Fees for doc material too pricey, HDTV and satellite going up, and Ira Glass on TV
Documentaries pulled because of re-licencing costs: NFB
Boing Boing reports that the National Film Board has had to pull many documentaries off the shelf because of the “prohibitive cost of re-licensing the copyrights for the materials they incidentally feature…. Thanks to spiralling copyright licensing costs, payable to whoever holds the copyright (unions, archives, creators, corporations) — and thanks, too, to the rising cost of insurance to protect against copyright claims — more and more public film footage is no longer available to the Canadian public, nor for use by Canadian creators.”
Satellite radio in Canada a hit
With 320,000 subscribers in just over a year of operation, Canada’s two satellite radio networks seem to be hitting the right notes with music fans. In addition to the cost of satellite-compatible radios, both Canadian services charge a monthly fee of $15 for full access to their commercial-free networks of music, comedy, sports, news and talk shows.
Sirius (co-owned by New York’s Sirius Radio, CBC and Toronto’s Standard Radio) offers a roster of 110 channels, including about 65 niche-specific music stations that cover everything from classic country and Broadway musicals to heavy rock. CBC provides the Sirius network with national news, weather and international talk shows, as well as a venue for emerging Canadian musicians.
XM Canada (co-owned by Washington-based XM Radio and Toronto food magnate John Bitove) is also ahead of expectations. [more]
HDTV subscriptions growing: Rogers
Rogers Cable says its High Definition Television service has seen tremendous growth in the last year with the most HD subscribers in Canada. Since November 2005, Rogers HDTV customers have more than doubled with over 200,000 HDTV households now subscribing to the service. [more]
This American Life ready for its TV closeup
NPR’s Lynn Neary reports on the This American Life TV show as it prepares for its debut next year. “I don’t see any positive aspect of being on camera,” says host Ira Glass. “I am 47 years old, I don’t like looking at myself. After a certain point, no one likes looking at themselves on television. There’s just no upside.”
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I really like this blog, but i have to say something about links within stories. Linking to “The National” when that’s what you’re talking about makes sense. Linking to it when talking about the NFB is cheap, not to mention annoying to readers like me. Would you do it when writing about “the National” Hocky League? Just my 2 cents.
Hi Sunshine,
It’s my fault, but I don’t do it on purpose. How’s THAT for a weaselly answer?
The blog itself does these automatically — I put the terms in, of course, but it pops the links itself. In most cases it works fine, but as you note things like The National and The House (of Commons?) get slapped with the autolink too.
Problem is, the plug-in that made this work is on the fritz and I haven’t been able to find time to try to fix it. But since you’ve pointed it out, obviously people other than me are bugged by it, so I’ll try to fix this up.
t
You mean you can’t override the auto-linking thing and manually link to the NFB?
You also need to fix the headline. It’s not “documentary license fees” that are too expensive. Those are the fees broadcasters pay to independent producers, the NFB, etc. for the privilege of showing their films. What’s at issue is the fees for re-licensing archival material and music used in older films.
The Boing Boing post you’re referring to, incidentally, picked up a Globe and Mail story from last week, about a report by the Documentary Organization of Canada (http://www.docorg.ca).
Thanks est — I’ve fixed both.
Thanks for the explaination Tod (and for fixing it too). It is appreciated.
