Small- and medium-sized enterprises have told Ottawa that there is inadequate access to high-speed Internet services in the country, primarily in rural areas outside the most densely populated provinces and in northern communities. The implications, say respondents to an online poll conducted by Industry Canada, are that those areas are at a "severe disadvantage in terms of economic development and diversity, access to information, advanced educational tools (i.e. e-learning), and new online health services. This also makes it difficult for these areas to engage in virtual networks (e-clusters) and limits their ability to participate in and influence political agendas," writes the...
December 11, 2002 Look, Bell ExpressVu, VDN tell Federal Court to dismiss Vidéotron's request for leave to appeal on inside wiring Look Communications Inc., Bell ExpressVu LP and Câble VDN inc. have asked the Federal Court of Appeal to deny a request by Quebec cable operator Vidéotron ltée for leave to appeal a CRTC decision on inside wiring (CCR Update, Oct. 17/02). The CRTC issued a mandatory order in October requiring a Vidéotron subsidiary to lease its wires in multiple-unit dwellings in Quebec to its competitors for 52 cents per subscriber per month (CCR, Oct. 10/02). Vidéotron says the CRTC ruling was beyond its jurisdiction and wants the court to look at the decision. For more information, see the upcoming issue of Canadian Communications Reports. Heritage committee hearings on broadcasting switch focus to cultural diversity The House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage shifts its focus this week to cultural diversity as part of its broad review of the Canadian broadcasting system. Due to appear before...
The federal government should move quickly to make changes to the way it funds research and development in this country, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance recommends in its recently tabled report. The committee recognizes that the federal government has made headway in addressing concerns of industry...
The Senate Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology took a scant hour-and-a-half on December 5 to recommend passage of Bill C-11 (formerly Bill C-48) without delay in the upper house. The recommendation comes despite a plea by Aliant Telecom Inc. to delay passage of the controversial legislation that...
Talking the dot com talkAs the year-end approaches and the Canadian new media sector appears poised for growth in 2003, we thought it would be interesting to take a look through our archives to see how industry language has changed. On an unscientific basis, the following chart illustrates the number of stories in a given year we wrote that contained at least one occurrence of the words listed. Decima Reader Online...
The Senate Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology took a scant hour-and-a-half on December 5 to recommend passage of Bill C-11 (formerly Bill C-48) without delay in the upper house. The recommendation comes despite a plea by Aliant Telecom Inc. to delay passage of the controversial legislation that...
An Alberta-based company has received a second round of funding from Canadian Heritage to develop a copyright portal as the department follows through on a key Canadian Culture Online Program commitment. On December 2, Canadian Heritage announced a total of $2,746,530 in funding to three organizations to develop online tools to access copyrighted works and to pay the attendant royalties, including Calgary-based RightsMarket Inc.The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright) and La Société québécoise de gestion collective des droits de reproduction (COPIBEC) are also developing projects, with $962,889 and $868,876 in Canadian Heritage funding respectively. To build a broader...
Robert Dubberley is no longer acting as executive director of the Canada-TELUS New Media Learning Fund or the BC Broadcast and New Media Fund as of November 30. Dubberly was a part-time contractor who oversaw the funds, and the company replaced him as "part of an overall approach at TELUS to reduce our reliance on contractors," according to a company spokesperson. Ray Moschuk, managing director of TELUS...
An Alberta-based company has received a second round of funding from Canadian Heritage to develop a copyright portal as the department follows through on a key Canadian Culture Online Program commitment. On December 2, Canadian Heritage announced a total of $2,746,530 in funding to three organizations to develop online...
After three lengthy hearings, the California Senate Select Committee on the Entertainment Industry has issued its report on, among other things, reforms to the accounting practices of recording companies (CNM, Nov. 28/02). In the report, Senator Kevin Murray, committee chair, proposes that if the...
Halifax-based Collideascope Entertainment is branching out into edutainment with an original interactive property on ecology it hopes to begin selling internationally early next year. The company is in the last stages of completing CreatureSphere before testing and hammering out distribution and content aggregator deals to...
Halifax-based Collideascope Entertainment is branching out into edutainment with an original interactive property on ecology it hopes to begin selling internationally early next year. The company is in the last stages of completing CreatureSphere before testing and hammering out distribution and content aggregator deals to...
