CNM Update

Tuesday, August 2, 2005 New media producers add support to ExpressVu’s desire to add more money to Bell fundMany of Canada’s top new media producers have added their support to Bell ExpressVu’s application to direct all of its mandated Canadian production contributions from its pay-per-view (PPV) TV operation to the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund. Among the interveners in the process are the presidents of two Toronto-based new media shops, Diane Williamson of Digital Wizards Inc. and Mark Bishop of Marblemedia, who say the Bell Fund’s efforts and funding have led to recognition for Canadian new media producers abroad. Not surprisingly, they also applaud the direct-to-home satellite distributor’s efforts to add more to the Bell Fund pot. "In our travels to the United States, Australia, Singapore and Japan, we have consistently been praised for the innovative, high quality work which is made possible only by the support of the Bell Fund," Bishop said in his submission. The comments have been received since Canadian NEW MEDIA reported on the Canadian Film and Television Production Association’s support of the proposal in its July 20 edition. As part of its application to renew its PPV licence earlier this year, Bell ExpressVu applied to the CRTC for permission to change the funding formula governing the contributions for that service. Five per cent of Bell ExpressVu’s PPV revenues are earmarked for Canadian production contributions – of that amount, 80% is currently routed to the Canadian Television Fund (CTF), and 20% to the Bell Fund. However, not all submissions support the proposed change. Tele Inter-Rives Ltee – a francophone TV broadcaster with four smaller-market stations in Quebec and New Brunswick that are partly funded by the CTF – voiced concerns over Bell ExpressVu’s proposal, saying it would mean a $800,000 drop in funding for the CTF. Bell ExpressVu’s current PPV licence expires on August 31. iPods escape IP levy: Supreme CourtThe Supreme Court of Canada has dismissed a motion by the Canadian Private Copying Collective (CPCC) to overturn a ruling against levies on digital audio media players. The CPCC, a collective of authors, musicians, record companies, publishers and other copyright-protected groups, had appealed a ruling by the Federal Court of Appeal that quashed an earlier levy. That levy, imposed in December 2003, mandated that device manufacturers such as Apple and Dell as well as importers such as Future Shop incorporate the levy – which ranged from $2 on a device featuring non-removable memory with a capacity of 1 GB or less, to $25 for devices bearing more than 10 GB of non-removable memory – into the retail price of digital audio media players. While a CPCC spokesperson said the group was "disappointed" in a press release, Graham Henderson, president of the Canadian Recording Industry Association, said in another release the ruling was a blow to those who believed the levy gave illegal file-sharers a green light to operate. Henderson also said that growth in legal music downloads, which properly compensate the artist and record company, should more than offset the loss of levy money. "The legal marketplace is far more efficient and compensatory than scraping nickels and dimes through a levy," he said. From December 2003 to December 2004, CPCC said it received roughly $4 million in levy money, but will now refund that money to manufacturers and distributors of digital audio media players. In 2000, the federal government introduced a levy on blank recordable media, such as audio tapes and mini-discs, at CPCC’s request. Research firm releases telco report cardBoston-based Consumer Respect Group released the results of its second-quarter Online Customer Respect Study of the online presences of firms in Canada’s telecommunications sector earlier this month. Out of a maximum score of 10, three major telcos were judged to offer "good" treatment of customers online, based on such criteria as simplicity and navigability of the web site, responsiveness, privacy, attitude, and transparency, A score above 8 is considered excellent, while a score under 4 is classified as poor. Rogers Communications Inc. narrowly edged out Bell Canada with a score of 7.5 compared to Bell Canada’s 7.3, while TELUS Corp. showed the most improvement over last year’s results by catching up to Bell. The average score among Canada’s telcos for this iteration of the study was 6.6, a marked increase from 6.2 in the same quarter of last year, and Canadian firms also tended to outperform their U.S. counterparts, according to the survey. Overall, Canadian companies were worst in the responsiveness category, with an aggregate figure of 59% of all consumer inquiries being answered within a day. Rogers Wireless inks Napster ringtone dealToronto’s Rogers Wireless has agreed to offer new ringtones from file-sharer-turned-music-distributor Napster. The Napster Ringtones service, a partnership between Napster and Dwango Wireless, will be initially made