This is one of the reasons I'm not crazy about the Transcontinental weeklies. They have so little content of their own, but mask that by copying content from other papers or from the network. The result is the exact same story on the websites of multiple papers.
Perhaps I'm the only one affected because I subscribe to many of these papers, but I don't understand why stories not based in a particular area are included in the feed (and posted to the website) of a community newspaper for that area.
If this idea of an alt-weekly doing a cultural TV show is familiar, I can't imagine why. ICI does the same thing, but it's on Vox where nobody watches it. (I watched that show for the first time yesterday, it's not bad for a Vox production, but hardly compelling either.)
It's interesting to see if this becomes a bigger trend, having print journalists do TV shows related to their beats. It certainly saves money (yay convergence!) paying one person to do two jobs (ICI and Vox are both owned by Quebecor), and these roundtable discussions are super-cheap to produce - just put some guys in front of a camera and have them chat for a while.
But it also means we have fewer voices. Eventually we'll be down to one journalist each from CTVglobemedia, Canwest, CBC/RadCan, Gesca and Quebecor covering a given beat. And maybe not even that.
For people who want a newspaper subscription but don't want the hassle of recycling newspapers, want it a bit cheaper, like the computer bells and whistles and don't mind reading on the screen, this format is a nice option at only $10 a month (about half the price of a print subscription, consistent with other papers).
One thing that's different about La Presse's approach is that it wants to charge existing print subscribers $2 a month for access to the electronic version. It's a small amount, but I imagine reaction being something along the lines of "you want me to pay for something I've already paid for?" (except, you know, they'd probably say it in French).
They're offering a free 14-day trial for those who want to try it out.
April 17, 2009 – 12:54 am|Posted in TV, Web design
Global TV made a big announcement about its website redesign. It includes 30 "refurbished microsites" (read: branded pages for each show), an "up-to-the-minute Twitter function" (read: link to Twitter account), an "enhanced" and "dynamically updated" schedule guide (read: a schedule) and coming soon a "newly revamped search engine" (read: they're fixing the search engine).
The new website also includes a new video player, which most Canadians still don't know gives them access to Family Guy and House on demand. (Though it still doesn't work properly for me.)
And it's got lots of boxes with rounded corners, scrolling Flash menus and gradients, which we all know are required in any properly-designed site of this era.
I'll also take this opportunity to point out yet again that a list of journalism award nominees is issued and nobody thinks to link to the nominated pieces for people to read.
Today the CBC announced Part 17 of its huge cost-cutting operation, in which 70 people in its English news department lose their jobs.
The headlines at CBC talk about "24-hour coverage" and "better service" without giving too many details of what that means. CP has the first actual detail: regional supper-hour newscasts will be expanded to 90 minutes (you'll recall they were just recently expanded from half an hour to an hour), and would start at 5pm instead of 6. Coronation Street would fill the half-hour betwen 6:30 and 7.
This certainly makes sense for Montreal, which currently has three English-language local newscasts competing against each other at 6pm (and two of them always losing that battle). Starting earlier might be the ticket to a larger audience.
Of course the question remains how CBC is supposed to have more product with a smaller staff. We'll find that out over the coming months.
Though scarier than the thought of Céline Dion being the permanent national anthem singer or the Journal de Montréal getting exclusives on everything related to the Canadiens is this:
This trio of potential buyers is said to be contemplating a dedicated pay-TV channel in Quebec that would carry Habs games and other hockey-related content as one way to increase revenues from the team.
It's just an idea, but it's an idea that would be devastating to RDS.
The CCHR is part of the Church of Scientology, and its message is that psychiatry is responsible for all the world's ills, including the shooting at Dawson College in 2006.
This is a rather bold claim, and seems to be based more on religion than on science. Kind of like Intelligent Design. Only Intelligent Design isn't as likely to encourage people to make the wrong decisions about their health.
Anonymous has taken to writing letters, alerting the media (I've received two emails about it so far) and personally insulting Concordia administrators.
The response from the university (according to these people) is that while they may not agree with the message, the university respects their right to say what they want provided they don't descend into hate speech or discrimination.
For some reason, Concordia always seems to be the centre for these kinds of envelope-pushing events. Perhaps it's because other universities stop them before they start, or because people just feel that when they want to test the limits of freedom of expression they should do so at Freedom Of Speech University.
In any case, Concordia has caught the attention of Anonymous. And for that they have my sympathy.
CBC Daybreak has taken to Twitter, with staff (including host Mike Finnerty) sharing the tweeting duties. Although it includes a lot of stuff that might be considered noise to some (live-tweeting of Habs games, for example), it also gives a rundown of the next morning's broadcast the evening before, which is useful.
