TORONTO – CBC kicked off Canadian Screen Week by unveiled its first batch of programming renewals for its 2019-20 season.
Spanning drama, comedy, factual, arts and documentary programming, the public broadcaster said that returning series confirmed to date include Anne With An E, Baroness Von Sketch Show, Burden of Truth, CBC Arts: Exhibitionist, CBC Docs POV, Coroner, The Detectives, Dragons’ Den, Frankie Drake Mysteries, The Great Canadian Baking Show, Heartland, In The Making, Kim’s Convenience, Murdoch Mysteries, The Nature of Things, Schitt’s Creek (pictured) and Still Standing.
Additional renewals across all genres and content areas will be announced later this…
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QUEBEC CITY – Through a new initiative announced in the Quebec provincial budget this week, Québec businesses and households in rural and remote areas who still do not have access to a high-speed Internet connection or a broadband cellular network will start to be serviced.
The Québec government said it will work with municipalities and regional county municipalities (RCMs) to accelerate the rollout of quality digital infrastructure in underserved and unserved areas. Thanks to the contribution of the federal government as well, new investment totalling $400 million is planned.
The Fédération québécoise des municipalités (FQM) and the Union des municipalités du…
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TORONTO – Organizers of the 2019 Canadian ISP Summit have issued a call for content for this year’s event, scheduled for November 4 – 6 at the Marriott Downtown at Toronto Eaton Centre.
This year’s confab will be focusing on the theme 'Innovation', and is seeking content that will identify and explore critical and exciting aspects of change in the industry, the daunting challenges they present, and offer innovative solutions to those challenges.
Topics may touch on some or all of the following areas relating to Innovation:
– Technology: How It’s Driving Change in Customer Experience: Expectation-Demand-Consumption-Behaviour / The future of Voice / Next…
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TORONTO – Rogers Media is officially out of the magazine publishing business after announcing Wednesday that it is selling all seven of its consumer print and digital magazine brands to St. Joseph Communications (SJC).
The deal includes Maclean’s, Chatelaine (English and French), Today’s Parent, Hello! Canada, as well as digital publications Flare and Canadian Business, plus its custom content business. Financial terms of the acquisition, which is scheduled to close next month, were not publicly disclosed.
All current Rogers Media Publishing employees will be offered employment through the deal.
“It was a difficult decision, but one we believe is right as we…
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Three new tax measures to support Canadian journalism, but nothing for broadcasters. Oh, and no Netflix taxes
OTTAWA – In the federal government’s budget released this afternoon, Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced a few measures directly impacting the telecommunications sector and to a certain extent the broadcasting sector.
On broadband expansion, in the fall of 2018 the Auditor General of Canada criticized the government for not having a national strategy. ISED (Innovation, Science and Economic Development ministry) responded they could not formulate a strategy without funding. Today, the government promised $1.7 billion in 10 years towards broadband deployment and $1 billion…
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WE’VE ALL HEARD THE conventional wisdom which says live sports is one of the last remaining mass audience attractions for linear TV – and that it will help retain a large chunk Canadian households opting for a subscription TV service.
Indeed, according to a new report from Winnipeg’s Communications Management Inc., TV companies and some streamers believe this in their bones, as evidenced by massive increases in spending on sports rights the past few years.
In fact, with the myriad ways sports is delivered, “the many emerging options for the delivery of video programming to consumers has also increased demand, with…
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Once described by CBC as “the Forrest Gump of Canadian pop culture”
PETERBOROUGH, ON – Canadian entertainment lawyer, TV producer, songwriter and author Stephen Stohn has been named chancellor of Peterborough’s Trent University.
Stohn’s appointment as Trent's 12th chancellor was approved by the University Senate on March 12, making him the second alumnus to hold the position in the institution’s 55-year history.
After graduating from Trent in 1969 with a B.A. in Philosophy and Economics, Stohn began his more than 50-year career in the industry as a performing artist and songwriter, before becoming a television producer. A 14-time Canadian Screen Award (formerly…
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FASCINATED BY TELEPHONES as a child, Dan Armstrong remembers thinking Bell Canada was “just the coolest thing in the world” and he marveled at how phones changed the world by allowing people to talk to each other anywhere.
Growing up in the Toronto’s Yonge and Eglinton area, Armstrong’s family home backed onto a park where he and his friends would build forts. He figured out then that if he connected a phone receiver and a battery in series with another one on the other end, he could connect all the forts together so they could talk with each other.
Today,…
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OTTAWA and GATINEAU – The CRTC is joining forces with Canada's big public and private-sector broadcasters in an effort to help more women to play leading roles in the Canadian film and television production industry.
On Friday, also International Women’s Day, the Commission shared some details from its recent Women in Production Summit held last December. In addition to CRTC chair Ian Scott and broadcasting vice-chair Dr. Caroline Simard, attendees included Rick Brace, president, Rogers Media; France Lauzière, president and CEO of TVA Group Inc.; Randy Lennox, president, Bell Media; Doug Murphy, president and CEO, Corus Entertainment; Josh Scherba, president, DHX…
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CHATHAM and GATINEAU – Last month, independent ISP TekSavvy lodged an official complaint to the CRTC over its most recent Communications Monitoring Report.
In its February 13th letter, TekSavvy noted the telecom portion of the 2018 CMR, which analyzes 2017 data, was not only very late (released December 20, 2018) and disjointed, but it also did not follow the same methodological standards and practices of prior reports.
“The CRTC published the 2018 Report in the waning days of 2018, during an open proceeding that involves a challenge to an earlier CRTC decision to…
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