The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) just made a big announcement at the nextMEDIA Conference in Alberta, Canada about its plans for a user-generated content (UGC) program to target young adults.

nextMEDIA Banff, hosted by Achilles Media, is where the world’s leading edge content creators, aggregators, broadcasters, agencies, advertisers and solution-providers meet to develop key business relationships. The conference coincides with The Banff World Television Festival to take advantage of connecting the two media communities. (more…)

The Canadian Radio-Television Telecommunications Commission begins a series of hearings today to discuss whether certain kinds of new media should be subjected to new regulations.

One of the most divisive proposals is to bring in a tax on Internet Service Providers to help fund the creation of Canadian online content. That has long been the tradition in radio and television where broadcasters pay taxes that go to support Canadian artists, however the CRTC has so far refused to extend the principal to the Internet. Now that high speed Internet is nearly ubiquitous, the commission is ready to revisit the issue.

In a sign of the times, the Globe and Mail is covering the hearings in a live blog.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is making a mistake by not including user-generated content in its definition of new media broadcasting, says the Canadian Association of Internet Providers. (more…)