TORONTO — Canada’s major media companies are presenting a united front as they prepare to combat piracy of their TV content.
A special panel discussion at last week's CTAM Canada Broadcaster Forum provided a comprehensive overview of the impact of piracy on the broadcasting industry as legal experts from Bell, Rogers and Quebecor talk about their biggest concerns as they all believe illegal streaming of pirated TV content is on the rise in Canada. The panel participants also spoke about potential future strategies and recent victories in their fight against the companies who sell internet-connected set-top boxes which make pirated content so…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – CRTC commisioner Christopher MacDonald’s persistent questioning on day one of the hearing into license renewals for several BDUs roughly translated to: “What’s taking so long with the set top box viewership data?”
Quebecor, Rogers, Shaw and Eastlink, all members of the Set Top box working group (check), each had very similar answers to MacDonald’s line of questions. Essentially the answers boiled down to: “What we’re doing is hard, pioneering, and with an uncertain business model, so yes, it’s a slow process.”
The group first met more than two years ago.
During the CRTC’s Let’s Talk TV process,…
Continue Reading
MONTREAL – TVA Group has promoted France Lauzière to president and CEO and chief content officer of Quebecor Content after Julie Tremblay stepped down on Friday. Tremblay is also resigning from the TVA Group Board of Directors and as president and CEO of Quebecor Media Group.
"I had the privilege of working with Julie for more than 25 years and I was always impressed by her readiness to devote herself heart and soul to the organization's success”, said Quebecor president and CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau, in the announcement. “At every stage of her career with Quebecor, she was able to…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Corus distribution division Corus Studios has finalized international content deals for six of its original lifestyle series ahead of MIPCOM.
The new sales include:
– Backyard Builds has been sold to Australia's Nine Entertainment Co. (Nine Network) and One Africa's The Home Channel in South Africa;
– Service Video on Demand (SVoD) rights to Cheer Squad have been sold to Netflix in multiple territories including the United Kingdom and Latin America;
– Home to Win has been sold in 49 territories with new deals signed for both Season 1 and 2 with Foxtel in Australia, One Africa's The Home Channel in South Africa, Quebecor…
Continue Reading
MONTREAL – Groupe V Média has added three new members to its revamped creative solutions team.
Effective October 2, Randy Mauskopf (pictured) is director of creative solutions and business development for the Toronto market where he will strive to strengthen Groupe V Media’s presence and develop agency partnerships. He was most recently director of media solutions and media creativity, Anglophone market, at Quebecor Media Group and prior to that, director, media creativity, Quebec television/digital at Bell Media in Toronto.
In Montreal, Laurence Lafortune is now commercialization manager and will promote and develop the commercialization strategies among advertisers of Groupe V Media’s flagship…
Continue Reading
AU QUEBEC, LA CLASSE POLITIQUE et culturelle a décidément mal avalé la politique culturelle récemment dévoilée par la ministre du patrimoine canadien, Mélanie Joly. Le centriste Parti Libéral du Québec a été aussi véhément dans sa dénonciation de la politique que le Parti Québécois et la formation souverainiste de gauche Québec Solidaire.
Le Devoir, un quotidien montréalais de gauche, a accusé le fédéral dans un éditorial de vouloir “cautionner l’injustice». Pour sa part, le chroniqueur souverainiste de droite Mathieu Bock-Côté, toujours sceptique à l’endroit du gouvernement Trudeau, a reproché le gouvernement et le ministère “d’abandonne les forces vives de…
Continue Reading
IN QUEBEC, THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S cultural policy announcement has landed with a decisive thud. The province’s governing Liberals were as scathing in their denunciation of the “Creative Canada” policy as the sovereigntist Parti Québécois and the left-wing party Québec Solidaire. Highbrow left-wing daily Le Devoir accused the federal government of nothing less than “excusing injustice,” while right-wing sovereigntist columnist Mathieu Bock-Côté, writing in the Journal de Montréal, accused Canadian Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly of “dereliction of duty.”
The opinion pages of the centre-right tabloids Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, usually skeptical of all things Trudeau, lit…
Continue Reading
MONTREAL – Quebecor is once again throwing its support behind the Festival du nouveau cinéma (FNC) which this year will take place October 4 – 15 in Montreal.
In addition to providing financial backing, Quebecor pledged to mount a large-scale promotional campaign for the FNC plus present the prestigious Louve d'Or, accompanied by a $15,000 award, to the best feature film in the International Competition.
"Year after year, the FNC's outstanding line-up of films and the buzz around the festival put Montréal and Québec on the international cinematic map”, said Quebecor president and CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau, in the news release. …
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – In a speech today at an Economic Club of Canada event, Minister of Canadian Heritage Melanie Joly officially unveiled the federal government’s long awaited digital content strategy. Dubbed 'Creative Canada', the plan has angered some and sated others and calls for increased investments to support both domestic production as well as the promotion of Canadian content abroad.
The release of the strategy comes a day after news leaked that the federal government had inked an agreement with Netflix that would see the online broadcaster and distributor invest a minimum of $500 million in Canadian productions over the next…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The CRTC has shot down a request by Canal Évasion to cut its Canadian programming expenditure (CPE) requirement from 46% to 32% of its previous year’s gross revenues.
Évasion is a Frech-language category A service dedicated to travel and adventure that is owned by Quebec TV and video production company Groupe Serdy and Quebecor’s Groupe TVA.
In its application to the Commission, Évasion argued that it would not benefit from the group-based approach in the same way as the large French-language ownership groups, or have advantages such as a greater flexibility in the allocation of resources.
It also requested that it…
Continue Reading
