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…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
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…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – "It’s a missed opportunity," says Guy Mayson, summing up the Canadian Film and Television Production Association’s overall reaction to the CRTC’s new over-the-air TV policy.
Speaking to Cartt.ca from the streets of Cannes, France, where he’s attending the film festival, the CFTPA president explained that while the policy shows the CRTC has noted producer concerns about the need to increase broadcaster investment in original, Canadian, priority programming, it delayed taking action.
“We’re a little disappointed that the Commission didn’t act” to require conventional TV broadcasters to meet minimum program expenditures and to schedule more of this programming…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA-GATINEAU – As we told you on Monday, the CRTC will release its new policy on conventional, over-the-air television. In fact, it will be released today.
The primary issue is whether or not Canadians will soon have to pay an additional fee for conventional broadcast signals from CTV, Global and the CBC, as we noted on Monday.
Watch Cartt.ca today and tomorrow for more on this story.
Continue Reading
OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Saying the need for new subscriber fees wasn’t demonstrated by conventional broadcasters, the CRTC’s new convention television policy does not include a boost in Canadians’ cable or satellite bills.
The new policy will, however, "ensure Canadians have access to digital and high-definition television programming, and that broadcasters continue to contribute to the production, acquisition and broadcast of high-quality Canadian programming.
The Commission has decided to:
* Remove restrictions on advertising time limits after gradually increasing the amount of advertising allowed;
*Establish August 31, 2011, as the date by which television licensees will only broadcast digital signals (about…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Perhaps stung a little by the tough line of questioning the company faced in front of the Commission a few weeks ago, CTVglobemedia sent a letter to the CRTC last week attempting to modify its application to purchase CHUM Ltd.
In it, CTV said it would consider divesting CHUM’s Citytv stations in Winnipeg, Edmonton and Calgary, so long as the Commission was willing to place limits on the further growth of CanWest Global’s CH network. Global, for example, went through a hearing in February where it asked the CRTC for a Calgary and…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The Commission this week okayed the application by Fifth Dimension Properties for a category two digital license which will be branded Penthouse TV.
Fifth Dimension is a company owned and operated by Stuart Duncan, who also runs Ten Broadcasting, the parent company of Hustler TV in Canada.
Should it gain carriage, Penthouse TV will join the likes of Playboy TV, Hustler, AOV and others in the adult category on cable and satellite lineups in Canada.
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – We’ll find out sometime in the next few days whether or not Canadians will be paying more for their television (among many other things). The CRTC’s new policy for conventional television will be released this week, likely tomorrow, said the Commission’s chairman last week.
In a speech to the British Columbia Association of Broadcasters, which Cartt.ca reported on here, chairman Konrad von Finckenstein told delegates: "Around May 15, we will issue our determinations arising out of our review of over-the-air television."
The primary issue is sure to be whether or not Canadians will soon have to pay…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The CRTC should immediately regulate monthly contributions to the Canadian Television Fund (CTF) and establish an arms length dispute resolution mechanism to deal with any concerns raised about the fund, recommended the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications in its report released Thursday.
The second recommendation of the report, The Challenges Ahead for the Canadian Television Fund, is that the government re-examine the CTF’s spending envelopes, especially with respect to the CBC/Radio-Canada.
One of the complaints of Shaw and Quebecor when they withdrew their monthly contributions earlier this year was that 37% of the CTF went…
Continue Reading
