OTTAWA – It’s no increase (as producers, actors and broadcasters were hoping for) but the $200 million committed to the Canadian Television Fund by the federal government over two years is far more than two of CTF’s primary industry contributors are currently paying.
That is to say, zero.
Hot on the heels of Shaw Communications and Quebecor Media’s decisions to suspend monthly payments to the CTF, Heritage Minister Bev Oda said Friday the federal government is renewing its $100 million a year contribution to the fund through 2008-09.
"This announcement signifies this Government’s commitment to producing quality Canadian programming…
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MONTREAL – With Shaw and now Videotron having stopped payment on their monthly cheques to the Canadian Television Fund, the CTF board of directors said late Wednesday it has retained legal counsel and warned the TV production community of a problematic year.
As the largest TV distributor, Shaw (which also owns Star Choice) is the largest private contributor to the CTF while Videotron would be the fourth-largest. Together, their contributions make up almost half of the $150 million contributed by the industry each year to the $250 million fund. The rest comes from the federal government.
Numbers two and…
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OTTAWA – A new poll completed just this week by Ipsos Reid on behalf of Bell Canada says the vast majority of Canadians agree with recent moves by the federal government towards deregulating the telecommunications market in Canada.
The polling data, released first to Cartt.ca, comes just days before a Monday meeting of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology where telecom deregulation is again on the agenda.
In the poll of 1,000 Canadians done between January 12th and 22nd, when asked about the recent policy measures taken by Industry Minister Maxime Bernier, 68% said they found the…
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OTTAWA – Bev Oda told the principal private funders of the Canadian Television Fund that she wants to meet with them next week.
"I have received letters from Shaw Communications and Videotron announcing that they will withhold their contributions to the Canadian Television Fund (CTF)," said Oda in a release.
As reported by Cartt.ca this week, both BDUs have decided to pull their funding of the production fund with complaints of accountability to the fact they believe money goes to the CBC. In response, the CTF has retained legal counsel and wants to force the two…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC has approved Persona Communications’ acquisition of Delta Cable and Coast Cable from John Thomas and his family.
Persona is financing the deal with a $90 million term loan from J.P. Morgan Securities.
Since J.P. Morgan is non-Canadian, the Commission asked about the American company’s potential influence over Persona.
"Persona explained that while the credit agreement would contain covenants that are customary for debt financings allowing the lenders to monitor the performance and operation of the business, J.P. Morgan would not have any direct say on financial decisions or other business-related decisions. Persona further explained that…
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TORONTO – The labour situation between Canada’s actors and producers hasn’t changed so today ACTRA, the actors’ union, issued the following open letter to the Canadian Film and Television Production Association
Today, the CFTPA and ACTRA should be sitting down together and working out a joint strategy on the following:
* The current state of the CBC, an issue we should be collectively engaged in; * The purchase of Alliance Atlantis funded by an American company, a development with ramifications that we should at least discuss; * Shaw Communications has unilaterally pulled out of the Canadian Television Fund, followed…
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OTTAWA – If former Craig Media CEO Drew Craig wants back into broadcasting, he’s going to have to go about it some other way, says the Canadian Association of Broadcasters.
The association submitted a strongly-worded letter to the CRTC on Friday opposing Craig’s plan (as first reported by Cartt.ca) to create a company called Only Imagine Inc. to sell local ad avail time on U.S. cable channels and turn over a chunk of the profits to a new fund to create Canadian television content.
"OII’s application would have the effect of irrevocably altering the Commission’s current local avails policy,…
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CALGARY – Saying he wants an accounting of exactly how the Canadian Television Fund money is spent and where the value is, Shaw Communications CEO Jim Shaw says until he gets that and is satisfied, his company will no longer pay into the CTF.
That’s potentially a huge blow for the fund, since Shaw – also the owner of DTH company Star Choice – is the largest BDU contributor, paying approximately $60 million into the fund last year. (However, the CRTC’s BDU regulations say all TV distributors must pay a percentage of revenues into the fund, which is doled…
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HAMILTON – Mountain Cablevision said Friday it will match the extended local calling area in Hamilton that city council has been urging telephone companies to implement.
Bell Canada has applied to the CRTC to extend the local calling area for the city so that certain phone calls across the city of Hamilton (such as from the Stony Creek area to Ancaster) would no longer be long distance.
Should the CRTC approve this application, Mountain Cablevision will also extend its local calling areas, says a press release from the cable company serving about 38,000 customers in areas in and outside of…
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DEREGULATING LOCAL PHONE in major urban centres in 2007 seems to me to be the right thing to do.
"The idea that somehow the cable guys are at a disadvantage to the telcos has not been proven so far in the entry of the cable industry in local voice," Lawson Hunter, Bell’s chief corporate officer said to me Wednesday. I agree with him. To a point.
Setting aside the unprecedented use of the provision in the Telecom Act that let’s the government issue policy directives to the CRTC (until 2006, it just hadn’t been done), it’s time to…
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