The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Decima Reports. We wish Collideascope Entertainment good luck in selling its new CreatureSphere project (see article in this issue). It's refreshing to see a company in the Canadian new media sector take on an initiative such as this and one more sign that business models are maturing. Next year promises to be an...
The much-publicized Bell ExpressVu ComboBox has been quietly put on hold for the foreseeable future putting the long-term plans of a key BCE Inc. convergence initiative in limbo. BCE officials won’t comment in detail to inquires from Canadian Communications Reports, but the move to delay the introduction of the ComboBox...
The Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) hopes to change the way radio tariffs are set in an attempt to reduce the process’ transactional costs, according to president and CEO Glenn O’Farrell. The broadcast lobby group, which represents radio, conventional and specialty television...
No date set for launch of new diginets, says MacMillanNo date has been set for the launch of two more of its licensed digital specialty TV channels, DIY and Fine Living, according to Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc. chair and CEO Michael MacMillan. That is in stark contrast to claims by Shaw Communications Inc., which has told the CRTC that Alliance Atlantis plans to move ahead with these two channels in January. MacMillan tells Canadian Communications Reports that there are no immediate plans to move ahead with more channels, although the company would like to eventually get more of its licensed Category 2 channels on air. "At some point in the future; we don’t have a date fixed. We’d like to some time in the next few years perhaps launch DIY and Fine Living," MacMillan says. He confirms that they will not be launching in January. Shaw has added Scream to its lineup, putting it offside on the commission’s five-to-one rule. It told the CRTC that it has a deal with Alliance Atlantis to launch DIY and Fine Living in...
Claudette Jaiko has been appointed as producer of The National Film Board’s (NFB) Studio Ontario et Ouest. She starts in the new position on December 9 at the NFB’s Toronto offices. She has been working in French and English radio, film and television production for 25 years. A former executive director of Telefilm Canada, François Macerola has been named president of the political commission of the Liberal...
There is still room under existing foreign ownership rules for foreign companies to invest in Canadian cable companies, but the cable industry claims a complete removal of existing rules is needed. That was the message delivered last week in Ottawa by the leaders of Canada’s largest cable...
Bell Canada president and COO John Sheridan says the broadcasting industry should stand united in its fight against television signal piracy rather than singling out Bell’s satellite TV unit. The comments come in the wake of recent media reports questioning the security of Bell ExpressVu LP’s encryption...
The chair of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage says it’s "unfortunate" that Industry Canada has decided to move ahead with a separate review of foreign ownership restrictions in the telecommunications industry. Clifford Lincoln, whose committee’s study of the...
The following is a letter to the editor from the Canadian Cable Television Association (CCTA) responding to the editorial that appeared in the November 22, 2002 issue of Canadian Communications Reports. The issue of why third-party Internet service providers aren’t accessing cable lines was also brought up recently at Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage hearings last month. The facts simply do not support the opinions expressed in Norma Reveler’s editorial on third-party Internet access (TPIA) printed in the November 22 issue of Canadian Communications Reports. The editorial argues that cable companies have found a way to shut out third-party access and have not...
The cost of the broadcast study currently underway by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage could top $1.4 million, according to a tallying of approved expenses. The broadcast review, which officially began on Nov. 8, 2001, is now into its second year (see story in this issue) and many industry observers wonder whether any...
The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Decima Reports.The cable industry’s public attack on its fierce satellite TV competitor Bell ExpressVu over the security of its system is likely to hurt efforts to awaken the Canadian public and government to the serious issue of TV piracy. The attack has already opened the floodgates for "he said, she...
Canadian Heritage earmarks millions for copyright portalsCanadian Heritage will spend $2.7 million to develop online copyright clearing portals in conjunction with three organizations: Access Copyright (formerly CanCopy), COPIBEC and Alberta-based RightsMarket Inc. The funding will go toward a sophisticated new online system to facilitate access to and use of existing copyrighted works. Access Copyright will receive...
Independent producers will have to bring fully conceived ideas for converged TV shows/web properties to broadcasters if they want to sell their products, an industry group recently heard at a workshop on marketing web sites. Several broadcasters from around the world made the pitch for more integrated show ideas at the Bell...
Cablecos likely to continue calls for relaxed foreign ownership rules today before Parliamentary committeeCanada's major cable operators are expected to continue their call for relaxing foreign ownership restrictions in the cable industry today before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, which has resumed its review of the Canadian broadcasting system. Scheduled to appear before the committee...
