Star Choice has decided to drop yet another channel in its lineup in addition to CBC Saskatchewan — it has now dropped RDI, the CBC French news channel, in all Anglophone markets.

The CBC launched another formal complaint with the CRTC this week. RDI is on a very small list of channels that all providers are required to carry with their basic package, and the CBC argues that Star Choice is now in violation of its broadcast licence.

Earlier this week, five local news channels, including CBC Saskatchewan, were replaced by specialty channels like MuchMusic and Teletoon Retro by Star Choice.

Perhaps they got rid of RDI because they needed room for the Golf Channel?

According to Reuters, Tony Burman isn’t wasting any time getting things done in his new role as managing director of Al Jazeera English. Negotiations are pushing forward with U.S.-based cable companies to bring the Arabic news channel to wider distribution. Al Jazeera is also augmenting its Internet presence, including refining its YouTube channel which brought it 21 million views in its first year of operation.

The story that Tony Burman had recently joined the Arab world’s leading news channel, Al-Jazeera, has provoked numerous commentaries. When asked to comment on his new role for this Star piece, Burman said

“Without sounding like a typically self-righteous Canadian, we tend to view things with a detachment that in journalism is a very valued asset. Canadians are viewed in a very favourable way that I must say I find flattering”.

The darker side of commentary has been very busy as well, including this piece in the National Post which stops a hair short of calling Burman and the CBC anti-Semitic, and this one in which the headline denotes that “the rest of them” should be gotten rid of as well. Probably all to be expected, given the demonization of Al-Jazeera in some media after 9/11.

Is it just me, or does the CRTC seem to be on a loop like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day?

It really wasn’t that long ago (1999) when Canada’s federal broadcast regulator studied the Internet and decided — in what can only be termed a blatantly obvious decision — that they won’t regulate the Internet. (Although, just for snits and giggles, it would have been fun to watch them try.)

Enter 2008. And just hours ago, the CRTC announced it would study… wait for it!… “the new media envirornment in Canada!” [sfx fanfare] This seems to have emerged from their previous study called the New Media Project Initiative, which was established to “highlight changes [to yet another, previous study] since 2006.”

The product of which… I think, I’m kind of getting lost here… is this morning’s call for comments about how new media intersects with broadcasting.

“New digital technologies and platforms are creating opportunities for the broadcast of professionally-produced Canadian content that simply didn’t exist a few years ago,” said the CRTC Chairperson. “Our intention is not to regulate new media, but rather to gain a better understanding of this environment and, if necessary, to propose measures that would support the continued achievement of the Broadcasting Act’s objectives.”

To be clear… (from a CBCnews.ca article)

The commission in 1999 decided against regulating broadcasting over the internet because it was still in a fledgling state, and issued a similar decision in 2007 on cellphones. However, because the pace of technological change has been so rapid, the CRTC said it is now time to review its role. [emphasis added]

The Commission wants to hear your opinions.

You have until July 11 to send your comments online, faxing 819-994-0218, or through their web site launched today to collect comments at http://crtc.newmedia.econsultation.ca.

The CRTC has approved CBC/Radio-Canada’s application operate nested FM transmitters in Windsor. The CRTC received several favourable interventions regarding the application, and that it rejected oppositions filed by Neeti Ray and CTVgm. The CBC has two years to get the transmitters in order. (Hat tip to Gary.)

The House of Commons standing committee on Canadian heritage will be holding hearings on proposed changes to CBC Radio 2.

Beginning Labour Day, Radio 2 will offer what the CBC describes as “a broader, richer spectrum of music,” with less classical and more diverse music.

CBC also has decided to disband the CBC Radio Orchestra, the last radio orchestra in existence in North America, to free up the funding for projects.

Committee member and NDP heritage critic Bill Siksay brought forward the motion to hold hearings.

“I’m concerned that the commitment to classical music in Canada is a key part of the Canadian culture. CBC Radio 2 has been a key player in classical music,” Siksay told CBC News.

More at CBCnews.ca

CBC president Hubert T. Lacroix spoke to Parliament’s Heritage Committee Thursday afternoon. I was recording the speech on my computer as it streamed but, uh, I ran out of hard disk space. <sigh>

Never mind. The federal government probably would have asked me to take down video of the committee hearing.

(UPDATE: As Mike mentioned in his comment, the Heritage Committee has now posted the video online.)

After the jump, the text of his speech.

Relax, enjoy, and smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.

(more…)

Today at 3:30 p.m. ET, CBC President Hubert T. Lacroix will be appearing before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, his first appearance since starting as President and CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada in January.

Lacroix, who will be accompanied by Richard Stursberg and Sylvain Lafrance, will address the Committee’s recent review of the CBC/Radio-Canada mandate, highlight some of his priorities for the Corporation, and reiterate the call for a seven-year Memorandum of Understanding with Canadians that would define CBC/Radio-Canada’s role in the evolving media landscape. His address will be followed by a question and answer period.

The proceedings will be webcast here.

Officials with the federal Conservative party banned the CBC from attending a government media briefing to discuss the recent charge by Elections Canada that the Conservative party overspent their campaign spending limit by more than $1 million.

