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Great news if you’re looking to catch the festivities at Grand Parade on December 31 but don’t want to stand out in the cold all night. Halifax’s annual midnight countdown party will once again be rocking the airwaves.
Today, Halifax Regional Council accepted a proposal from Eastlink to broadcast the municipality’s New Year’s Eve celebrations for the next three years, “subject to the negotiation of terms and conditions.”
From 1993 to 2013, the party at Grand Parade was broadcast through a collaboration between HRM and CTV. That ended last year when “CTV could not confirm their participation within the required timeline or budget,” reads today’s staff report, prepared by manager culture & events Elizabeth Taylor.
According to HRM, the city received numerous complaints over social media and 311 about the lack of a televised component last year. In response, a search began to find a “title sponsor” to help cover the broadcast costs.
Eastlink was the only applicant, but has declined title sponsorship in favour of a “Presented by” slogan on all promotions. So Eastlink will get to broadcast the event on its community channel, and HRM can “potentially offset some costs associated with the delivery of the event” by finding additional corporate sponsors, such as Greco.
The budget for HRM’s annual New Year’s Eve event is $70,000. Eastlink values the cost for their in-kind broadcast contribution at $107,900.
“I think ASN, ATV missed an opportunity to broadcast this,” said councillor David Hendsbee, using some outdated station IDs. Hendsbee also asked staff to ensure some live-streaming element is included in this broadcasting, otherwise “those with Bell Aliant services will probably be excluded.”
While the motion passed unanimously, councillor Steve Craig cautioned about the upcoming review of community television policies being undertaken by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. The CRTC is currently assessing the ongoing effectiveness of its community television policy, and reviewing the overall state and funding of local television programming. A public hearing on the matter is set to begin January 25, 2016.
“There are changes coming, and we ought to perhaps consider whether we want to make some submission or some support…when it comes to community channels,” Craig said. “It’s important we do not lose this medium, so our citizens can view this when they can’t make it to City Hall.”
In 2014, the municipality hosted its first non-televised New Year’s Eve concert event in 20 years, featuring Carson Downey, Neon Dreams and the Emmy-winning, Kanye West collaborating, Miri Ben-Ari. No musical acts have so far been announced for this year’s festivities.
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This article appears in Oct 22-28, 2015.
Hendsbee also asked staff to ensure some live-streaming element is included in this broadcasting, otherwise “those with Bell Aliant services will probably be excluded.”
And yet, here we are and, nope, no streaming option, so those with Bell Aliant Fibreop or Satellite, and those of us that gave up on cable TV and satellite a long time ago and embraced the Internet, still can’t stream this as we welcome 2016…
I am an Eastlink customer and still can not get it
Aparently Hendsbee thinks everyone in Nova Scotia has eastlink….ummmm….nope. Most don’t. I guess the rest of the province will just not be ringing in the new year as usual…and to top it off…no internet link to connect to if your not an eastlink customer. This is aweful
Eastlink should not be able to sell advert on the community channel. This channel is mandated by the CRTC for community use.
Pretty disappointed in this. I grew up in NS, but live in Freddy. I can’t make it to the celebration in Halifax this year because my wife is over 9 months pregnant. When we were figuring out what we were going to do tonight, we thought since we can’t make it, we will watch it on tv. With a little bit of research I now find out that Eastlink is hosting this, and it’s only on their channel, since Eastlink isn’t even available here in Oromocto, looks like we are shit out of luck. Thanks Eastlink, thanks alot. You could have atleast found some way to make this available for everyone in Canada.
Yep, Bell, first you’ve cut local Live at 5 by 50% & stuffed in Sandy Rinaldo.
Now you can’t help us join together by broadcasting our provincial celebrations for a couple of hours or so on NYE?
BELL, do you not comprehend the way taking away local content and cancelling traditions DISCONNECTS US??
You are only giving lip-service to mental health!
SHAME.