Moves by two recording industry giants to overhaul their royalty structures will likely be followed by the three remaining labels, experts suggest, as the sector struggles to make its offerings more attractive to recording artists and the public alike. In recent weeks, both Universal and BMG have announced the elimination...
Staff at Ryerson Polytechnic University is hoping to integrate a new Industry Canada-funded web site into a proposed graduate studies program in film preservation to be launched at the school next year. The site, built around the ongoing Kodak Lecture Series in photography and new media, has just been launched, featuring multimedia clips of speakers and...
Two recently released reports from Ottawa, the CRTC’s Broadcasting Policy Monitoring Report and Canadian Heritage’s Performance Report, provide a detailed snapshot of Canadian Internet use and government spending in the sector. The Heritage document details spending on the Canadian Cultural Online Program as well...
Seizing the Digital FutureUCLA researcher Jeffrey Cole was in Ottawa November 6 to address a gathering of Ottawa communications lawyers and other industry representatives on the subject of broadband connectivity. Cole presented unreleased numbers from the school’s latest Internet Report, which he says back up his thesis that the Internet will be "far more significant than television." Always on access, he noted, will be key to consumers’ use of the web for information searching and, increasingly, entertainment downloads. The chart below illustrates that the longer a user has been online, the more likely they are to spend greater time using the Internet. Pangaea plays key role in touch-over-the-Internet demoToronto-based Pangaea NewMedia is trumpeting a new collaboration tool it built in a matter of weeks that helped researchers demonstrate a new application that allows users to "touch" objects via the Internet. On Nov. 19, Pangaea, the National Capital Institute of Telecommunications (NCIT), Algonquin College,...
Rocco Delvecchio, who worked for several years at TV Ontario, has been appointed consul general in Detroit.Cinémathèque québécoise has officially appointed Robert Boivin as director general. He has more than 30 years of experience with the organization, and the announcement follows news last year that Boivin had intended to quit the post. Kate Hanley has been named to the newly created position of president at...
The Privacy Commissioner of Canada, George Radwanski, sent the following letter to the Honourable Martin Cauchon, Minister of Justice and the Attorney General of Canada, the Honourable Wayne Easter, Solicitor General of Canada, and the Honourable Allan Rock, Minister of Industry, regarding the...
The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Decima Reports. Quel surprise. The Ottawa Citizen has come out strongly against a new City of Ottawa plan to make broadband access available to every household within five years. Recall the hue and cry the Citizen and the National Post raised over a similar national plan last year. The Ottawa situation is just a...
The much-publicized Bell ExpressVu ComboBox has been quietly put on hold for the foreseeable future putting the long-term plans of a key BCE Inc. convergence initiative in limbo. BCE officials won’t comment beyond a brief response to Canadian NEW MEDIA’s inquiries, but the move to delay the introduction of the ComboBox...
Cable standards council downsizes, hopes to keep Shaw The Cable Television Standards Council (CTSC) is cutting two of four staff members, and relocating to cheaper office space – a move that it hopes will convince Shaw Communications Inc. to remain as a member. CTSC president and CEO Gerry Lavallée tells Canadian Communications Reports, "They (Shaw) have indicated to us that they would like to resign by December 1. However, we are working quite hard to try to keep them in the fold." Lavallée says the council upped the amount it charged members from 7.5 cents to 8.5 cents per year for each subscriber a cableco has when Vidéotron ltée left the organization last year. He anticipates that if Shaw were to remain a member, then the rate would fall two or three cents per subscriber with the cuts. If it doesn’t, then the remaining members will probably have to pay the existing amount and get less service. Lavallée says the CTSC’s budget will be finalized on January 4, with it going to the board for approval in February. Shaw...
Susan Croome has been appointed B.C. film commissioner, which falls under the province’s Ministry of Competition, Science and Enterprise. She was formerly the general manager of the province’s Bridge Studios for eight years. Carole Vivier returns to Manitoba Film and Sound as its CEO and general manager and film commissioner after leaving to work for the Canadian Television Fund (CTF). The CTF axed its newly...
Faced with a slew of recent requests by broadcasters for signal deletion, satellite TV operator Star Choice Television Network Inc. has filed a licence amendment with the CRTC that would allow it to distribute out-of-market television signals without having to perform simultaneous substitution – Broadcasting Public Notice...
