By Etan Vlessing
TORONTO – Whether Ontario content creators should go for the glory of making films or TV shows of their own, or the grind of working for Americans in an expanding service sector, is set to be part of a revealing industry debate kicked off Thursday by Lisa MacLeod, Ontario’s Minister of Heritage, Sport and Tourism.
MacLeod, addressing reporters at Ontario Creates in Toronto, unveiled a 15-member Ontario film and TV advisory panel of industry stakeholders to advise and offer recommendations on how the province can continue to “sustain” its film and television and animation industries.
But as…
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Textnow is the largest free phone provider in the United States
By Greg O’Brien
WATERLOO, Ont. – How is it that a Canadian company has seen tremendous success as a mobile virtual network operator? Simple. While they’d love to grow in Canada, the company has instead penetrated the much larger, more competitive, American market.
Waterloo’s textnow was founded in 2009 by CEO Derek Ting (not to be confused with Ting Mobile, another successful Canadian MVNO doing great business in the U.S. and is owned by Toronto’s Tucows) and Jon Lerner who wanted to see everyone have access to mobile technology at an…
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OTTAWA – The Québec Association for the Recording, Concert and Video Industries (ADISQ) has asked the Governor-in-Council to send back and force a rehearing of a CRTC decision in December that it says unfairly allows Sirius XM Canada to put more money into an English-language fund over a French-language one for Canadian content contributions.
French-language Musicaction and English-language Factor are two funds that receive annual injections of money as Canadian content development expenditures – in this case, a minimum of four per cent of Sirius’s annual revenues. Since its initial licensing in 2005 and until 2012, Sirius XM had been…
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TORONTO — The Documentary Organization of Canada (DOC) announced Wednesday it has appointed industry veteran Michelle van Beusekom to the role of executive director.
Van Beusekom brings more than 25 years of experience in documentary to the national non-profit association. Most recently, she worked as executive director of the National Film Board of Canada’s English program where she led the editorial and creative direction, operations and finances for five production studios across Canada.
“Documentary has never been more popular and it has never been so underfunded. There is no one better than Michelle to advocate for a genre that has brought…
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TORONTO — The Banff World Media Festival and Corus Entertainment announced Wednesday the submission process is underway for the 2020 Corus Writer’s Apprentice Program. Applicants have until March 17 to apply.
Attracting a wide range of writers from across Canada each year, the Corus Writer’s Apprentice Program offers exclusive training and insights into the demands of writing successful television programs, says the news release.
New this year, the program is focusing on voices from underrepresented groups and will look to choose candidates from a wide variety of backgrounds with unique and diverse stories to tell. Applicants are required to submit…
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TORONTO — CTAM Canada is now accepting applications to attend this year’s CEM@HBS, the cable executive management program at Harvard Business School. Each year CTAM Canada awards a course scholarship to one applicant.
CEM@HBS is described as a world-class management development experience for high potential cable and media executives in an elite business school environment. For one week in June, participants study with top Harvard Business School professors and selected industry luminaries within a curriculum that’s built around detailed case study problems. It is a stimulating, demanding program that challenges minds and invigorates their careers.
Attendees will benefit from an intensive…
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TORONTO — SiriusXM Canada launched its third annual “SiriusXM Top of the Country” competition Monday in partnership with the Canadian Country Music Association (CCMA) to find Canada’s next big country star.
This coast-to-coast search provides emerging Canadian country artists with a national platform, opportunities to perform on some of Canada’s biggest country music stages, SOCAN songwriting camps, and mentoring from top industry talent.
Eight semi-finalists will be chosen by a jury of industry experts to record original tracks and in-studio videos for the Canada-wide online vote in June. The top-three voted acts will emerge as Top Country finalists, receiving the opportunity…
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TORONTO — After a successful first year in Toronto, the Collision tech conference is expanding the four-day event with two new stages and launching its effort to increase the participation of women. The conference takes place June 22-25 at the Enercare Centre in Toronto.
As part of its women in tech initiative, Collision is releasing today subsidized women in tech tickets in its effort to even the gender ratio at the event. At Collision 2019, 45.7% of all registered attendees were female. In 2018, when the annual event was still held in New Orleans, 42.5% of attendees were female….
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GATINEAU – The CRTC disputed a central claim in Netflix’s submission to the Broadcast and Telecom Legislative Review panel which suggested the streaming platform had no reliable way to assess whether a movie was certified Canadian content in order to aid in discoverability.
In Netflix’s January 2019 submission, it said there is “no readily accessible database of certified Cancon that allows online services to electronically, and reliably, cross-reference content libraries” for the sake of including certified Canadian content in their search results. Netflix recommended the government or the industry create an electronically accessible database that online services can easily cross-reference…
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TORONTO – Made|Nous, the consumer-focused industry push to get Canadians to notice more Canadian content celebrates its first year this weekend.
It made its world premiere one year ago during Etalk Live At The Oscars on CTV and this Sunday a new promo will debut.
Research, according to the Canada Media Fund, demonstrates Made|Nous has had a positive impact. The Thursday press release says 48% of those aware of Made|Nous had an increased perception of Canadian content as a result of the campaign and 52% felt more favourable towards the term Canadian content. Additionally, 49% of those surveyed said they are…
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