News Releases

February 16, 2004

CBC/Radio-Canada Programs Honoured With All Six Masterworks Certificates for Radio and Television

Ottawa — CBC/Radio-Canada programs have been honoured this year with all six of the Audio-Visual Preservation Trust of Canada's Masterworks programme certificates for radio and television.

"We are proud that our programming is again being recognized by the AV Preservation Trust, which plays an important role in making Canada's rich audio-visual history widely available to present generations, and in preserving it for future generations," said Robert Rabinovitch, President and CEO, CBC/Radio-Canada. "The content of CBC/Radio-Canada's archives preserves the sounds and images of the political, social and cultural history of our country."

Every year the AV Preservation Trust, a charitable, non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and preserving Canada's audio-visual heritage, recognizes 12 works for its Masterworks programme. Masterworks are defined as programs that are culturally significant, either due to their critical and popular success, or because they were seminal works in their genre. This year's Masterworks recipients will be honoured later today at a gala ceremony hosted by Senator Laurier LaPierre at Ottawa's Château Laurier Hotel.

The CBC/Radio-Canada programs being honoured this year with Masterworks certificates are CBC Radio's "Aspects of the Canadian Novel", an episode of Anthology; la Radio de Radio-Canada's La cloison and Radio-Bigoudi; and, in the television category, the broadcast of the eighth game of the 1972 Canada/Russia Hockey Series; "The Hexman," an episode of CBC Television's The Beachcombers; and la Télévision de Radio-Canada's Point de mire.

CBC/Radio-Canada's archival vaults are the largest repository of culturally and historically significant audio and visual material in Canada, with 1.5 million holdings. Each year, in addition to using some of that archival material in its own programming, CBC/Radio-Canada licenses material from the archives for use by programmers from around the world. As part of the Corporation's ongoing commitment to preserving its archives for current and future generations, CBC/Radio-Canada is gradually transferring older material to more stable digital formats and implementing a new content management system to make it easier to identify, retrieve and use this material.

About CBC/Radio-Canada

CBC/Radio-Canada is Canada's national public broadcaster and one of its largest cultural institutions. CBC/Radio-Canada reaches Canadians through eight national radio and television networks, its full-service Web sites, local/regional stations and affiliates, as well as the digital television channel Country Canada and the continuous music network Galaxie. In addition, CBC/Radio-Canada has forged partnerships with other broadcasters and is a partner in the satellite radio service SIRIUS Canada as well as in the specialty television services ARTV and The Documentary Channel. Through this array of activities, CBC/Radio-Canada brings diverse regional and cultural perspectives into the daily lives of Canadians in English, French and eight aboriginal languages. (2006)

For additional information, please contact:

Katherine Heath-Eves
Media Relations
CBC/Radio-Canada (Ottawa)
Tel: (613) 288-6235
heathevk@cbc.ca
www.cbc.radio-canada.ca