Marjean Henderson has been appointed VP and CFO of iMagicTV, a provider of interactive digital television and media-on-demand software solutions for telephone companies and other service providers. Henderson has 15 years of experience as chief financial officer in the areas of entertainment and technology. She was senior VP and CFO at Nucentrix Broadband Networks Inc, a provider of broadband wireless services in medium and small markets, headquartered in Plano, Texas.

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Broadcasters submit V-chip timetable to CRTC
The CRTC is reviewing a proposal from Canadian broadcasters that would see the V-chip introduced in Canada next year. If approved, broadcasters would begin encoding their programming to work with V-chip equipped television sets. The commission is expected to respond to the proposed timetable within the next few weeks. Broadcasters currently use an on-screen ratings system, that places icons in the top left-hand corner of the television screen to alert viewers as to a program’s violence, language or sexual content. With V-chip-ready televisions now coming onto the market, broadcasters say they’re ready to begin encoding their programs. The CEO of a Canadian company that manufacturers the V-chip says encoding the ratings system into the video portion of the program is the "missing link" that was required to rollout the V-chip in Canada. Najmul Siddiqui of Tri-Vision International Ltd notes that Canada has not made V-chip compliance mandatory, as was done in the U.S.

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The days of teenagers carrying transistor radios is over, and the generation that made AM the breakthrough venue for rock and roll still makes up the bulk of radio’s listeners, a Statistics Canada study shows. Average listening time is also on the rise. In the fall of 1999, Canadians listened to the radio for an average of 20.5 hours a week, about the same as in the fall of 1998, ending four straight years of decline in radio listening.

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The Canadian Cable Television Association is opposing a proposal by Pelmorex Communications Inc to insert weather warnings on cable signals. In comments filed with the CRTC, the association says it supports the concept of "a cost-effective, technically workable" All Channel Alert (ACA) system. But it notes that many cablecos already carry weather alerts on their community channels.

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CanWest Global Ltd’s takeover of Canada’s largest newspaper chain should sail through with virtually no scrutiny, senior political sources in Ottawa say. The Canadian Competition Bureau is obliged to look at the deal between CanWest and Conrad Black’s Hollinger Corporation, but only in terms of whether the agreement further restricts competition in the newspaper industry. It will not address the issue of media cross-ownership, a major fear of Canadian nationalists in the 1960s and ’70s. With "media convergence" the buzzword of this decade, there’s little stomach among politicians to try to stop CanWest from becoming an integrated media company.

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Canadian broadcasters being unfairly harassed and denied entry into the United States want the American ambassador to Canada to press his government into reigning in its border officials. Broadcasters and unions say crews have been prevented from entering the U.S. to make documentaries when U.S. Customs staff decided that the productions were not non-fiction. In at least one case, Canadian broadcasters had to buy footage from U.S. producers after being refused entry to film an event.

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Auditor general Denis Desautel’s report on the state of the management of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp paints a picture of an organization caught between its mandate as an arm’s length entity, and the political reality of a management overseen by a board, and a president appointed by the Prime Minister.

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