The Canadian Cable Television Association (CCTA) anticipates that the government’s review of foreign investment restrictions in the telecommunications industry announced this week will help it on the Internet front. The Industry Canada news release mentions "infrastructure," notes CCTA president and CEO Janet...
Elizabeth McDonald, president and CEO of the Canadian Film and Television Production Association, spoke about the need to preserve Canadian content in a globalized economy before the Canadian Club in Toronto. She notes that the government’s innovation strategy has concentrated on businesses and economies at large, but has...
Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Winnipeg raided a business that was allegedly making AVR cards and selling equipment for use to receive pirated U.S. television signals, and charged it under both the Radiocommunication Act and the Criminal Code. The move is a sign that enforcement authorities may finally be willing to take...
The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Decima Reports.It’s ironic that the Canadian Cable Television Association (CCTA) and Shaw Communications have expressed concerns over Telus’ potential inability to offer third-party ISP access to its telephone lines as a result of offering a broadcast distribution service (see story on pages 1-2). Just ask Jay...
Veteran broadcaster Trina McQueen has her work cut out for her in trying to solve Canada’s ailing production and viewing of homegrown television drama. While there is consensus among the CRTC, government institutions such as Telefilm Canada, and producers (see Newsmakers column on page 8) that the...
The Cable Public Affairs Channel (CPAC) got its requested wholesale rate and expanded programming in a seven-year licence renewal issued November 19 by the CRTC. At the same time, the CRTC has made it mandatory for large cable operators and satellite TV distributors to carry the channel in their basic packages. The changes...
Cogeco Cable Inc. is hoping the rollout of video-on-demand across the territories it serves in Ontario and Quebec will boost its digital cable service, as it faces intense competition from satellite TV providers, both legal and illegal. Canada’s fourth-largest cableco has already completed "soft" rollouts of VOD in several cities in the two provinces, joining Rogers Cable Inc. (CCR Update, Oct. 17/02; CCR, March 1/02) and Shaw Cablesystems (CCR, July 4/02) in trying to give its digital cable service an edge over satellite. It’s harder for satellite distributors to offer VOD services because they don’t yet have two-way broadband capabilities, and cablecos across North...
Telus Communications Inc.’s applications for two regional broadcast distribution licences were pulled from a public hearing held this week as the CRTC seeks more information about an issue raised by interveners in the process. Sources at the CRTC would not reveal precisely what aspect prompted...
"Tales from the Front" snags top CBC prizeCanadian NEW MEDIA was pleased to serve on the jury that voted to award the CBC Radio Program & Peer award in the new media category to Web One: Tales from the Front. Other awards included best special for This Morning: Peter Gzowski Memorial Special, program of the year C’est La Vie and best regional weekly Culture Shock. Congratulations to all the winners and...
Even as the Alliance numériQC rushes to defend state intervention by the province in the multimedia industry, the Canadian government has stepped up to the plate by adding a second round of $2.4 million to an experimental multimedia fund. On November 12, Canada Economic Development (CED) announced it would pump the...
The Toronto-based New Media Business Alliance (NMBA) has received an important boost with the announcement of just under $11,000 in new funding from the Ontario Media Development Corp. (OMDC) to host a series of speaker luncheons starting this winter. Ian Kelso, who has taken over the reins of the organization following its...
IBDG approved for Category 2 specialty service licenceIBDG Inc.’s application for a Category 2 digital specialty television service licence has been approved by the CRTC – Broadcasting Decision 2002-343. The licence allows IBDG to proceed with its plans to test interactive technology used to conduct market research. The service, dubbed Response TV, was allowed by the commission despite objections by Northern Response (International) Ltd. that the name was similar and potentially confusing. Northern Response operates in the television and tele-shopping industry. IBDG has 36 months now to get the service up and running (CNM, Nov. 15/01 and CNM Update, Jan. 16/02). TELUS gets producer support for BDU and contribution bidTELUS Communications Inc., which has applied for regional broadcast distribution licences covering British Columbia and Alberta, has seen several supporting letters by Western Canadian producers sent to the CRTC in support of its bid. As part of its application, TELUS has also asked that the commission approve the...
