50% domestic porn New Canadian pay-television pornography channel — to be called Northern Peaks — approved by federal regulators
by Grant Robertson August 15, 2008
A Canadian pay-television pornography channel — which is pledging to show least 50 per cent domestic content at night — has been approved by federal regulators this week, but it must now try to convince cable and satellite companies to carry the service.
The digital channel, which is to be called Northern Peaks, was approved Wednesday by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, after Alberta-based Real Productions first applied for the licence in October, 2007.
In its application, the company said the proposed service would be "Canada's first adult video channel offering significant Canadian adult content." Northern Peaks will produce its own movies, in addition to events and series from Canada, the company told the regulator.
"During each broadcast year, the licensee shall devote not less than 50 per cent of the evening broadcast period to Canadian programming," say CRTC documents outlining the decision.
Before Northern Peaks will be given its licence, though, it must show the CRTC that at least one cable or satellite carrier has agreed to pick up the service. The channel has three years to find an agreement or risk losing the licence.
The channel is a Category 2 pay television service, meaning cable and satellite carriers are not required to pick up the channel and the company must negotiate with each carrier.
The CRTC said it did not receive any interventions at hearings held in May, meaning there were no other broadcasters or interest groups who registered their opposition to the bid.
According to the licence, Northern Peaks is restricted to certain genres, including: drama and comedy, long-form documentary, mini-series, theatrical feature films, game shows and human interest programming. It will not carry any high-definition programming, according to company documents.
Based in Sherwood Park, Alta, Real Productions produces adult content for Starz, Playboy TV and HBO. "Northern Peaks' broadcast day will start at 6 a.m. and run a full 24-hours," the company told the CRTC in its application.
If it launches, Northern Peaks will be required to spend a minimum of 25 per cent of its subscriber revenues on Canadian programming, including at least $1-million in its first broadcast year. All programs must be closed captioned, as per CRTC rules.
In approving the licence, the CRTC also issued a reminder to cable and satellite companies that "due to the adult nature of the programming, this service shall only be distributed at the specific request of the subscriber."
The carriers are not permitted to package the service so that customers must buy Northern Peaks to get other channels. As well, the regulator said "distributors are required to take measures to fully block the reception of both the audio and video portions of the service" for customers who do not want it.
Some Edmontonians want adult video company to stop production
By MICHELLE THOMPSON Sun Media The Edmonton Sun Aug. 17
Some Edmontonians are demanding production be halted on porn flicks being filmed in a west-end neighbourhood.
"Stony Plain Road has enough problems," said a fuming Stuart McGrandle, owner of West Edmonton Knights Boxing Club.
"This is just a huge step in the wrong direction."
McGrandle's gym is paces away from Real Productions, which just began filming near 151 Avenue and Stony Plain Road for Playboy TV's Boy Nexxt Door.
The Sherwood Park-based adult video company was also given the go-ahead last week to launch Northern Peaks, touted as Canada's first adult video channel.
But while the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission has endorsed the move, some residents have not.
"I think porn is disgusting," said Jennifer Thelwell, mother of four. "I'm a Christian. We don't like porn. I don't feel it should be broadcasted."
Others who spoke to Sun Media expressed disinterest in the matter, noting the seedy world of adult enterainment is no stranger to the neighbourhood.
Not far from Real Productions are several other porn-themed businesses, including a sex-toy shop and an X-rated entertainment centre.
While both of those companies ooze sexuality - with flashy signs and scantily dressed mannequins - Real Productions offers no obvious indications of what goes on behind its unmarked glass door.
Real Productions hasn't bothered Pauline Ismael, who works at the Nata Portugese Bakery a few doors down. In fact, the 19-year-old said she hasn't even noticed the new business in town.
"To be honest, I can't have a real opinion on it because I haven't even seen it."
Others who work in the area say they've noticed attractive and busty women lately frequenting the strip mall-based studio.
Jeff Henkel, service manager at Revolution Cycle, said he's concerned about the effect the studio could have on local businesses.
"I don't know if it's going to negatively affect us, but if more people hear about it, our back entrance might not be used as much," he said, referring to a doorway that neighbours Real Productions.
"Being in my 20s, it's not the end of the world for me. But it's definitely an odd situation."
While Real Productions has its critics, an employee contends the business is legitimate and has a place in Canadian media.
Ashley Corsiatto, vice-president of marketing, said Friday the company was expecting a certain amount of backlash.
"We know there (are) going to be naysayers, but ... we know this is a business," she told Sun Media.
"We know we do it well. We know there's quality and professionalism to it. This is going to be a subscription channel. This is not going to be in anyone's home who did not intentionally go out, pursue it and wants it in their home."
It was that old fraud Pierre Trudeau who told us that the state should keep out of the nation's bedrooms and then made sexuality, marriage and procreation major political phenomena in modern Canada.
But oh what fun it is finally to realize what he really meant by the cliche. The state should keep out of bedrooms because the best sex is to be had on state-approved television.
This is the only reasonable explanation of the recent decision by the CRTC, the state's broadcast police, to allow Canadian TV pornography channel Northern Peaks to broadcast throughout the country. It's the only way, we are told, to guarantee home-grown content in the industry.
Debbie will no longer do Dallas, but instead will do Dundas. And Brandon, Kitchener, Perth, Red Deer and everywhere else in Canada.
It's odd that entertainment aimed at people with extraordinarily immature attitudes towards sex should be described as adult. Pornography is many things, but it is never adult. And the true obscenity is less the simulated or actual exchange of bodily fluids than the fact that Canadians died in North Africa, Dieppe and Normandy for freedoms that we have transformed into moral anarchy.
Canadian content rules demand that at least half of the young women obliged to debase themselves as sex objects and pieces of meat in front of the camera for silly and desperate men will be home grown.
We have not been told who will be monitoring this or how they will recognize naked Canucks. Perhaps a brief reference to socialized medicine or a passing argument in favour of Human Rights Commissions in between moans will suffice.
Which brings us to a magazine that has never promoted female degradation or loveless and exploitative sex, but has found itself not praised but punished by another branch of the government's media control bureaucracy.
Catholic Insight magazine has overwhelmingly Canadian content and caters to millions of seriously Catholic Canadian men and women.
Being seriously Catholic, however, it analyzes the issues of the day from a seriously Catholic standpoint. Meaning that those who oppose or are indifferent to serious Catholicism might not be interested. The solution is simple. Don't read it.
Gay activist
But in the nation that encourages nationalist porn, matters are never quite that simple. A gay activist decided that he didn't like some of the publication's references to homosexuality, assembled everything said about the issue by Catholic Insight for some years and sent them to a Human Rights Commission.
The complaint was rejected by the commission, but the magazine was forced to pay several thousand dollars in legal defence fees. The initial rejection has now been appealed so the process, irrespective of the result, will continue to punish the magazine financially.
It has also been revealed that each issue of the monthly publication will be reviewed by Heritage Canada and if any content is found to be "offensive" it will lose its government funding for postage cost distribution.
The amount is not large, but is virtually guaranteed to every Canadian magazine as a means of helping local journalism.
So at the same time as a group of porn merchants receive government blessings to make a profit on lust and loneliness, an internationally respected journal is threatened because of its Christian teaching on love and sexuality.
X-rated lunacy, with more Canadian content than anyone thought possible.
Being seriously Catholic, however, it analyzes the issues of the day from a seriously Catholic standpoint. Meaning that those who oppose or are indifferent to serious Catholicism might not be interested. The solution is simple. Don't read it.
I love how Michael Coren can't follow his own advice. Those who oppose or are indifferent to a new Canadian porn channel might not be interested. The solution is simple. Don't watch it.
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