Both CBC News and the Canadian Press obtained a copy of the documents before they were released Monday by an Ontario court.

Other media, including the Toronto Star and CTVglobemedia, received the documents in a private briefing from the Conservatives last week in Ottawa, the CBC’s Keith Boag reported.

When other media organizations, including the CBC, learned of the meeting, party officials scrambled to avoid them, switching hotels, slamming doors and scampering down fire exits to escape pointed questions from journalists who weren’t invited.

Boag said CBC News asked to attend the briefings, but was rejected and told by party spokesman Ryan Sparrow that it was a “private meeting.”

Reporters from the Canadian Press, Maclean’s magazine and Canwest Global Communications Corp., along with others, were also excluded.

Giving some reporters a briefing before Monday’s court release of the warrant gives the party a chance to shape the story, but it also creates the impression that the Conservatives need to spin it, Boag said.

– story and photo from CBCnews.ca

The CRTC today denied HDTV Networks’ application for a licence to operate a national, English-language high-definition conventional television service.

“HDTV Networks sought to launch a television station that would be the Canadian equivalent of a superstation,” said Michel Arpin, the CRTC’s Vice-Chairman of Broadcasting. “The programming strategy associated with such a station is inconsistent with the objectives of the Broadcasting Act and the Commission’s policies. We have never granted a licence for such a conventional television station in the past and did not find any compelling reason to do so at this time.”

The requirement to make local programming available to audiences is an integral feature of the CRTC’s conventional television policy. HDTV Networks would only commit to providing two hours of local programming per week in each of the eight markets it wanted to serve: Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax. By way of comparison, existing conventional stations offer on average more than 22 hours of local programming per week

In addition, the CRTC today denied YES TV Inc.’s application for a licence to operate an English-language high-definition conventional television service in the Greater Toronto Area. The Commission was not convinced that the applicant could fulfill its programming commitments, among other things.

Late last week, the federal government appointed three new members to the CBC Board of Directors. Two of the three have strong ties to the Conservative party:

• Mary McNeil is a fundraiser and charity executive by profession. Earlier this year, she was hand-picked by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to compete for the candidacy in a wealthy Vancouver riding. (She said she’d never favoured any party, but acknowledged her whole family were Conservative party supporters.) She lost the bid to a business professor.
• Brian Mitchell, lawyer #1, sits on a number of other boards in Montreal. He is a former member of the Conservative National Council. He once ran against Joe Clark for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative party, then ran unsuccessfully in for the leadership of the Conservative Party. Until the CBC appointment, he has served on the Conservative Party’s national council.
• Linda Black, lawyer #2, has been a senior executive in a variety of government roles — most recently in a provincial Labour Relations ministry. She’s currently a lawyer with a legal review board.

Opposition MPs claimed the appointments to the CBC Board were part of a larger strategy to fill vacancies on federal Boards in advance of a possible federal election. (Along with 15 judicial appointments, people were appointed to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, the CRTC, the Bank of Canada, the National Welfare Council, the Canada Race Relations Foundation and others.)

The appointments were made without the supervision of the federal appointments commission that Prime Minister Harper had promised during the last election campaign.

Also related to broadcasting, CTV reporter Marc Patrone, a former Conservative candidate, was named as a CRTC commissioner. The Globe and Mail says the job pays $126,200 to $148,500 a year.

However, respected Conservative blogger Stephen Taylor did a study in 2005 and discovered that 85% of political contributions from CBC board members went to the Liberal party.

A glowing story the other day in the Ottawa Citizen gushed about Global’s evening newscast moving to Ottawa. (Coincidentally, the Citizen is owned by CanWest Global, which also owns the Global Television Network. Imagine the odds.)

The story claimed that Global National had more viewers than either CTV’s or CBC’s national evening newscast:

BBM Nielsen Media Research figures show that Global National attracts a total audience of 952,100 compared with the later CTV News with Lloyd Robertson (917,300) and CBC National with Peter Mansbridge at 626,400.

Er, not quite.

Turns out, Citizen reporter Chris Cobb was a bit, uh, selective in his reporting of the viewership. Cobb reported only numbers from a single airing. The National airs on both the main network and on CBC Newsworld over different times, to let people watch when it’s most convenient to them.

From Monday to Thursday of last week, for example, The National had an average viewership of 1.19 million — well past CTV or Global. The National is, in fact, Canada’s most-watched newscast.

The CBC sent in a letter to the editor correcting the erroneous story. The Citizen has so far refused to publish it. Again, imagine the odds.

Zero hour approaches.

Wednesday at midnight (okay, technically speaking midnight is on Thursday, but you know what I mean) is the deadline to get letters of support for CBC Radio One on the FM dial in Vancouver into the CRTC.

You can keep it simple. Just tell them how much you like CBC Radio programing, and that you think it’s crucial for the Lower Mainland to have access to the national broadcaster on the FM dial. And feel free to pester your friends. They’ll thank you for it later.

To do this, go to the form on the CRTC website and click on the button #2007-18. Check the box beside #200714239 (in the list, this is the second CBC application) and go to the bottom of the page and select next. Then just follow the instructions to complete your letter of support. (Please copy CBC on your e-mail at regulatoryaffairs@cbc.ca)