Last year I had the pleasure of moderating a panel at Prime Time in Ottawa, an annual Canadian TV industry pow-wow in our nation’s capital. Michael Hennessy and the folks at the Canadian Media Production Association host a gathering of 600 or so producers, broadcast executives, lobbyists and others who basically travel from all across
This week, CHML’s Scott Thompson asks about that CRTC decision to allow the U.S. broadcast of future Super Bowls, into Canada without a Canadian signal substitution. It’s supposed to start happening in 2017. To me this is as inexplicable as Seattle Seahawk’s coachPete Carrell’s decision to allow his quarterback to throw a last minute slant
He’s speaking for Kevin Crull and everyone at Bell Media, clearly, but Kevin O’Leary has a point when he calls the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission’s surprise ruling about Super Bowl ads “insane.” (See O’Leary’s BNN rant here.) CRTC chairman Jean Pierre Blais announced Thursday that, starting in 2017, Canadians can watch all the U.S. Super
This week, CHML’s Scott Thompson reached me in Winnipeg. I was in Manitoba on location with the cast and crew of the upcoming City comedy Sunnyside (see previous post). Cramming things in on a Friday, I had set things up for the station to reach me on cell. Being an aviation nut (wing nut?) I was trying
This week, CHML’s Scott Thompson was shocked–shocked!–to hear that Bell was getting out of the TV news business. Well, that was their threat anyway. Bell’s brain trust, along with other industry weasels leaders, have been in Gatineau, Que., the past week-and-a-half. They’re attending something called “Let’s Talk TV: a Conversation with Canadians.” The CRTC called
Last week, the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission released their annual financial report on Pay and Specialty services. Among the things that jumped out: The Comedy Network, which could be re-named the Match Game network ’cause that’s the only thing on there whenever I look, earned a pre-tax profit of $31.3M on revenues of $60.8M in
Sun Newsers and one of their fans in happier times Denied.That was the CRTC ruling Thursday for the Sun News Network, the all news operation launched over two years ago by Quebecor. The channel has struggled, losing a reported $15 million in its first year. Executives argued that it deserved to be on a level
Starlight’s Big 3 Paul Gross, David Cronenberg and Robert Lantos Looking for some crackling good reading on the future of Canadian television? You could do worse than to peruse the transcripts coming out of Gatineaux from the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission hearings into mandatory distribution. One overall impression that stands out: this is indeed a