Congratulations to Boyne Clarke’s Christene Hirschfeld who has won the 2002 Global Televsion Network Broadcast Communications Award for her contributions to new media in Canada. The National Film Board has appointed Michael Scott as animation producer for Western Canada. Scott’s films include the Academy Award-nominated The Big Snit and Whistling Smith. Carole Vivier rejoins Manitoba Film & Sound as its...
Following is a translated letter sent by the Alliance numériQC to Quebec’s deputy minister and minister of finance Pauline Marois. Montreal, November 8, 2002 – You will hereafter find an open-letter which has been sent to the leading articles sections of Quebec’s daily newspapers in order to react to the remarks made...
The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Decima Reports. The gun lobby here and elsewhere is steadfast in its opposition to firearms registration because it feels, perhaps rightly, that when the state knows who owns guns and where those weapons are it will be too easy for the government to disarm its citizenry, a precursor to aborted democracy. It’s an...
The head of the newly named SMART Toronto Technology Alliance (STTA) says digital content players should look forward to a stronger voice on the local, provincial and national stages as a result of the merger of SMART Toronto and the Liberty Village New Media Centre (LVNMC). STTA president Cindy Pearson tells Canadian NEW...
Canada’s lawful access laws aren’t sufficient to back up this country’s prohibitions on hate material posted to the Internet, says an international watchdog group. On October 31, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s director of national affairs in Canada, Leo Adler, presented a new compilation of global hate sites while...
A war of words has erupted between Quebec’s main multimedia association and one of the most powerful politicians in the province over the role the state should play in aiding the industry. On November 8, the Alliance numériQC was forced to rush to the industry’s defence, specifically of its extensive public-sector...
Vidéotron launches personal video recorderQuebec cable operator Vidéotron ltée has become the first cableco in Canada to introduce a personal video recorder (PVR) for digital cable subscribers. The PVR-capable digital box is being sold for $509 before programming credits. Satellite TV rival Bell ExpressVu LP currently sells its PVR for $574.95 before any credits. Vidéotron’s PVR can store up to 50 hours of recorded...
BCE Inc. president/CEO Michael Sabia says that the company will have to cut red tape on its drive to provide its customers with bundled services, running the spectrum from telephone service to Internet access to TV programming. The company has to simplify and the bureaucracy that gets in the way "must go. And it will...
The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Decima Reports.The buzz around convergence is fading faster than the stocks of the companies that acquired assets in the wake of the frenzy that followed the AOL-Time Warner merger. The problem is not the concept, but the way Canada’s media companies went about their convergence strategies. They moved forward quickly, paying top-dollar for media properties they felt would complement their existing infrastructure, but with no clear business plans. They stuck companies together, but did not have new operational directions under which the "consolidated" properties could function. The CanWest Global Communications-owned newsrooms, for example, rebelled when the Aspers attempted to impose national editorials on them. Unfamiliar with the peculiarities of the newspaper business, the Aspers tried to impose a new direction that just didn’t wash. And clearly a neophyte to the regulatory world of the cable and broadcast...
Torstar Corp. is looking pretty good as the financial repercussions of ill-conceived convergence plans coupled with a downturn in the advertising market are currently squeezing big media players in the country, according to the author of a just released book on convergence in the Canadian media. "I tell you who...
Media and communications expert Peter Lyman has revived his consulting company Nordicity Group Ltd., which has opened offices in Toronto and Ottawa. Lyman says the "new" Nordicity will still focus on the media and communications industries, but will have a slightly different slant. "I think there will be...
The CRTC is considering an American approach to determining whether interactive television (iTV) content is program-related and thus should be subject to mandatory carriage rules. Not surprisingly, the CRTC’s latest iTV process on what constitutes program-related iTV content is expected to again pit broadcasters and...
Several leading new media players say that it won’t be long before broadcasters come looking for financing for projects from them. At a forum called iTV – Where Are We? at the International New Media Festival in Prince Edward Island last month, talk shifted from a focus on a greater recognition...
CHUM Ltd.’s conventional television stations in Pembroke and Ottawa will be able to increase much-needed advertising revenues with the CRTC’s approval to allow split-feed advertising – Broadcasting Decision 2002-328. The CRTC has issued a new licence for CHRO-TV-43 in Ottawa, and deleted it as a retransmitter of the Pembroke station, to allow the split-feed advertising. That’s good news for CHUM, which has fallen just under $3 million short of projected revenues in the Ottawa area market. CHUM will now be able to run advertising from Pembroke and Ottawa Valley businesses on the Pembroke station, and higher-priced advertising to Ottawa companies on CHRO-TV-43. CHUM estimates that...
