BANFF – The issue of media concentration made another appearance at the 2007 Banff TV festival when Jean Prewitt, CEO of the Independent Film & Television Alliance, spoke at the Canadian Film and Television Production Association lunch Wednesday.
Her remarks come on the heels of the CRTC’s decision to require CTVglobemedia to divest five Citytv stations acquired as part of its takeover of Chum Ltd. With Rogers Communications as the new owner, program distributors merely substitute Rogers for Chum in seeking content buyers.
Prewitt, whose organization represents independent producers – 40% located outside America – says a key IFTA…
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TORONTO – Consumers’ evolving media consumption habits are driving changes in the business models adopted by traditional media players, resulting in once-unlikely partnerships and new branded content opportunities for advertisers.
Today’s media consumers increasingly seek free content, dislike interrupted viewing, want relevant and engaging content, and don’t mind giving up personal information such as their hobbies if it means they can connect to others with similar interests – that’s according to Michael Kelley, partner for advisory services in the entertainment, media, communications and technology sector of PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Kelley was moderating an all-U.S. panel of media players on Monday at…
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THE SLINGBOX IS A cool little device – a neat-o box that lets users place shift their home TV – making their laptop into a second TV in the home, or delivering their cable TV to a conference in Berlin.
Of late, however, the company has gone beyond being a box maker and towards becoming a media company. They’re not making content, however. Instead, the company has created a platform where Sling users can create their own clips of shows and upload them to a secure portal where ads are sold around the clips – letting the content owners…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Rogers Cable has asked the CRTC to change the rules for airing commercials and affiliated programming on its VOD service to grab back revenues from advertisers moving online.
Since October 2005, Rogers has been allowed to show commercials on Rogers on Demand (ROD) where an ad was already included in a program previously shown by a Canadian broadcaster, there is a written agreement with the original broadcaster to air the spot, and the program is offered to subscribers on demand but for free.
Rogers wants its condition of licence amended so that it doesn’t have to offer…
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OTTAWA – Rogers should spend as much money proportionately on Canadian programming on Citytv as it does on baseball players, says the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada.
CEP says Rogers’ deal to buy the City stations from CTV, as required by the CRTC, “could work out” if it gives them as much attention as it does its interests in the Toronto Blue Jays.
When examining the deal, the CRTC should hold Rogers to high commitments of spending on Canadian programming, the union says. “Rogers has the money to excite competition but the question is: will…
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BANFF – The Canadian Television Fund, saying it was responding to “a concern” but declining to name whose concern, said it would put off any changes to its bylaws until the CRTC is finished its review of the fund.
Two weeks ago, Shaw Communications CEO Jim Shaw sent a blistering letter to the CTF saying the fact the organization was planning to alter its bylaws at the same time the CRTC is examining the fund and its operations “flies in the face of common sense.”
Today, buried in a press release of the CTF’s report to stakeholders, the…
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TORONTO – Recognizing that there was probably no way out of last week’s CRTC decision that disallowed the purchase of the Citytv franchise by CTV (a story first broken by Cartt.ca), CTVglobemedia agreed today to sell the five stations to Rogers Media for $375 million.
Today’s deal scraps an earlier agreement that had Rogers acquiring the secondary market A Channels (Barrie, London, Wingham, Windsor and Ottawa Ont., as well as Victoria B.C.), which CTV will now hang onto. Rogers new stations will be Citytv Toronto (CITY-TV), Citytv Winnipeg (CHMI-TV), Citytv Edmonton (CKEM-TV), Citytv Calgary (CKAL-TV) and Citytv…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – While the Canadian TV world was concentrated on the portion of CTVglobemedia’s deal to purchase CHUM that was denied, the Commission also used Friday to announce decisions on Alberta’s new TV choices.
The CRTC approved Rogers Communications application for another OMNI multicultural station serving Calgary and Edmonton. It also denied an application by MVBC Holdings (owners of Vancouver’s Channel M) for an ethnic over-the-air license in the same cities.
"We are delighted with today’s decision. Since 1979, OMNI Television has been a prolific producer and purchaser of Canadian television in over 40 languages," said Leslie…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – It was an application that asked for the insertion of a new middleman in the Canadian television scheme and the CRTC said a definitive “no” to the concept on Friday.
Former Craig Media CEO Drew Craig created Only Imagine Inc as a company which would sell the two minutes per hour of so-called local avail ad time American cable channels provide to cable companies to sell.
Of the millions OI said could be brought in, most of it would go to fund Canadian content. Cable companies, broadasters and commissioners were opposed to the idea, as…
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OTTAWA – CTVglobemedia may have declined all comment today on the CRTC’s decision to approve its takeover of Chum Limited – without CHUM’s key TV assets, the Citytv stations in Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver – but some observers and commissioners have said much of what CTV CEO Ivan Fecan and colleagues must be thinking.
As first reported on cartt.ca yesterday, the regulator approved the transfer of effective control of CHUM Ltd. to CTVglobemedia Inc., but the collection of new assets CTV would obtain is significantly different than what it proposed in its application. (With the public hearings…
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