Tag Archives: Industry News

Scott Moore to step down as president of Sportsnet, end of October

From a media release:

Scott Moore, President of Sportsnet & NHL Properties, has announced his decision to leave the company at the end of October.

During his eight-year tenure, Moore repositioned the sports and TV businesses to address the evolving media landscape and viewing habits.  He championed the acquisitions of The Score and Grand Slam of Curling; brokered the deal that brought the FX brand to Canada; launched North America’s first direct-to-consumer mainstream sports product with SN NOW; created Rogers Hometown Hockey; and played a key role in helping Rogers secure the blockbuster 12-year NHL deal.

Now celebrating its 20th anniversary, Sportsnet is well positioned for continued growth and success, with a strong team in place to carry the momentum forward.

The search is underway for Moore’s successor.  In the interim, Brace will oversee Sportsnet in addition to his current role.

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CBC/Radio-Canada reaffirms commitment to diversity and inclusion with new 2018-21 plan

From a media release:

CBC/Radio-Canada today unveiled its 2018-21 Diversity and Inclusion Plan. The new three-year plan sets out our strategy to better serve all Canadians by reflecting the full range of Canadian perspectives through our content, workplace culture and workforce. The Plan was launched at CBC/Radio-Canada’s Annual Public Meeting in Edmonton, where diversity and inclusion inspired this year’s conversation with Canadians on the importance of public broadcasting in today’s environment.

Building on past efforts and accomplishments, including those resulting from our previous 2015-2018 strategy, the new plan lays out the objectives for the coming years, provides workforce results for all our main business units, and details action plans by major services.

This plan also complements the Diversity and Inclusion section of the career page of our corporate website. Both convey the importance of diversity and inclusion and share the many things we’re doing to make our programming content even more relevant, foster greater inclusiveness in our workplace culture and ensure our workforce fully reflects Canada’s demographics.

About CBC/Radio-Canada
CBC/Radio-Canada is Canada’s national public broadcaster. Through our mandate to inform, enlighten and entertain, we play a central role in strengthening Canadian culture. As Canada’s trusted news source, we offer a uniquely Canadian perspective on news, current affairs and world affairs. Our distinctively homegrown entertainment programming draws audiences from across the country. Deeply rooted in communities, CBC/Radio-Canada offers diverse content in English, French and eight Indigenous languages. We also deliver content in Spanish, Arabic and Chinese, as well as both official languages, through Radio Canada International (RCI). We are leading the transformation to meet the needs of Canadians in a digital world.

Diversity and inclusion fact sheet: Our progress so far
Below are highlights of some of the initiatives that have resulted from our ongoing efforts to promote diversity and inclusion in our content, workplace culture and workforce:

Content

  • CBC North has been serving Canadians across the territories and in Northern Quebec since 1958. It provides radio, television and online services to seven communities (Whitehorse, Yellowknife, Inuvik, Hay River, Iqaluit, Rankin Inlet, Kuujjuaq) in eight Indigenous languages. In addition to offering services on CBC North, our main networks and regional stations also showcase Indigenous news, issues, and culture.
  • Our award-winning Indigenous Unit is both a resource and a catalyst for more coverage across CBC/Radio-Canada. Recently expanded to more communities, it is helping us identify, recruit and develop Indigenous talent. It’s creating programs like Unreserved on CBC Radio, a powerful one-hour platform on our national radio network for Indigenous voices. The Legends Project digitizes traditional oral stories, legends and histories of Canada’s Inuit and First Nations Peoples from communities across the country. Our CBC Indigenous and Radio-Canada’s Espaces autochthones websites are ensuring more Canadians learn more about this country’s legacy and its future.
  • Since December 2017, Radio-Canada makes it compulsory for independent producers who submit a project to present a “diversity inclusion plan” with the objective of improving diversity in all its content.
  • CBC Films (CBC Breaking Barriers Film Fund) is a narrative feature film fund that supports the production of English-language films from filmmakers and creators who bring diverse voices and stories that engage and reflect Canadians on the big and small screens. We look for projects that are written and directed by Canadian women, Indigenous persons, visible minorities, LGBTQ persons and persons with a disability.
  • For the past four years, Radio-Canada has been leading a TV industry working group aimed at increasing cultural diversity in French-language fiction. The group has implemented a series of actions such as the Auditions de la diversité, which provide performance training for actors from visible minority communities. The working group also supports coaching for young scriptwriters and tours high schools, in order to encourage diversity students to pursue careers in TV production.

