OTTAWA – Bell Globemedia’s $1.7 billion offer to purchase CHUM Ltd. last Wednesday is sounding some alarm bells among producers and journalists, especially given CHUM’s layoff of 281 people also announced the same day.
Groups representing producers and journalists – and even one Toronto city council hopeful who was once a Citytv talking head – have sounded notes of caution but – perhaps encouraging for BGM – they have not come out against the deal.
"This is a major transaction which could signal a major restructuring of the Canadian broadcasting environment," said Guy Mayson, president and CEO,…
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GATINEAU – A Télé-Québec public affairs show was not racist when it broadcast episodes critical of Islam, the CRTC has found.
The commission received complaints from some viewers who were offended that Benoit Dutrizac, co-host of the program Les Francs-tireurs, said that Islam was a “stupid religion” for requiring children to fast. In another episode, he said that he was “pissed off” by Muslim students at a Montreal school who filed a million-dollar lawsuit against the school after it refused to provide them with areas for prayer and other religious practices.
The Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations said…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC is calling for applications for new radio stations in Sydney, N.S. and Sudbury, Ont.
The commission has received an application for a commercial station in Sudbury, as well as one in Sydney, and invites other broadcasters to apply before Sept. 15, in both cases.
While the CRTC has made public financial information on the Sudbury radio market, there aren’t enough stations in Sydney to allow the release, for confidentiality purposes.
Applicants will have to fulfill the usual requirements, including technical specifications, demonstrated market demand and potential advertising revenues, and promises of Canadian talent…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC today announced it’s allowing RDI to increase its hourly advertising by up to 50%, amending its licence from a former maximum of eight minutes per hour, to a new maximum of 12 minutes.
The CBC applied for the RDI change, saying it would give the French-language information channel the same maximum as its English-language Newsworld service. The CBC also pointed out that most specialty channels can air up to 12 minutes of ads in each clock hour.
The proposal was opposed by private broadcasters, including TVA, Astral, Cogeco Radio-Télévision, and Corus, who were upset that…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC has approved requests to show VOD and PPV programs that include commercials if they were already aired on Canadian TV and the show is offered for free to subscribers.
The commission will amend the licence for the Bell ExpressVu’s Vu! on-demand and pay-per-view services, and Cogeco’s VOD service, to allow this limited use of advertising.
Bell ExpressVu said the amendment would allow it to compete equally with other Canadian VOD services and evolving PPV media. Cogeco said it would be in the public interest.
Rogers Cable supported the move in its intervention to the commission,…
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MONTREAL and TORONTO – Today’s announcement that Astral Media and Corus Entertainment will together buy the 20% of Teletoon/Télétoon they don’t own from Cookie Jar Group (formerly Cinar) puts a value on the cartoon channel at $480 million.
The transaction, which is subject to the approval of the CRTC, will give Astral Media and Corus Entertainment each an additional 10% ownership of Teletoon, bringing their individual ownership to 50% each. The acquisition price for the 20% stake in the network is approximately $96 million.
Multiply times five and you get $480 million.
www.teletoon.com
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OTTAWA – The revenues of the conventional television broadcasting industry edged up just 0.6% in 2005, well below the average growth of 2.3% over the past five years, says a report by Statistics Canada released today.
It was a particularly difficult year for public television broadcasters, whose revenues slumped 5.2% to $1.2 billion, mainly because of a 25.2% drop in air time sales. The cancellation of the National Hockey League season accounted for much of the decline in advertising revenue, says the report.
The operating revenues of the television broadcasting sector totaled $5.6 billion in 2005, up 2.8% from…
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TORONTO – The days of "hard news" gathering appear to be over in some CHUM Television regions.
The company announced Wednesday a cross-country overhaul of its news operations which will see the broadcaster move away from so-called hard news reporting (think car crashes and daily political coverage) on the local level to softer news shows coupled with a national, centrally-produced newscast.
Company CEO Jay Switzer (who said "it’s been a long day," three times in the opening minute of today’s conference call with financial analysts) said in a follow-up interview with Cartt.ca that these moves are not something foisted onto the…
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"REGULATORY APPROVAL" are the two stock words every media sale announcement made in Canada has attached to it. As in: "Agreement XYZ will close after the required regulatory approval."
Wednesday’s big buy is no different as it will have to pass under the Competition Bureau’s and CRTC’s magnifying glasses, smudged and cracked as they appear to be sometimes. In the official release, Bell Globemedia and CTV CEO Ivan Fecan said: "With regulatory approval, we intend to serve Canadian audiences with both CTV and Citytv stations."
This time, though, that particular sentence means regulatory approval will only be able to come…
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TORONTO – Employees inside the companies have not yet been officially informed, sources have told Cartt.ca, but the globeandmail.com is reporting that Bell Globemedia is set to purchase CHUM Limited.
CHUM shares have ceased trading on the TSX, pending a potential announcement.
CHUM owns 33 radio stations, 21, specialty channels and 12 local TV stations (Citytvs and A-Channels). The move would be a complicated one, to be sure as several assets overlap and may need to be sold off due to CRTC and Competition Bureau concerns, but it would also make CTV the largest electronic media force in Canada….
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