MONTREAL – In its appearance Monday at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage hearings, Quebecor Media took the opportunity to pat itself on the back for spending over $370 million on “cultural content” in 2008.
Calling the impact of its investment in cultural industries “substantial”, the Quebec media giant said that in fiscal 2008, it spent more than $373 million on developing, creating, producing, broadcasting and promoting Canadian content, making it the largest private producer of original content in Canada. The figure includes $123 million spent by its TVA Group on original television content for the Quebec market.
Describing…
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MONTREAL – Quebecor’s vice president and CFO Louis Morin has left the company.
No details were offered on why Morin, who has been with Quebecor since 2007, departed or where he made be headed.
His responsibilities will be assumed on an interim basis by president and CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau, in addition to Denis Sabourin, vice president and corporate controller, and Treasurer Jean-François Pruneau.
www.quebecor.com
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OTTAWA – Quebecor Media’s Sun TV and TVA Group, and Canwest Television have received CRTC approval to be governed by the new Journalistic Independence Code established by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC).
The code, which was approved by the Commission in Broadcasting Public Notice 2008-95 last October, ensures a diversity of editorial voices in companies where there could be issues around cross-media ownership.
The move means that the networks are no longer subject to the CRTC-imposed Statement of Principles and Practices which was included as a condition of license, so long they remain members in good standing of the CBSC.
The…
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GATINEAU – With the CRTC panel sounding increasingly like an ISP levy-for-broadband-Cancon is under serious consideration, leave it to Telus’ Michael Hennessy to bring peals of laughter into the hearing room as the final presenter at the CRTC’s hearing into new media and broadcasting.
The past three weeks have seen interveners and the commissioners themselves asking repeatedly, among many other things, whether or not ISPs are in some way, akin to BDUs. Because if they are, maybe they can be taxed like BDUs and contribute some kind of percentage of revenue towards the production of Canadian-made online content (ACTRA…
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MONTREAL – A tax promoting the production of Canadian content for the Internet “is not needed”, and taxing Internet service providers for this purpose “amounts to taxing Canadian consumers under a false pretext”, said Quebecor Media.
“Canadians are paying enough taxes and it would be unconscionable to further increase the tax burden in the midst of an economic crisis,” said Pierre Karl Peladeau, Quebecor’s president and CEO, in a company statement. “This would be unproductive and, in any event, illegal. If we truly wish to promote the production of original Canadian content, the industry must be freed of the…
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TORONTO – Getting funding to make television in Canada is about to get a whole lot different.
Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore announced today the Canadian Media Fund, a combination of the existing Canadian Television Fund and the Canadian New Media Fund.
The new fund, according to the Minister will be “reformed and rebranded” through a radically different partnership with the groups who provide the funding (government, DTH, cable and telco TV providers) and those who spend it (the production community). Its mandate will be to ensure the production of quality content and to make it available on multiple…
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TORONTO – Reaction to the new Canadian Media Fund (CMF) was predictably mixed, but the consensus seems to be that the distributors got what they wanted.
For starters, the CMF’s new “streamlined” and “independent” board will be made up of seven members – two appointed by the government, and the other five nominated by the fund’s five largest contributors, namely Bell, Rogers, Shaw, Videotron and Cogeco. The old board had 21 members, and was dominated by producers and cultural groups.
Minister Moore confirmed that the five members cannot be current employees of these companies, but, as to whether they…
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MONTREAL – Former Videotron executive Yvan Gingras has been named COO of Sun Media, effective immediately.
Reporting directly to president and CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau, Gingras will be responsible for the industrial operations, finance and IT departments of Canada’s largest newspaper publisher, plus “spearhead major special initiatives related to corporate projects”, said the company announcement.
“Our newspapers segment is contending with a significant drop in advertising revenues, aggravated by the tough economic environment," Péladeau said in the statement. "Its business model must be entirely overhauled. In the present circumstances, the experience of a manager and leader of Yvan Gingras’…
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OTTAWA – We’d almost forgotten about it, but the federal government just might release its decision on the Canadian Television Fund next week.
A source with knowledge of the decision’s timing told Cartt.ca this week that Heritage Minister James Moore may have an announcement as early as Monday.
The fund has spent a lot of the past 24 months defending itself and making a few changes in the way it does things. This impending release and any potential changes in how the $250 million in annual TV production money is collected and doled out was spurred on by the…
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MONTREAL – Growth at Quebecor’s cable company Videotron helped the company see an almost 11% increase in revenue, and an 18% jump in operating income for fiscal 2008.
The company, which announced its consolidated financial results Wednesday, reported revenues of $3.73 billion, an increase of $364.2 million from 2007, and operating income up $171.7 million to $1.12 billion for the year ending December 31, 2008.
Net income for 2008 was $187.3 million, compared with a net loss of $969.2 million in the previous fiscal year.
Revenues rose in its Cable division by $251.6 million (16.2% of segment revenues), reflecting customer growth for…
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