OTTAWA – The CRTC should amend the Broadcasting Distribution Regulations to stipulate distributors must make monthly, rather than just annual, contributions to the Canadian Television Fund (CTF), the all-party Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage recommended in a report released this week.
That was one of six recommendations contained in the report, entitled The Future of the Canadian Television Fund. It includes dissenting opinions from the Bloc Quebecois and Conservative Party members. The report was tabled on March 21.
The Standing Committee under recommendation number one strongly condemns the actions of Shaw Communications Inc. and Quebecor Media – both of…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC appears on the verge of having to revoke another radio licence.
Radio Express inc., the owner of the French-language CKOD-FM based in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, QC, doesn’t appear to have cleaned up its act since the commission last checked in.
Last August, the regulator granted the station only a nine-month licence renewal until May 31, 2007 and slapped it with four mandatory orders in an attempt to get it to comply with its licence conditions. The mandatory orders were filed with the Federal Court and failure to comply with them could result in contempt of court charges.
The station…
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OTTAWA – Official Languages commissioner Graham Fraser called Tuesday on the government to compel the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. to spruce up its regional programming to help build cultural connections among Francophone minorities outside Quebec and English minorities inside the province.
Appearing before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage which is in the midst of an investigation of the role of the CBC in the 21st century, Fraser said one of the shortcomings of the public broadcaster is that it has become too centralized in Toronto and Montreal.
He noted that Francophone communities outside of Quebec need to have access…
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CALGARY – Calgarians want CHUM’s new Calgary FM radio station to follow the Hot Adult Contemporary format based on votes received so far in an online poll, according to the station’s program director Rob Mise.
When the new FM station hit the airwaves on March 12, it encouraged listeners to indicate what they wanted the station to sound like at www.calgary1015.com.
“This is a Calgary radio station so why not ask Calgary what it wants,” said Mise. “Thanks to the advice and information that we have been receiving, The New 101.5 FM will be a station that will reflect…
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ONE OF THE KEY DEMOGRAPHIC differences between the U.S. and Canada is the number of Hispanics here versus there.
Stateside, there’s an entire media sector dedicated to the Hispanic consumer, of which there are 40 million or so, including several cable channels such as Univision. In Canada, there are about one million Spanish-speaking Canadians and until recently, just one place to get some Spanish language programming: Telelatino.
Of late, however, other Spanish language channels have been added and in March, two Canadian channels were launched, one by the legacy brand owner in Canada, Telelatino.
In a recent chat with Cartt.ca…
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OTTAWA – Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s budget was criticized Monday by the arts community for not providing increased and stable funding to the Canadian Television Fund (CTF), Telefilm Canada and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
While Canadian Heritage Minister Bev Oda announced last month public funding of the CTF would be extended for two more years, there was no increase.
“The Canadian Television Fund has not received any increases since 1996. The CTF desperately needs enhanced, long-term, stable funding,” said Stephen Waddell, national executive director of the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA).
He added the government’s…
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OTTAWA – The Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) is opposing a bid by Shaw Communications to get regulatory approval to both offer and charge customers for content and advertising from non-Canadian sources on its Shaw on Demand VOD service.
The CAB says Shaw’s proposal could result in U.S. studios, especially those vertically integrated with a non-Canadian TV channel, withholding VOD rights from Canadian programmers even though the same program airs on both a Canadian and non-Canadian TV station.
The organization of private broadcasters also charges the non-Canadian TV channels would expect to receive something of value, such as increased…
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GATINEAU – Leave it to the mavericks at Shaw Communications to best articulate how carriers feel about granting analog channels preferred status once digital migration occurs.
In its intervention, which opposes all of the applications, Shaw’s senior vice-president of corporate and regulatory affairs Ken Stein writes: "Shaw considers that the Digital Migration proceeding and the subsequent gazetting of applications for mandatory digital carriage on basic has been a colossal waste of time and energy for Shaw. Shaw’s request for packaging flexibility to serve consumers and meet unprecedented competitive challenges, all of which will strengthen the system and protect it…
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THE CLOCK CAN’T BE TURNED back on announced acquisitions (CTV/CHUM, CanWest Global-Goldman Sachs/Alliance Atlantis and Astral/Standard) but the CRTC has decided it must look into the overall affect of media consolidation on the tenets of the Broadcasting Act.
As predicted, this turned into a "locking the doors after the horses escaped" analogy in some quarters.
In an interview with Cartt.ca on Wednesday, CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein (who must be a little shell-shocked with all that’s gone on within two months of taking the job) said yes, a thorough review of the diversity of voices in…
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OAKVILLE – Thousands of Canadians want The Weather Network to stay on basic cable, the company announced this afternoon.
As Cartt.ca has been reporting, the CRTC is considering applications for the establishment of a "digital basic" tier, where channels like TWN and others would maintain their places in cable channel lineups when digital migration happens. The intervention submission deadline was yesterday.
(The hearing is March 27th, not 26th, as we had reported as the CRTC altered its schedule due to the Quebec provincial election that Monday.)
The Weather Network says almost 7,000 letters, e-mails, faxes and petitions have…
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