Wireless cable operator Look Communications Inc. is on track to begin growing its digital TV subscriber base again after nearly two years of subscriber losses, according to the company’s president and CEO. Paul Lamontagne says a new advertising campaign for its TV offering launched in mid-September has produced...
Licence applications for Calgary, Edmonton TV stations soughtHaving received an application for a television broadcasting licence to serve Calgary and Edmonton, with a retransmitter in Red Deer, the CRTC has opened up the process. The commission is calling for applications from all interested parties wishing to obtain broadcasting licences for TV services in Calgary, Edmonton and Red Deer – Public Notice 2002-69....
Paul Robertson heads the combined operations of Nelvana and Corus Entertainment Inc.’s television division. Prior to the creation of Corus Entertainment and his appointment as president of the television division, Robertson was president of YTV. Other appointments to the Nelvana executive team include Peter Moss as executive VP of development, who adds to his responsibilities as head of programming at Corus Television....
SMART Toronto, Liberty Village amalgamateSMART Toronto and the Liberty Village New Media Centre (LVNMC) have confirmed that they are merging into a single entity to be renamed the SMART Toronto Technology Alliance. The former LVNMC infrastructure will become a new advisory board to the organization, with Bruce Graham as chair and former LVNMC interim executive director Julian Wharton responsible for day-to-day operations....
SMART Toronto schedules November 6 announcement SMART Toronto has scheduled a media announcement for Wednesday, Nov. 6, lending fuel to the rumour that it and the Liberty Village New Media Centre (LVNMC) will be merged into a single entity. Both organizations have already quietly indicated that they will be moving to the same building on Fraser Avenue in Toronto, and a merger announcement, if one comes, will likely...
Andrew Cochran, the hired gun consultant to CTV Inc.’s Groundbreaker Fund, says despite industry objections to some of its guidelines, he believes a requirement to work with companies outside Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal shouldn’t be a hurdle to anybody’s participation (CNM, July 25/02). In a frank session with...
The Canadian Broadcasting Corp.’s digital archives web site has grown significantly since its soft launch this spring (CNM, July 10/02), but the expansion hasn’t been without significant headaches, a group of delegates to the International New Media Festival in P.E.I. heard on October 17. Project managers Mark...
The Canadian Cable Television Association (CCTA) continues to call for a light regulatory approach to interactive television (ITV) in the wake of a newly released report by the CRTC and the announcement of another public process into the subject now underway. In comments to Canadian NEW MEDIA, Michael Hennessy, the CCTA’s...
A newly opened Immersion Studios digital production facility in Prince Edward Island could have a commercial product on the market within six months, hopes the company’s president and CEO. Stacey Spiegel was on hand at the Atlantic Technology Centre in Charlottetown on October 17 to open both the new workspace and one of the company’s interactive theatres – expected to become an important tourist draw in the provincial capital. The new facility will be run as a partnership between Immersion and Charlottetown-based Business Technology Consulting (BTC) in a joint venture to be called Castaways Inc. The facility will be the first of what Spiegel hopes will be many smaller ventures...
The threat of legal action should be one reason why new media designers must incorporate accessibility for individuals who are visually impaired or face other challenges surfing the web, says one consultant in the field. In a presentation to the International New Media Festival on October 17, Nicola Teece of...
Alliance Atlantis, CBC to jointly commission TV projectsAlliance Atlantis Communications Inc. and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. have reached a three-year agreement to jointly commission Canadian television projects, ranging from dramatic series to children’s shows. The shows commissioned under the agreement will be broadcast on CBC and Alliance Atlantis’ channels. The agreement also allows Alliance Atlantis to...
Feds pump $4 million into new Francommunautés sitesIndustry Canada and Canadian Heritage have announced 36 winners of the $4-million Francommunautés virtuelles program contest for 2002-2003. The project will encourage use of state-of-the-art Internet technologies and the creation of French content for francophone and Acadian communities. Popular themes among the winning projects included women, ethnocultural minorities,...
