OTTAWA and TORONTO – The Conference Board of Canada has recalled three reports that it issued late last week, claiming an internal review determined that it “did not follow (its) high quality research standards”.
The recall came after columnist and University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist flagged the reports as plagiarized from studies done by the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) in the U.S., without full attribution.
In his blog on Monday, Geist also said that the report was funded by copyright lobby groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Canadian Anti-Counterfeiting…
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OTTAWA – CTV’s broadcast of three false starts of an interview between anchor Steve Murphy and Liberal leader Stéphane Dion violated provisions of the Radio Television News Directors of Canada (RTNDA) Code of (Journalistic) Ethics and the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ (CAB) Code of Ethics, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) ruled Wednesday.
The interview took place during the October 2008 federal election campaign, and each restart was requested by Dion and granted by Murphy, CJCH-TV (CTV Atlantic)’s news anchor.
Murphy’s first question to Dion was: “If you were prime minister now, what would you have done about the economy…
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SO I SET MY PVR to record about two and a half Saturday afternoon hours of CTV Newsnet (CTV News Channel, as of this morning) this past weekend in order to watch the charade I expected to see.
Heading into the weekend, viewers of CTVglobemedia properties were fed a steady dose of some very one-sided ads promoting the company’s cross-country open houses meant to help “save local TV”, along with a web site of which the best one can say tells a very incomplete story.
While it wasn’t the travesty I had assumed was coming (far from it, actually),…
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OTTAWA – The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) has found that parts of Radio-Canada’s controversial New Year’s Eve special ‘Bye Bye 2008’ violated the public broadcaster’s codes, regulations and conditions of license.
Radio-Canada and the CRTC received a flood of complaints from viewers about the satirical variety show, so much so that the CRTC, who usually handles complaints regarding the public broadcaster, asked the CBSC to examine the broadcast due to its “considerable experience with complaints about broadcast content” and “its well-recognized panel process” before making its own decision on the complaints
The CBSC’s Quebec regional panel examined the…
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ONE OF THE FORMER rules of thumb when it comes to opinionating was: Never Use “I”.
Saying “I think” or “I believe” in a column is redundant and lazy. To paraphrase what more than one editor has said in my presence over the years: “Readers already know it’s what you think, your name’s at the top of the piece. Be more creative in how you write.”
So, with apologies to all of my former bosses, I must say: I have a headache. I’ve grown just a little weary of thinking about the so-called crisis in conventional television. And judging…
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WITH THE ENTIRE TV industry in turmoil, all of us supposedly pondering structural reform while audience fragmentation proliferates as the economy sputters and advertising budgets shrivel, everyone is wondering what Canadian television should look like in the 21st century.
(Ed Note: We first ran the following piece on March 16th and now that the OTA license renewal hearing is complete – and having been disappointed by the dearth of new ideas over those many, many days – we decided to take a page out of the OTA business model and rerun it. To us, this is the type of dramatic re-thinking of the…
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GATINEAU – Canadian convention broadcasters have had their licenses renewed for a year, won’t face a one-to-one foreign-Canadian programming spend requirement – and will have a LOT of regulatory work to do in the next 12 months,
As first reported by Cartt.ca this week, the CRTC announced its preliminary decisions on a few matters from the public hearing to renew the licences of most of Canada’s private conventional television broadcasters.
“We are making our initial determinations public to provide a measure of guidance to conventional broadcasters as they prepare for the upcoming broadcast year and embark on program purchases,”…
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TORONTO – In what could be its last actions, the Canadian Television Fund (CTF) has announced the renewal of its digital media program and production incentive program for the 2009-2010 season.
The digital media program, which supports the digital extensions of traditional television programming, has been increased from $2 million to $10 million.
The production incentive program, launched as a pilot program last year, was designed to balance the distribution of financial support to productions across Canada by encouraging production where volumes have declined significantly. It has been increased from $5 million to $10 million.
The CTF supports the development of Canadian…
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KELOWNA – “We broke all our records,” says Canadian CommTech Show and Seminars organizer Jan Lee in describing the number of attendees at this year’s gathering.
She told Cartt.ca, which is also the event’s media sponsor, that the annual event drew delegates – not including exhibitors – from 68 separate companies (up from 52 last year). The delegates were treated to a dozen seminars Wednesday and can take advantage of eight more Thursday.
On the trade show floor there are approximately 90 exhibits and while the final count isn’t in yet, the total number of industry folks here are…
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GATINEAU – Final replies by broadcasters to the many, many, many things which were uttered over two-and-a-half weeks of the conventional TV license renewal hearing were due into the Commission Wednesday and to no one’s surprise, no minds have been changed.
We’ve been told by two sources with knowledge of the timing that the Commission will issue a decision on its 1:1 idea on Friday (tomorrow) – just as Canada’s broadcasters are headed to Los Angeles to buy American programming for next fall’s TV schedule.
One of the key “broader policy” questions the Regulator put to the industry was…
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