Workplace culture

  • A number of internal initiatives foster greater inclusiveness in our workplace culture, including:
    • The Developing Emerging Leaders Program equips an annual cohort of 15 diverse employees with insights, tools and strategies to skillfully take their careers to the next level.
    • Employee Resource Groups (bring together employees who share common backgrounds and experiences, and provide mutual support and a greater sense of belonging, ex. women in technology and employees with physical or mental disabilities and their allies.)
    • Both CBC and Radio-Canada offer paid journalism internships to Indigenous recruits with partners such as the First Nations University of Canada, Nunavut Sivuniksavut/Algonquin College and the First Nations Education Council (FNEC). Radio-Canada also collaborates with the Kiuna Institution (the Quebec post-secondary Indigenous college) to offer an initiation to journalism for Indigenous students.
    • Our senior leaders learn about inclusive leadership and unconscious bias. That awareness fosters a culture of inclusiveness—one of our core values. Similar training is provided to other employees across the organization.

Workforce

  • While our focus is not on targets, we do still monitor to measure our performance and the impact of our initiatives.
    • The new diversity hires (Indigenous Peoples, members of visible minorities, persons with disabilities) result for Q1 2018-2019 of 27.2% exceeded our target of 25.4%. This is our best first quarter result since we started measuring this index in 2015-2016.
    • We are the gender parity leader in the Canadian media industry with 48.9% women employed across CBC/Radio-Canada (+6.1% above the external labour force).
    • We reached our Strategy 2020 goal of 2.1% for Indigenous representation, meeting the external labour force availability and the hiring rate of 3.1% surpassed this goal between April 2017 and March 2018.
    • Between April 2015 and 2018, we saw over 40% increases for both the number of members of visible minorities and persons with disabilities.
  • With a view to increasing the diversity of its News staff, Radio-Canada revamped its hiring process for journalists at the network and regional levels over the last year, and we have removed potential obstacles for diverse candidates in our general knowledge and language proficiency exams.
  • The candidates for the first-ever paid CBC Placements for Persons With Disabilities started in mid-September 2018 and a national launch is being considered if deemed successful.
  • We are the first Canadian media company to add gender and sexual diversity (i.e., LGBTQ+) to its voluntary workforce tracking metrics.
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Global greenlights new primetime medical drama Nurses

From a media release:

Adding to its acclaimed roster of Canadian original series, Global proudly announces new primetime medical drama Nurses (working title), set to premiere on the network in 2019. From independent studio Entertainment One (eOne), the 10×60 series is executive produced by Ilana Frank (Rookie Blue), of ICF Films and Vanessa Piazza (Dark Matter) of Piazza Entertainment, with Adam Pettle named as writer, showrunner, and executive producer, and Tassie Cameron serving as executive producer. The series follows four young nurses working on the frontlines of St. Jude’s hospital dedicating their lives to helping others, while figuring out how to help themselves.

Stationed in every tendril of a busy downtown trauma centre and thrust into frontline medical action, Nurses sees four recent graduates beginning their careers in a high-stakes hospital with pressure cooker training. Forming an inextricable bond, the nurses struggle to find a work-life balance that matches and counters the intensity of their new job. Their interaction with patients, relatives, and staff quickly leads them to the discovery that nursing isn’t just about biology, chemistry, and anatomy, it’s also about psychology, compassion, and romantic complications.

