Allan Reid, president & CEO of CARAS and The JUNO Awards, issued a statement this week apologizing for comments co-host Russell Peters made during Sunday’s telecast

GENERAL:

Allan Reid, president & CEO of CARAS and The JUNO Awards, issued a statement this week apologizing for comments co-host Russell Peters made during Sunday’s telecast.

In the statement, Reid distances himself and organizers from jokes criticized for sexualizing women. Peters opened the show with a monologue referring to young girls in the audience as a “felony waiting to happen.” He also jokingly questioned why Heritage Minister Melanie Joly was presenting an award, adding that it didn’t matter because “she’s hot, so who cares?” Joly has called the jokes inappropriate. Meantime, Vancouver will host the 2018 JUNO Awards and JUNO Week celebrations March 19-25, 2018.

Melanie Joly, Minister of Canadian Heritage, has announced an additional $4.15 million will be injected into the Canada Music Fund (CMF) to promote Canadian artists abroad. Approximately 100 artists will directly benefit from this funding, which will enable them to increase their discoverability in the global digital market and reach new audiences abroad.

Chill Telecom has folded. Started by 19-year-old Roujeh Ramadan, the Kitchener-based wireless service, promising $35 unlimited talk and text plans, had signed up 200,000 pre-registered customers. The startup says it will be returning nearly $300,000 in crowd-funding.

Bell Media has struck a worldwide music publishing and administration partnership with independent music rights management company ole to manage its in-house music catalog. The multi-year deal will increase revenue generated from Bell Media’s 12,000 track audio-visual collection, including television music like The Hockey Theme, CTV News themes and compositions from original programs.

The Canada Media Fund (CMF) has cut its program budget by 5.8 per cent due to an expected decline in contributions from Broadcast Distribution Undertakings for the year to come. The CMF is committing $349.7M to support Canada’s television and digital media industry in 2017-2018, based on revenue estimates from Canada’s cable, satellite and IPTV distributors; and recoupment/repayment revenue from funded productions. CMF says it’s reduced its administration budget to direct the most funds possible to its programs.

Some of the best radio brains around will be ripe for the picking at the Consultant’s Roundtable at Canadian Music Week on April 20. The 8:15 a.m. session, moderated by JJ Johnston, provides the opportunity for you to ask the experts your questions face-to-face.  The Alan Waters Young Broadcaster Award in memory of the legendary Steve Young will also be presented at the session.

The awards nomination period for the Western Association of Broadcasters closes this Friday, Apr. 7. All member stations of the WAB are eligible to submit entries for the Gold Medal Award for Community Service, Leader of Tomorrow and Broadcast Hall of Fame.  For more information on award criteria, visit www.wab.ca/nominate.  Award winners will be celebrated June 8 at the 83rd Annual WAB Conference in Banff.