The Canadian Media Guild (CMG), the union representing the majority of CBC workers, says it’s concerned that last week’s CRTC-issued licence renewal sets out a path that could lead to hundreds of news staff in metropolitan centres losing their jobs. The decision relaxes a condition of licence requiring CBC television stations in metropolitan markets to broadcast minimum thresholds of local programming, while retaining the requirement in non-metro markets. The commission has also released the CBC from any expenditure requirement related to news programming and gives CBC/Radio-Canada the flexibility to meet its conditions of licence across its online streaming platforms, CBC Gem and ICI TOU.TV, in addition to linear TV and radio. CMG says many of its members fear relaxation of the public broadcaster’s licence requirements could lead to CBC canceling television newscasts, in favour of spending on online content. Read more here.
— CMG – La Guilde (@CMGLaGuilde) June 30, 2022
Canadian Media Guild (CMG) has created an Award of Recognition to draw attention to the plight of long term temporary workers at CBC. The first instalment of the CMG Long Service Awards were handed out during a virtual ceremony Wednesday evening, honouring a dozen employees from across the country. The union estimates the number of temporary staff at CBC bureaus across the country ranges between 25% to 30%. In May of this year, CMG says CBC was employing 1,137 temporary workers according to numbers provided by the corporation, accounting for one out of every four workers.
CBC and Initiative, an IPG Mediabrands agency, have finalized a new agreement for Initiative to continue to serve as CBC’s media buying agency of record. The new deal follows a competitive RFP process that began in September 2021. Initiative has served as CBC’s Agency of Record for the past 14 years, helping build multi-platform and data-driven marketing campaigns for all of CBC’s properties, including CBC TV, CBC News Network, documentary Channel, CBC Listen, CBC Gem, and CBC.ca. Initiative will continue to provide CBC with overall strategic leadership, direction and execution on media planning and buying services.
The CRTC is moving to implement safeguards to ensure that Canadian carriers that block botnets do so in a way that provides a baseline level of protection for Canadians. The commission is establishing guiding principles for a future network-level botnet-blocking framework and has requested that the CRTC Interconnection Steering Committee (CISC) examine a number of issues to assist in developing technical parameters and produce a report detailing its recommendations within nine months. Following receipt of that report and a commenting period, it intends to establish minimum standards for botnet-blocking.
Corus Entertainment has announced its third quarter financial results, reporting net income attributable to shareholders of $29.6 million ($0.14 per share basic) for the quarter ending May 31, and $122.0 million ($0.59 per share basic) year-to-date. Q3 revenue totalled $433.5 million, up from $402.3 million year-over-year as television segment business rose to $404.1 million, compared with $379.8 million a year ago. Radio revenue in the third quarter totalled $29.3 million, up from $23.2 million in Q3 2021.
