MONTREAL – Patrick Jutras, vice-president, sales and marketing of RDS, announced the appointment of Isabelle Rochefort Aucoin to the position of director of sales, English Canada and the U.S. for the Bell Media-owned French language sports network.
This newly created position was established to answer a growing need within these markets, while providing optimal customer service to our advertisers, says the company.
Based in Toronto, Rochefort Aucoin will be working closely with the TSN Sales Team,…
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TORONTO – Music Canada tabled a new report Thursday identifying programs and public policies to stimulate the development of Canada’s commercial music sector. The Next Big Bang: A New Direction for Music in Canada proposes a renewed industrial strategy for music and pinpoints key recommendations in the following areas: music education, digital innovation, music tourism, export expansion and interconnected tax credits.
The report demonstrates that by addressing these areas, music can contribute more substantially to the broader economy. The commercial music industry employs thousands of people in a highly creative and dynamic field that has…
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TORONTO – Seven digital entertainment companies, so-called graduates of the Canadian Film Centre Media Lab’s inaugural ideaBOOST accelerator program, will get to pitch their properties to a crowd of industry buyers today with hopes for a commercial launch.
Having massaged, fine-tuned, perfected and, in at least one case, overhauled the go-to-market strategy for their digital entertainment content products, each of the seven digital entertainment companies will be pitching their properties to a crowd of industry buyers, partners and investors – including key players from ideaBOOST’s three founders, Corus Entertainment, Google and Shaw Media – at…
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MARKHAM – The Ontario Association of Broadcasters has announced the winner of the 2013 Michael Monty Scholarship Award is Ida Adamowicz, a student from Mohawk College.
The Michael Monty Scholarship Award is presented each year to a student with strong academic marks, as well as for their efforts to make a difference by getting involved in extracurricular activities, like volunteering with student groups or organizations. Adamowicz was nominated and won because of her dedication to her program and to her community where she serves as a volunteer and supporter.
Michael Monty spent more than 33…
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TORONTO – While the owners of Wind have announced control and executive changes they want to make, without Industry Canada approval of those shifts, someone still has to be at the wheel – and for now, it is a re-energized Tony Lacavera.
Lacavera, the normally ebullient driving force behind Wind in Canada, was seen by many over the last number of months to be the odd man out and in some of his public appearances, he seemed, well, glum. Plus, Wind’s primary financial backer, Egyptian wireless company Orascom (a part of the massive VimpelCom empire), has…
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TORONTO – Interactive Ontario (IO) is urging the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) to approve proposed exemptions for raising capital in the province via crowdfunding. IO says it supports the exemptions as a means to increasing the available pool of capital for Canadian digital media companies. Crowdfunding empowers creators to raise public funds by publicizing their project using the Internet and social media sites.
Last April U.S. president Barack Obama announced the JOBS Act officially opening up crowdfunding as a new source of funding for small companies and startups. There participants can raise as much as $1…
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HOURS BEFORE THE CMPA’s Prime Time in Ottawa convention assembled Canada's English and French producers, broadcasters, funders, regulators and digital platform experts, Bell Media made public its second application to the CRTC buy Astral Media, considered the last “independent” big Canadian broadcaster – and one with a long history of supporting Canadian film.
As it did when it reviewed and rejected Bell Media's first bid to purchase the Montreal-based TV, radio and outdoor ad company in 2012, the regulator will once again assess “the concentration of ownership and potential market dominance” that the larger company would…
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OTTAWA – The Canadian Chamber of Commerce told a Parliamentary committee last week that the federal government needs to do more to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) get online and benefit from the digital economy.
Scott Smith, director of intellectual property and innovation policy at the Chamber, was before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology on March 7 to kick off the committee’s study on Broadband and Internet Access Across Canada.
During his opening remarks, he noted that while Canadian consumers are benefitting from the broadband Internet, the country’s SMEs are…
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OTTAWA – Canadian Media Production Association past-president Norm Bolen focused the final presentation at Prime Time in Ottawa 2013 on the presence – or lack – of Canadian feature films on Canadian TV. It's the theme underpinning the application he and a team of production industry heavyweights will present to the CRTC on April 23 in support of Starlight, The Canadian Movie Channel.
It's a subject many convention delegates have heard and debated numerous times before, spanning decades for some. On the event's first day, Starlight backers and veteran production executives Robert Lantos and Victor Loewy slammed…
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OTTAWA – Jean-Pierre Blais, chair of the CRTC, challenged Canada’s independent producers to think unconventionally when it comes to promoting their creations, reaching audiences and attracting new advertising revenue.
In a keynote to the Canadian Media Production Association’s annual Prime Time event in Ottawa on Friday, Blais highlighted a quote from the late Thomas Bata, the former head of the Bata shoe empire, to indicate how Canadian content creators should be viewing the world in which their businesses operate. “Executives should be people with a sense of urgency, a demand for excellence and a healthy discontent with the way things…
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