available in Canada over the Rogers Wireless network. Napster and Dwango hope to bring other Canadian carriers on board later this year. The offering includes a library of ringtone, wallpaper and desktop theme downloads starting at $2.10. CryptoLogic plays cards right at WSOPToronto online gaming software firm CryptoLogic Inc. is claiming a public relations jackpot: one of the top 20 players at a recent World Series of Poker championship in Las Vegas arrived at the competition in part thanks to the firm’s software. John McGrane of London finished 18th in the tournament, winning US$350,000 in prize money after 78 hours of poker. McGrane and 101 other players among the more than 5,600 that qualified for the WSOP event did so by winning games at poker sites using software from WagerLogic, a CryptoLogic subsidiary. Besides McGrane, eight other players finished in the top 10% and went home with prize money. Bell pay-per-click ad service launchedBell Canada and BidClix Canada Inc. have teamed up to offer a targeted advertising service called Bell Virtual Marketplace. Bell Virtual Marketplace offers businesses the chance to advertise in custom content areas such as finance, entertainment, autos, and health and fitness on the Sympatico/MSN portal. Advertisers bid on a per-click price, then pay according to the number of clicks; the bid price can also be instantly altered to suit businesses on a budget. Unlike other search engines, which charge for key word and result placement, ad positioning on Bell Virtual Marketplace is highly contextual, and BidClix’ system is already serving 10 million ads and tens of thousands of clicks each day, according to Bell and BidClix. New director at CHUM InteractiveToronto’s CHUM Ltd. recently announced the promotion of Dale Fallon from manager of operations to director at its CHUM Interactive subsidiary. His new duties will include working to streamline operations at CHUM Interactive, as well as strategic planning and growing the business. He will manage a team of 30 staffers to achieve those ends. Before joining CHUM, Fallon was webmaster at Bell Canada’s web portal Sympatico. He will report to Maria Hale, VP of content business development at CHUM Television. XM earnings excite as company inches towards profitWashington, D.C.-based XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. posted its second-quarter earnings this week. While revenue at the satellite radio provider more than doubled from US$53 million to US$125 million over the same quarter last year, the firm has yet to reach profitability and reported a net loss of US$146.6 million, an improvement on the US$166 million loss it incurred during the same quarter last year. However, the firm added 55% more subscribers during the second quarter this year, for a net addition of 647,226 subscribers. XM Satellite Radio attributed the growth in both revenue and subscribers to the addition of Major League Baseball games and other sporting events to its broadcast schedule, as well as the recent CRTC approval a licence for Canadian Satellite Radio (CSR), XM’s partner in Canada, to provide satellite radio service here. The licensing of CSR is currently subject of numerous appeals to federal Cabinet, which is being asked to refer the decision back to the regulator for reconsideration. Among those appealing are CHUM Ltd., which was awarded a licence for a subscription terrestrial-based satellite radio service, some other small broadcasters such as Radio-Nord Communications Ltd, and numerous cultural groups, including the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA), Directors Guild of Canada (DGC) and the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN). The government is expected to respond to the appeal requests by September. XM/MP3 player due out by end of yearXM Satellite Radio has teamed up with Samsung Electronics Co. to design a line of portable digital music players that will play both XM radio broadcasts and digital files in formats such as MP3. The two planned device models will not directly pick up XM’s satellite radio signal, but will instead require docking with a base station featuring XM’s "Connect and Play" technology to download XM broadcasts. While both XM and Samsung make digital radio and MP3 audio players respectively, neither company has to date introduced a model that can do both. The players should be available by the end of 2005. Cellphones keep a Latin beatThe mobile phone ringtone rage just keeps growing: Lagardere Active North America’s BlingTones division is wooing the Latino music-loving community with a new brand, Barrio Mobile. The new entity will offer exclusive ringtones penned by high-demand contemporary stars of Latin music, as well as per-fee downloads such as themes for mobile phone displays and games. BlingTones began in September of last year offering a similar service to the hip-hop community. UPCOMING- BCE Inc. will release its second-quarter 2005 results on Wednesday, August 3.

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