must also carry a non-affiliated service meaning that when Rogers launches, it only has to carry one of Galaxie…
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MONTREAL – Like every other conventional television broadcaster in English Canada, Quebec’s Télévision Quatre-Saisons (TQS) had argued for the CRTC’s acceptance of carriage fees to help OTAs compete with fee-supported speciality channels.
“We’re very disappointed,” said TQS President & CEO René Guimond, after the CRTC rejected the idea Thursday. “For us, it’s the continuation of the old model, a model in need of adjustments.”
“I thought we had made the clear demonstration that there is inequity between conventional broadcasters and the speciality channels. And the reason number one for the inequity is the issue of fees,” Guimond told…
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