OTTAWA – The Canadian Media Production Association (CMPA) has named Marla Boltman as general counsel, to be based in its Toronto office beginning June 8, 2012.
Boltman has held positions with the Canada Media Fund (formerly the Canadian Television Fund), the Feature Film Project at the Canadian Film Centre and Alliance Atlantis Communications. Since 2008, she has been director, legal and business affairs at DHX Media where she also served as an acting member of the CMPA Canada Media Fund working group and the CMPA’s negotiating team for the WGC collective agreement negotiations.
“I have had the pleasure of working closely…
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(Ed note: We ran this column back in May 2012 with our overall investigation into the CBC. Given the Corp's news this week – that it will still air, but has lost control of, NHL hockey – we thought it made sense to give it a re-print, as it were, on November 27, 2013.)
AT CBC ENGLISH TELEVISION’S fall 2012 programming launch last Thursday, you could hear how the massive recent budget cut – along with the constant hectoring of the Corp. by so many Canadians –…
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MUCH HAS BEEN SAID and written over the last few weeks on the new CBC Music service, which has generated quite a bit of interest from the industry, and from the population in general for Stingray’s Part 1 application with the CRTC regarding the newly launched service (and letter to the Minister of Heritage).
Founded in 2007, Stingray’s various services, including Galaxie, the Karaoke Channel and Concert TV, are now available to over 70 million households in 48 countries around the world. With over 200 employees, a good portion of which are here in Canada, Stingray…
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TORONTO – The banking industry and credit union system on Monday released a set of voluntary, secure, open guidelines for the development of mobile payments at point-of-sale in Canada that could help pave the way for partnerships between banks and big telcos.
The voluntary guidelines, available here, are technically known as the Mobile Reference Model. They will serve as a blueprint for how mobile payment capabilities can be offered in the Canadian market, including guiding principles around how information is exchanged among the various parties to a transaction, including telecommunications companies, financial institutions, payment card companies and merchants, according to…
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TORONTO – The Director’s Guild of Canada has written an open letter to Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall urging him to reconsider the government’s decision to eliminate the Saskatchewan Film Employment Tax Credit and replace it with a non-refundable tax credit program.
The Guild called the move “troubling”, and predicted that the decision may put the future of the province’s production and creative community at risk.
“The Guild shares the industry’s view that a non-refundable tax credit program is unlikely to be effective in facilitating growth in audiovisual production”, reads the letter signed by DGC national executive director and CEO Gerry Barr. “Without further…
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I’VE HEARD SOME CRITICIZE Richard Stursberg’s just-launched book, The Tower of Babble: Sins Secrets and Successes Inside the CBC, as “the gospel according to Richard.” After reading it I’d say well, yeah, it is his name on the cover, after all.
The book is an easy, entertaining read bound to inform, anger, confuse and confirm a lot about what folks in the industry have thought about both the author and his subject matter, our national public broadcaster.
Stursberg positions himself as something of a saviour of the 75-year-old public broadcaster who came in, raised English TV from the ashes and made…
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GATINEAU – Tom Perlmutter has been reappointed as government film commissioner and chair of the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) for a second five year term.
Perlmutter was first awarded the post in 2007 after serving as director general of the organization’s English program for six years. Prior to that, he was a filmmaker, writer and producer.
“I am pleased to announce that Mr. Perlmutter has agreed to continue to serve with distinction as Head of the National Film Board,” said Heritage Minister James Moore, in the announcement. “The NFB will continue to benefit from his wealth of experience and leadership. His…
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TORONTO – SCN was a publicly-owned educational broadcaster which the Saskatchewan provincial government decided to shutter in 2010. After some local complaints, the politicians instead made the decision to try and sell it.
After hearing mostly crickets, the only offer that didn’t include any ongoing government financial support came from Bluepoint Investments, a private company backed by a former advertising executive from Toronto, Bruce Claassen. Bluepoint’s $350,000 offer was accepted by the provincial government mere days before the plug was to be pulled on the broadcaster. Then, in approving the sale months later in early 2011,…
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STOP US IF you’ve heard this before: “Psst, I hear (insert name here) is going to be the next CRTC chair.”
Today it’s Jean-Pierre Blais, a former executive director, broadcasting at the CRTC (during CRTC chair Francoise Bertrand’s tenure), former assistant deputy minister of international and intergovernmental affairs and former ADM of cultural affairs both at the Department of Canadian Heritage – and current assistant secretary of the government operations sector at the Treasury Board. He was the senior bureaucrat in charge of the federal government’s pre-budget strategic and operating review, so he is quite familiar now to the Conservative…
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OTTAWA – Canada’s biggest telecom companies have joined forces in calling for a national set of standards to regulate wireless contracts.
In a shared position statement submitted to the CRTC on Thursday, the regulatory heads of Bell, Rogers, Telus as well as the Public Interest Advocacy Center (PIAC), on behalf of the Consumers’ Association of Canada and Canada without Poverty, said that there is “a clear need” for the Commission to “lead an initiative involving all stakeholders with the ultimate objective of bringing cohesion and uniformity to this area for the benefit of consumers and the industry alike”.
Noting that five…
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