The CRTC has renewed CBC’s television and radio licenses to just Aug. 31, 2019. The commission says with the term of current CBC president and CEO Hubert Lacroix set to end in December, and a number of positions on the CBC board of directors vacant, the decision will allow the new president and board to have a material impact on the CBC’s licence renewal plans.
The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council has found that HopeTV (CIIT-DT) Winnipeg breached the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’Code of Ethics and Equitable Portrayal Code in its broadcast of Truth of God on Sept. 10, 2016. The paid religious program features the sermons of Pastor Gino Jennings from First Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ in Philadelphia. The majority of the program consisted of a sermon by Jennings who raised the issue of allowing transgender people to use the public bathroom of their choice. The CBSC has ruled the broadcast contained abusive, derogatory and inappropriate comments about an identifiable group including Jennings’ use of “faggots,” “perversion” and “pedophiles.” You can read the full decision here.
Randy Lennox, Barbara Williams, and Rick Brace
Canada’s three biggest private broadcasters have written an open letter to MPs in The Hill Times, essentially asking parliamentarians to ignore lobbying efforts from the creative community to rescind the CRTC decision on programs of national interest (PNI). ACTRA, the Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA) and 17 other groups took out their own full page ad last week. Signed by Bell Media president Randy Lennox, Corus Entertainment EVP and COO Barbara Williams and Rogers Media president Rick Brace, the letter states “we have a proven track record of exceeding our spending requirements on Canadian programming and, specifically, drama and documentary programming not because we have to, but because it makes good business sense to do so in a global media environment. There is nothing to suggest that will change going forward.”
CBC/Radio-Canada and its partners have officially signed agreements for the Maison de Radio-Canada (MRC) redevelopment project in Montreal. CBC/Radio-Canada is transferring the eastern part of its lot in the city’s Centre-Sud neighbourhood to Broccolini Group for one dollar. The agreement ensures CBC can lease its new facility for the next 30 years at a cost equivalent to its current maintenance costs of $21 million per year. Preliminary construction work will begin on Aug. 7, with the new facility due to open in 2020. CBC/Radio-Canada is also selling its existing building and western part of its lot to Groupe Mach for $42 million, allowing the public broadcaster to offload an accumulated maintenance deficit on the tower equivalent to $170 million.
Advertising Standards Canada has refreshed its corporate identity. Developed in collaboration with Anderson DDB Health & Lifestyle, the organization will be known as Ad Standards moving forward, and will use a new logo. Ad Standards is also launching a new PSA campaign, highlighting 60 years as Canada’s national, independent, advertising self-regulatory body.
With the support of the Canadian Media Fund, Groupe Média TFO has launched an exploratory initiative to develop a Blockchain prototype offering a solution to credit broadcast and digital rights of audiovisual works. Interested players from the content production and distribution industries are invited to participate in defining the new royalty model. The project is the first presented by a TV broadcaster to be financed by CMF as part of the Experimental Stream Innovation Program.
The Central Canada Broadcast Engineers (CCBE) Conference is set for Sept. 28 – Oct. 1 at the Kingbridge Conference Centre in King City, ON. Michael McEwen, director general of the North American Broadcasters Association (NABA), will deliver the keynote address. You can find the conference agenda here.
