“COME WITH ME. I’LL show you why I wanted to be president of the CBC.”
Those were CBC president and CEO Hubert T. Lacroix’s first words to me last week as we sat down in the meeting room overlooking the Montreal skyline and St. Lawrence River at Radio-Canada’s headquarters. I jumped to my feet and followed him into his office.
Just inside his door is a headless mannequin dressed in a whimsical suit, topped with a bowler cap. “It might be a bit before your time but do you know who this is?” he asked me, excitedly. I wrack my brain…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – A coalition of cultural organizations is pleading with the Federal Court to consider the “devastating” impact that foreign ownership in the telecom and broadcasting industries would have on Canadian culture.
ACTRA, the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP), and Friends of Canadian Broadcasting were granted intervenor status for the Court’s judicial review of the government’s decision to licence wireless provider Globalive, which began on Wednesday. The coalition said that telecom companies “have a responsibility under the Telecommunications Act to strengthen and safeguard Canadian cultural sovereignty”.
“This case raises fundamental questions about the relationship between foreign ownership and Canadian…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Omnicom Media Group has named Adam Ivers as the new president and CEO of its Toronto-based agency Highway Entertainment.
Ivers joined Highway Entertainment in 2007 and most recently held the role of executive vice president. Prior to Highway, Ivers was VP of programming for the former CanWest Global Broadcasting (now Shaw Media), in addition to stints at International Management Group Canada (IMG) and TSN.
“Adam’s experience in broadcast programming, entrepreneurial approach to deal making and his innate skill for working collaboratively, has resulted in both company growth and new ways of delivering value for our clients in a rapidly evolving…
Continue Reading
CALGARY – Buried in the Shaw Communications first quarter results last week was the price the company paid for tiny Lake Broadcasting, a 1,000-subscriber cable system which served Sorrento, B.C.
Shaw paid $3.5 million ($3,500 per subscriber) for the system situated about 75 kms east of Kamloops which was owned by Leigh Hillier.
– Greg O’Brien
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – CTVglobemedia Inc. says that it stands to lose up to $6.5 million in advertising revenue just by airing two public service announcements (PSAs) about the impact of the upcoming digital transition on over-the-air TV viewers.
According to the CRTC’s proposed regulations for the digital TV transition, broadcasters must begin airing the two PSAs no later than March 31, 2011. The first, which must will air six times per day to start and eight times daily beginning one month prior to the shut off, will inform viewers that analog OTA signals will cease on August 31, 2011. At least 25% of the PSAs must run…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – The Canadian broadcast and telecom industries appear to have plenty to say about the proposed merger of Bell and CTV. With comments and interventions due on Tuesday, three weeks in advance of the CRTC hearing, most stakeholders offered their conditional support, but only with safeguards in place to preserve industry competition.
Rogers tied its support of the deal to Bell’s continued opposition to the issue of value-for-signal (a.k.a. fee-for-carriage). Bell, Rogers, Cogeco, Shaw and Telus at one point banded together to challenge the CRTC before the Federal Court of Appeal arguing that the Commission lacks the power…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – It was good to be a TV distributor in 2010.
That’s the message we see in the CRTC’s aggregate financial data recently posted on the Commission’s web site. Expenses are up (in some cases, way up), but then again, so was revenue, and profits.
• According to the data submitted to the Commission by the big cable and satellite companies for the 2010 broadcast year (ended August 31, 2010), the largest six companies (Shaw, Bell, Rogers, Videotron, Cogeco and Bragg) together earned $12.15 billion in revenue from their video, high speed internet and VOIP telephone services (the data does…
Continue Reading
WHILE MASSIVE SPENDING cuts at one bankrupt broadcaster led it back into the black in 2010, another that was home to the Olympics saw the Games both boost – and drag down – results.
According to the aggregate financial data submitted to the CRTC by all English and French language OTA broadcasters and posted to the Commission web site recently, all lost money, save two.
• Those two are Quebecor Media’s TVA (which recorded a PBIT of $49 million in the 2010 broadcast year (ended August 31, 2010) and the former Canwest Global stations (now part of Shaw Media) which…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – HGTV Canada is kicking off 2011 with a multi-platform image campaign celebrating winter and a new season of programming.
Targeting Adults 25-54, the national campaign, with emphasis in Ontario, features three winter scenes emulating a playful and warm feeling while reflecting the channel’s home improvement, design and real estate themes on over 500 billboards in Toronto, Kitchener, London and Ottawa for six weeks. Featuring either a house made of ice and snow, a handy snowman donning a hard-hat and tool belt, or HGTV’s ‘snowfa’, all pieces feature the tagline: ‘It’s A Big Winter On HGTV. Something New Every…
Continue Reading
WINNIPEG – Winnipeg has become the fifth Global Television market to broadcast in high definition with the launch of a new digital, over-the-air transmitter.
The Global Winnipeg HD signal is available now on Shaw Cable’s channel 211; on MTS Digital TV on channel 455; and over the air on channel 40, the company announced. In addition to the new HD signal, Global Winnipeg’s current analog over-the-air signal will continue to be available to viewers in both an analog and a digital format until the summer of 2011, to coincide with the phasing-out of over-the-air analog television signals in major markets across Canada.
“The move to HD…
Continue Reading