Jean-Pierre Blais is leaving the CRTC as executive director, broadcasting, to become assistant deputy minister, international and intergovernmental affairs at Canadian Heritage, effective Dec. 2. International and intergovernmental affairs is one of five sectors in the department and is responsible for Sport Canada, Vancouver’s 2010 Olympic bid, trade and investment issues and intergovernmental affairs matters. Blais...
The one hundredth American Assembly was held February 7-10 in Harriman, New York to discuss the relationship between art and technology. Below is an excerpt from the report that resulted, Art, Technology & Intellectual Property. Two books were commissioned as part of the project, and will be published next year by Rutgers University Press. The report is available for free by email request to amassembly@columbia.edu. The creation, development, distribution, and archiving of artistic content have long been the result of a complex network of business models. While the term "business model" has become a hazy shorthand for a variety of things, this Assembly focused on the term as a system of choices that enable any business — not-for-profit, for-profit, sole...
The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Decima Reports. It’s been two years since Canadian NEW MEDIA sent a representative to the International New Media Festival, but the wait was worth it. This year’s festival, held for the first time in Prince Edward Island, had all of the intimate networking, in-depth panel discussions and energy, creativity and...
The collective society representing songwriters and music publishers has weighed in with arguments why the Supreme Court of Canada shouldn’t hear a high-profile appeal on Internet music royalties. In response to a leave to appeal application filed by the Canadian Cable Television Association (CCTA), Bell Canada and the...
The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. is working on packaging CBC programming, beginning with its news shows, for offer on a video-on-demand (VOD) basis on Rogers Cable Inc.’s digital cable platform. Mark Hyland, director of broadband and digital services at CBC English Television, says the public broadcaster won’t apply for...
Pirate broadcaster Jan Pachul has finally pulled off the air the video stream of his low-powered television station Star Ray TV, which he has been operating in Toronto on UHF channel 15 for more than two years without a broadcast licence. But under an agreement he says he reached with the CRTC, he is continuing to air his alphanumeric...
Canadian Heritage minister Sheila Copps has been bragging for several months that Canada is admired by South Africa for its cultural diversity in broadcasting, so it comes as no surprise that the country had a major presence at the recent International Institute of Communications (IIC) conference. The organization, which...
Cogeco Cable launches VOD in Hamilton ON systemCogeco Cable Inc. quietly launched video-on-demand (VOD) in its Hamilton ON cable system on October 10, company executives noted this week during a conference call with analysts to discuss Cogeco’s fourth quarter and 2002 year-end financial results. The VOD service includes just 100 titles, of which half are new releases and are priced at $5.50 each. Canada’s...
The Canadian Association of Broadcasters announced its 2002-03 boards at its annual convention this week. Gerry Noble takes over as chair of the television board, with Jay Switzer being the vice-chair. Phyllis Yaffe is the new chair of the specialty and pay television board, and Luc Perreault is vice-chair. Rob Braide is the new chair of the radio board and Gary Miles the vice-chair. The chairs and vice-chairs of the...
At the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) convention on October 21, president and CEO Glenn O’Farrell outlined some of the priorities and achievements of the association in its annual leadership report. Areas of particular interest include closing the Internet retransmission loophole, securing a new direct-to-home...
The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Decima Reports.Can the broadcasting industry in this country deliver programs Canadians want to watch when so many in the sector are tailoring their creative visions to meet funding guidelines? It’s a question with which multimedia producers attending the International New Media Festival in P.E.I. were grappling with in relation to CTV’s Groundbreaker Fund (see story in this issue). Long-time producer Andrew Cochran, now a consultant to CTV, responded to complaints about the fund: "One of the laments I have (about) where we have, as an industry, ended up – we’ve ended up being fund guideline oriented and not creative storytelling oriented." Cochran’s point is well taken. This industry has become addicted to funds. The outcome of negotiations between Bell ExpressVu and the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) to settle the matter of out-of-market signals was predictable: a new fund aimed at local...
Canada’s broadcast industry is stepping up legal pressure against black and grey market satellite TV dealers in the wake of a CRTC decision last week in which the commission washed its hands of the issue. Bell ExpressVu LP, CTV Inc., Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc. and Astral Media Inc....
The CRTC concerns itself with too many small things, resulting in important decisions taking too long to be released and broadcasting players getting bogged down in producing time-consuming reports, according to the president and CEO of Canada’s largest cableco. John Tory of Rogers Cable Inc....
