OTTAWA – Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore on Tuesday delivered a hearty endorsement of the industry his ministry oversees as well as the CBC during his appearance at the International Institute of Communications Canadian conference.
During his breakfast speech, Moore dipped into history to show how far the Canadian cultural sector has come, from a pipsqueak in the 1950s, scrambling for an identity, to a robust $46 billion annual industry now boasting over 630,000 employees, many of whom “do it for the love of the craft.” Those figures are “three times the size of the Canadian insurance industry and twice…
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TORONTO – Rogers Cable signed a “long-term agreement” for the continued distribution of all Shaw Media services, including popular channels History Television, HGTV Canada, Showcase, as well as on-demand rights to Global TV content.
The deal includes on-demand, online and mobile rights, through linear, VOD, broadband and mobile.
"It is extremely gratifying to renew our long-standing relationship with Rogers and secure their continued support of our leading specialty television brands. The agreement acknowledges our investment in programming, aggressive evolution to high definition offerings and leadership in the on-demand space," said Shaw Media president Paul Robertson, in the announcement. "This deal is a…
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OTTAWA – Much has been made about the paradigm shift over the top (OTT) video services are going to bring to the broadcasting system, but a conference in Ottawa heard yesterday that it is still too early to determine if there will be a negative impact on the conventional broadcasting sector.
Speaking at the International Institute of Communications Canada conference, Ryan Victor, senior VP of business and legal affairs at NBC Universal Television Distribution, said the biggest near-term effect of OTT services will be to understand its impact on the business because it’s still not yet known how OTT services…
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OTTAWA – The implementation of new copyright legislation is likely to have little immediate impact on the Canadian communications sector, a panel at the International Institute of Communications Canadian chapter conference heard yesterday.
The session looked at the impacts on industry after Bill C-11, The Copyright Modernization Act, becomes law. Asked whether the world will change drastically, panelists said not to expect many major shifts from what’s taking place right now.
“Will the sky fall when this bill is passed? No. But there will be unintended consequences. There are things that haven’t been looked at, things that the government has to…
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OTTAWA – While milling about on the floor of the Institute of International Communications 2011 Canadian chapter conference here at the beautiful new Ottawa Convention Centre on Monday morning, everyone had a guess (and some claimed inside information) on what Industry Minister Christian Paradis is going to say in his speech to the conference on Tuesday afternoon.
Is it to be a statement on foreign investment changes for the telecom sector? Setting out the rules on the auction of 700 MHz wireless spectrum? Some sort of direction in the long-overdue digital economy strategy?
It looks like now,…
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OTTAWA – Over the past number of weeks, Canada’s independent broadcasters have been alerting CRTC staff and commissioners that the big, vertically integrated BDUs are all but ignoring the Commission’s brand new Code of Conduct, which was released with its new policy on Vertical Integration on September 21.
Ignoring that code is a big mistake, CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein told Cartt.ca during an interview Tuesday.
Even though on October 14th, with the ink still drying on the original, the Regulator modified it (changing the instances where it said “shall” to “should”),…
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TORONTO – Media Access Canada (MAC) is gathering support from the country’s disability organizations to head up the newly established broadcasting accessibility fund (BAF).
The CRTC mandated the $5.7 million fund earlier this year as part of BCE’s tangible benefits when it purchased CTV. The Commission directed that the fund’s control be in the hands of the accessibility community with two third voting and board positions, and that the remaining third be filled by members of the broadcast industry.
MAC said that both it and the members of the Access 2020 Coalition have sent submissions to the CRTC stressing that voting…
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OTTAWA – Despite its popularity with consumers, Canada’s national do not call list could be in jeopardy by next spring unless the CRTC can find funding to continue investigating telemarketing complaints and enforcing compliance.
The Commission listed this somewhat startling matter as a ‘risk and uncertainty’ in its quarterly financial report for the period ended September 30, 2011 released Monday.
Despite being granted power five years ago under the Telecommunications Act to create and administer the national DNCL, the Commission said that it did not receive incremental on-going funding “to perform these non-discretionary, statutory responsibilities”. To date, the CRTC said its investigation and enforcement…
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WHEN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT relaxes foreign investment regulations for the telecom sector and sets out the rules for the 700 MHz wireless spectrum auction (there’s widespread hope Industry Minister Christian Paradis will say something about both next week), there aren’t many scenarios that present a rosy future for the newest Canadian wireless companies, according to research by Scotia Capital telecom analyst Jeff Fan.
Former Industry Minister Tony Clement said prior to the last election that when the 700 MHz auction rules are set out, the plan was to also address the limits we in Canada have on foreign investment in…
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TORONTO – Shaw Media and production partner Insight Productions have sold the worldwide format rights for the original series Canada Sings to Endemol, the largest independent television and digital production company in the industry.
Canada Sings challenges Canadians to form glee clubs with their co-workers and compete in a head-to-head battle against another workplace glee team for their charity of choice. Global and Insight Productions recently announced season two of the one-hour series.
Under the deal, Endemol will sell the Canada Sings format internationally and draw on its network of production companies to produce locally adapted versions of the show in major…
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