Nurses executive producer, Ilana Frank, appears today on the Corus Entertainment-sponsored panel, The Future of Scripted: Women in Power Tell All. Hosted at the Four Seasons Hotel in downtown Toronto, the panel takes place during C21 Media’s Content Canada conference, a part of TIFF’s industry offering. With opening remarks from Corus’ Executive Vice President and COO, Barb Williams, and moderated by Divya Shahani, Entertainment Lawyer, Hall Webber LLP, the featured panelists are: Ilana Frank (Rookie Blue, Nurses), Sheila Hockin (Vikings), Tassie Cameron (Mary Kills People), Julia Sereny (Ransom), and Alex Zarowny (Private Eyes). For more information visit www.contentcanada.net.

This newly greenlit series comes on the heels of Global’s recent renewals for Ransom, Mary Kills People, Private Eyes, and Big Brother Canada.

Nurses is produced by ICF Films, in association with eOne and Corus Entertainment, with the participation of the Canada Media Fund and the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit.

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Vice Canada names Vanessa Case as senior vice president, head of studio

From a media release:

VICE Media Canada, Canada’s leading youth media company and digital studio, is pleased to announce senior media executive Vanessa Case as Senior Vice President, Head of Studio, effective immediately.

Vanessa was most recently EVP Content at Blue Ant Media and is a senior media executive with deep expertise in content strategy, delivering business growth, and development and execution for global companies, including owned intellectual property (IP), co-productions and international financing.

With a career spanning two decades, Vanessa has been a critical player in the launch and development of several world-renowned brands landing in Canada, including BBC Earth, HGTV Canada and National Geographic. Prior to her role at Blue Ant Media, having held positions at Shaw, CanWest and Alliance Atlantis, she commissioned hundreds of hours of original content, developed original production slates and led scheduling and acquisition strategies for some of Canada’s top speciality channels.

In her new role, Vanessa will head up all VICE Studios’ productions in Canada including development, production, financing, sales and licensing, as well as overseeing VICE’s production and post-production facilities located in Toronto.

ABOUT VICE MEDIA
VICE is the world’s preeminent youth media company and content creation studio. Launched in 1994, VICE now operates in over 30 countries and distributes its programming to viewers across digital, linear, mobile, film and socials. VICE includes an international network of digital channels; a weekly and daily news programming partnership with HBO; a television and feature film production studio; a magazine; a record label; and an in-house creative services agency.

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CRTC requires the production of Canadian original content

From a media release:

The CRTC responded today to the government’s Order-in-Council to reconsider its decisions regarding large television groups by imposing conditions of licence on them to ensure the continued support of the Canadian creative sector. The government asked the CRTC to re-examine original Canadian French-language programs, programs of national interest in the English-language market and short-form programming, including music. These changes were made to preserve the viability, stability and competitiveness of the creative sector and the Canadian television market.

For the French-language market, the CRTC now requires each group to make significant investments in the creation of French-language programs, representing 75% of its Canadian programming expenditures for original French-language programs starting in 2019-2020. The percentage in 2018-2019 will be 50%, which will enable the groups to adjust to the new requirements and ensure sufficient support for the production of original French-language content for the French-language market.

The CRTC is also increasing expenditure requirements for programs of national interest in the English-language market. The percentage will now be based on historical expenditures, to ensure sufficient investment in the production of these programs and financial contributions according to each group’s financial resources. Therefore, the requirements are increasing from 5% to 7.5% of previous years’ revenues for Bell, and from 5% to 8.5% for Corus, while requirements for Rogers remain at 5%. The CRTC believes this approach will ensure the Canadian production sector continues to play an essential role in the Canadian economy and offer high-quality content to viewers in Canada and abroad.

The CRTC determined that the groups in both language markets will be required to allocate an average of $5.5 million per year to support the production of musical programs (FACTOR and MUSICACTION). These expenditures will be imposed from 2019 to 2022, and will ensure regulatory uniformity among the groups. Continue reading.

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