CNM Update

OMDC offers new fundingThe Ontario Media Development Corp. (OMDC) has launched a new Pioneering Content fund. Initial reaction from producers is positive about the six-project, $70,000-each cash grant intended to create new prototype content that incorporates material from at least two of the OMDC’s constituencies. While OMDC officials stress that it is not specifically a new media program, it’s clear the fund is tailor made for new media productions. Canadian NEW MEDIA will have further details about the program in its upcoming issue next week, and report on an OMDC information session to be held March 14 in Toronto. Details of Hello TV revealedCanadian NEW MEDIA will have full details its next issue next week on a company we reported on briefly on February 7, Hello TV (CNM, Feb. 7/03). The Toronto company, with an address at one Atlantic Avenue, will be creating MPEG-4 content for distribution on Eutelsat’s Open Skies platform that can be received and watched on computers, or routed through a PC to a television set. The company is eyeing a spring launch. Quebec film, TV, and interactive strategy announcedAs part of its 2003-2004 budget, the Quebec government has announced a provincial strategy to assist the digital content industry in that province. The process will include a thorough review of the province’s current programs. Full details are available here. The Alliance numériQC, which last fall asked the province for such a move (CNM, Oct. 3/02), has applauded the initiative. Knopf-edited IP book hits shelvesSecurity Interests in Intellectual Property, a book edited by Macera & Jarzyna lawyer Howard Knopf, is now available for sale. Prefaces have been written by Nathalie Des Rosiers, president of the Law Commission of Canada, and Marybeth Peters, the U.S. copyright registrar. The work has 18 chapters comprising almost 700 pages from experts in all key jurisdictions. CFTPA cranks up letter-writing campaignThe Canadian Film and Television Production Association (CFTPA) has initiated a letter-writing campaign to protest recent cuts to the Canadian Television Fund (CTF). A template letter has been posted on the CFTPA’s web site. The letter asks: "As a producer of Canadian-made television programs, I am surprised and disappointed at the government’s slashing of the in the 2003 budget. This budget focused on boosting a wide variety of sectors, consequently, I do not understand why the production industry was targeted with a cut. Has the government turned its back on homemade culture?" Cold North Wind releases Australian paper archiveCold North Wind Inc., Ottawa, and News Ltd., the Australian division of News Corp. Ltd., have released Internet access to 20 more years of the Melbourne Herald Sun, known originally as the Port Phillip Herald. The first 40 years of the paper’s archives – from 1840 to 1880 – were digitized and placed on the Internet for public access during the past year. More details. Genealogical research web site postedCanada’s Genealogical Research Library has launched a new web site to help trace ancestors. The site, at http://www.grl.com, provides access to the library’s databank of more than four million people who lived in Canada between the years 1608 and the early 1900s. Over a million names are already linked to actual images of original rare books and documents.

CNM Update

Broadcast | March 12, 2003

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