SOCAN files its take on Tariff 22The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) filed its leave to cross appeal the Federal Court of Appeal’s Tariff 22 decision with the Supreme Court of Canada on October 14, as well as its opposition to the leave to appeal filed by the cable industry and ISPs (CNM Aug. 21/02). The copyright collective argues that the Tariff 22 decision, which deals with...
Rogers sees strong digital cable growth in Q3Rogers Cable Inc. added a healthy 67,500 digital cable set-top boxes in 63,400 digital households during its fiscal third quarter ended September 30, according to financial results released October 16 by Rogers Communications Inc. The cableco attributed the strong growth to increased marketing aimed at creating greater awareness of the value and features of digital cable, the...
A broad coalition of government, academic and private-sector partners has come together with the hope of conducting a first-of-its-kind study of the way people think about and use new and traditional media. The Canadian Internet Project, proposed as a long-term longitudinal study of attitudes and behaviours of Canadians using new media, has filed an application with Canadian Heritage's New Media Research Network Fund for financing to cover part of the proposed $450,000 per year budget the study cost.Project manager Charles Zamaria, well-known for his work with various funding agencies and as a professor at Ryerson University's School of Radio and Television Arts, tells Canadian NEW...
Legislation could be before Parliament to merge the National Archives of Canada and the National Library of Canada by this winter, and a head of the new institution should be appointed by next summer, says Canada's chief archivist, Ian Wilson.On October 2, Canadian Heritage announced that it would merge the two cultural...
Industry Canada, working in cooperation with Canadian Heritage, has tabled a controversial new report with a recommended time frame for dealing with digital copyright issues. The report, mandated by Parliament in the 1997 Bill C-32 copyright reform process, has surprised some, angered others, and left experts unsure whether...
The Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) has reacted in no uncertain terms to calls by several parties for a CRTC decision in favour of allowing Internet retransmitters to operate. Last month, several groups including the Canadian Cable Television Association (CCTA), the Canadian Association of Internet Providers...
The National Library of Canada heard from dozens of stakeholders in the electronic newspaper industry on October 7-8 as part of its current consultation into helping the sector. Delegates at the Reborn Digital - Digitization of historical Canadian newspapers conference heard from several private, public and academic leaders...
Kalador launches on Irish mobile phone networkVancouver-based Kalador Entertainment Inc. has launched its games and entertainment services on the mobile phone network run by Vodafone Ireland. The Irish telco has over 1.7 million subscribers, and holds 57% of the market in that country. Kalador's Play Anywhere technology is deployed over carrier networks across North America, Europe and Asia and generates millions of...
The Canadian Newspaper Association (CNA) has hired Global Public Affiars Inc. lobbyists Sarah Anson-Cartwright and Edmond Chiasson to push for a legislative review of the Access to Information Act. The CNA is likely readying itself to push for a broad public hearing on proposed reforms to the Act before changes recommended by a special task force in June are implemented.Rick Brace has been named president of CTV Inc.,...
The National Libary of Canada submitted its views on how innovation in Canada could be furthered. Following is an excerpt from its brief on the innovation agenda. The full submission can be found here.The priorities outlined by the Government of Canada are a good first step towards achieving the goal of creating and getting...
The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Decima Reports. News that the National Library and National Archives are to merge should be cause to cheer for observers of the online content community. Together, the institutions can better work to put our massive collection of Canadian heritage online.There are many challenges facing both institutions, however,...
Carole Swan has been appointed associate deputy minister at Industry Canada. She served as associate secretary of the Treasury Board for three years prior to joining Industry Canada. Rick Brace, currently president of CTV Specialty Television Inc., has been promoted to president of CTV Inc. His responsibilities will expand to include CTV’s 27 conventional television stations across the country while continuing to oversee its specialty channels. He replaces Trina McQueen, who announced her retirement late last year (CCR, Dec. 6/01). As well, Kevin Shea leaves CTV parent company Bell Globemedia as it has decided to withdraw from new business ventures such as place-based media, which was led by Shea. Shea joined Bell Globemedia as the new executive VP of convergence just a little over a year ago (CCR, June 7/01). "Kevin was given a difficult assignment to expand our lines of business, but times change and we need to concentrate on value creation closer to our core business," said Bell Globemedia president and CEO Ivan Fecan...
