TORONTO – The 2nd annual Insight Entertainment Industries Summit will run October 22-23 at St. Andrew’s Club and Conference Centre in Toronto.
The event is aimed at senior executives and counsels from the film, television, new media, gaming, music and print media industries who are involved in content creation, development or distribution.
The keynote luncheon address will be given by Namir Anani, executive director of Policy Development and Research at the CRTC.
The conference program co-chairs are Alan Sawyer, principal consultant, Two Solitudes Consulting, and Susan Abramovitch, partner, Gowling Lafleur Henderson, LLP.
Topics include issues facing each content genre,…
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THIS YEAR’S CANADIAN Association of Broadcasters convention may be themed "The World View", but it will be a policy release that is decidedly Canadian in flavour that will likely dominate discussion at this year’s gathering in Ottawa from November 2 to 4.
The two keynote speakers who will certainly expound on the show’s theme and are bound to be rather interesting this year are author Dr. Daniel Franklin, executive editor of The Economist and Jeremy Gutsche, founder of Trendhunter.com.
Monday’s after-lunch plenary will also take a global look around – this time at the regulatory field – as the…
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MONTREAL and OTTAWA – The Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) has lost its most influential French-language member.
Quebecor Media-owned Le Groupe TVA, the country’s largest private French-language TV broadcaster, informed the CAB of its withdrawal in a letter Friday, citing irreconcilable differences over how best to represent the interests of generalist TV networks. Its representatives have also resigned from all CAB committees.
“We do so with regret, and not without having tried, by every means, to convince the Association to be the voice for our concerns about the future of our broadcasting system and to respond to legitimate…
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MONTREAL – The Canadian Association of Broadcasters has lost its most influential French-language member.
Quebecor Media-owned Le Groupe TVA, the country’s largest private French-language TV broadcaster, informed the CAB of its withdrawal in a letter on Friday, citing irreconcilable differences over how best to represent the interests of generalist TV networks. Its representatives have also resigned from all CAB committees.
“We do so with regret, and not without having tried, by every means, to convince the Association to be the voice for our concerns about the future of our broadcasting system and to respond to legitimate expectations,” wrote…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC will put off a review of its benefits policy until after the federal government renders its views on the Canadian Television Fund.
The Commission issued a public notice in July, asking for comments on altering its benefits policy so that some money could be directed to new media initiatives. Currently, when one broadcast company buys another, a certain percentage of the transaction (10% in the case of television companies) must be set aside for public benefits, which are mostly for the production of Canadian content.
However, a number of recent transactions (such as Goldman Sachs’…
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MONTREAL – Quebecor’s outspoken executive vice-president of corporate affairs, Luc Lavoie, is leaving the company, it was announced this week.
"My eight years with Quebecor have been very exciting and rewarding," said Lavoie in the company release.
"The trust that… (CEO) Pierre Karl Peladeau, placed in me gave me the opportunity to play a role in building one of Canada’s largest media and communications companies. In the new environment created by the digital revolution, Quebecor is now fully equipped to face the competition from global giants and to offer all its audiences tools and products that are comparable to…
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MONTREAL – "Once again, Quebecor’s very positive results were spearheaded by robust numbers in the cable segment, which continued to log strong customer growth for all its services," said Pierre Karl Peladeau, president and CEO of Quebecor Inc., in a press release announcing the company’s second quarter results today.
Quebecor’s second quarter 2008 (ended June 30th) revenues came in at $942.3 million, up 15.6% over the second quarter of 2007. Operating income rose 20.1% to $277 million.
Videotron’s operating income was up 25.1% to $182 million and quarter-over-quarter net customer growth was 51,300 for cable telephone service (to 743,000),…
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MONTREAL – Quebecor Media’s broadcasting, publishing and movie unit, TVA Group, reported net income of $12.8 million for the second quarter of 2008, 23% lower than the corresponding quarter of 2007.
TVA saw a drop of $1.5 million in the television sector’s operating income against the same quarter of 2007, “resulting essentially from the negative impact of an accrual of $5.7 million related to disputed regulatory fees,” says the release. Those are the Part II fees that had been collected by the CRTC for years, but that broadcasters fought in the courts as an illegal tax. In late 2006,…
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OTTAWA – Finally, after nearly two months of bidding, involving 331 rounds, Canada’s auction of wireless spectrum ended today, but is merely the first wave of change that will transform the nation’s telecommunications industry.
Canadian companies bid a total of $4.25 billion for 282 wireless-airwave licenses, the proceeds are more than twice the amount analysts had expected. The 15 successful bidders of the auction that began May 27 are eligible to receive licenses after making their final payments and showing compliance with Canadian ownership and control requirements.
Rogers Communications, Canada’s largest wireless carrier, bid $999.4 million for 59 licenses, reports…
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TORONTO – If everyone agrees the deployment of advanced advertising, finely targeted advertising, is a damn good idea that should yield a nice, new burst of revenue, why can’t the industry pull it off?
That was the question I had in my head prior to Tuesday morning’s CTAM Canada panel discussion on the topic held in Toronto at the Velma Rogers Graham Theatre. I’ve heard the players who spoke on this topic at other events and have chatted with most of them in person, too, on this topic.
Invidi Technologies, which led off the morning with a presentation on…
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