WITH THE UNCERTAINTY surrounding the Canadian Television Fund, thanks to the fact Shaw Communications and Videotron have pulled their funding, it’s interesting to note the success of Vancouver producer and distributor Thunderbird Films.
Their suite at the recent NATPE trade show was overflowing with guests and clients there to see the company flog popular fare like Da Vinci’s Inquest, Intelligence, Cold Squad, DeGrassi: The Next Generation, and Stone Undercover.
While the interview was done prior to the CTF mess really hitting the fan (and the Thunderbird executives declined comment on it after the interview), Shaw Communications CEO Jim Shaw…
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TORONTO – Canadian Women in Communications have announced the winners of its CWC Annual Awards for 2006.
Four Canadian women and one communications-industry employer are recognized annually for their contributions to the Canadian communications industry.
“Celebrating the achievements of women is one of CWC’s most important and rewarding tasks,” said Stephanie MacKendrick, CWC president, in the press release. CWC holds an Annual Awards Gala in Ottawa that celebrates the achievements of women, and those who support their advancement in the Canadian communications industry.
Participants in the awards presentation program will include: Minister of Industry, the Hon. Maxime Bernier, Minister…
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IT’S STARTING TO LOOK like this year could be the final one for the Canadian Television Fund in its current form.
With two of its four largest contributors (#1 Shaw Communications and #4 Videotron) adamant that they will forward $0 to the CTF – and with a Heritage Minister in Bev Oda who may be sympathetic towards their complaints – at the very least, upheaval is a certainty.
Oda, who on Monday renewed her government’s $100 million annual commitment to the fund, met with representatives of the four primary private sector contributors: Rogers Communications’ vice-chair Phil Lind, Bell…
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TORONTO – Despite losing a huge chunk of its annual budget, the Canadian Television Fund will continue to support all eligible productions for the 2006-07 year, it announced late Wednesday.
At a recent emergency CTF board meeting, it approved a financial plan that will let the fund maintain financial support of all eligible productions for the remainder of fiscal 2006-07.
“The CTF is extremely concerned about our clients and Canadian productions. The board understands that a dramatic reduction in CTF funding so late in the fiscal year would have severely impacted the entire production industry,” says Douglas Barrett, chairman…
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OTTAWA – New labour legislation currently before the House of Commons could hurt public safety, the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association told the standing committee on human resources, social development and the status of persons with disabilities today.
The new bill, Bill C-257, would ban replacement workers.
The Canadian Association of Broadcasters has already weighed in on the topic.
The CWTA believes Bill C-257 "will significantly impact the ability of wireless telecommunications carriers to effectively meet their commitments to provide secure and reliable public safety infrastructure, and, as such, would jeopardize the safety of all Canadians," says the CWTA…
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TORONTO – A 425-channel high-definition (HD) satellite television universe will emerge in Canada by 2020, with all standard-definition (SD) programming finally making the conversion to HD by that time. That was one ambitious and optimistic outlook revealed at the recent Canadian Digital Broadcasting Summit 2007 held in Toronto this week.
However, some cable industry players who attended the conference are adopting a more cautious perspective.
The bullish HD camp includes Ciel Satellite Communications Inc. of Kanata, Ont., and Nordicity Group Ltd., a telecom strategy consulting firm with offices in Toronto and Ottawa. In response to Industry Canada’s July 2006…
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TORONTO – Using IP as a delivery mechanism, average consumers who have caught the video content creation bug are now in a position to become IPTV broadcasters, according to industry experts who spoke at this week’s Canadian Digital Broadcasting Summit 2007 held in Toronto.
There are two flavours of IPTV today, explains Alan Sawyer, media strategist and consultant for Toronto-based Two Solitudes Consulting. “There’s the IPTV stuff going over a dedicated network by a telco or a cable company, and then there’s the stuff on the wide open Internet which is also using IP to deliver TV content,” he…
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TORONTO – Kathy Gardner, senior vice-president of integrated media research and corporate promotions for CanWest MediaWorks, has been elected chair of the BBM Board of Directors.
BBM Canada is a not for profit, member owned tripartite organization providing broadcast measurement, consumer behavior and industry intelligence to broadcasters, advertisers and agencies.
“Kathy has several years of experience with BBM, and has provided strong leadership to the Television Executive Committee as its Chair,” said Jim MacLeod, president and CEO, BBM Canada. “She brings a unique background to her new role as Chair with both agency and television experience. Kathy will have…
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OTTAWA – NDP Heritage critic Charlie Angus read from Cartt.ca today in the House of Commons while calling for hearings into the future of the Canadian Television Fund.
The emergency hearings will happen soon after a motion to launch them passed the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage today.
During Question Period this afternoon, Angus suggested that Heritage Minister Bev Oda was colluding with the cable industry to kill the fund after reading our Analysis piece on the CTF this morning which keyed off an interview with Shaw Communications senior vice-president Ken Stein, who described the meeting to Cartt.ca.
Oda…
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MONTREAL – While the target speed is 100 Mbps, the new technology being deployed by Videotron to boost its broadband capabilities can hit a blinding 320 Mbps in the lab.
The Montreal MSO and supplier Cisco outlined their work on their DOCSIS 3.0-driven wideband solution – otherwise known as the relatively new channel bonding technology. It’s the first MSO in North America to move towards deployment of the technology which has been built to deal with ever-growing bandwidth requirements as more and more high quality video and rich multi-media is shared among friends over their broadband pipes.
For more than…
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