Quebecor put a final offer on the table on Thursday, adding that if the workers refused, the paper would be shut down at the end of the month. (Coverage from Radio-Canada, Rue Frontenac, Projet J.) The final offer would result in the layoff of 20 of the paper's 25 unionized employees, leaving only three journalists and two office workers. The rest would get severance of two weeks' salary for every year of service, up to a maximum 42 weeks (14 of the 20 will max out, the rest will receive less).
Corus Québec announced Monday that it is cutting the morning program at four "Souvenirs Garantis" regional radio stations in Quebec and replacing them with a simulcast of Paul Arcand's show from Montreal from 5:30 to 9am, starting next Monday.
Affected are (with links to local stories and lists of fired local personalities):
CJRC 104.7FM, Outaouais
Job losses: 2/15 (Louis-Philippe Brulé, Clinton Archibald)
Once upon a time, it took a lot of people to run a radio station. Now apparently it takes about a dozen, and even then there's some room for more cuts. Corus managers defend the cuts by saying Arcand's show isn't a "Montreal" show but a "provincial" one. Even if we accept that as true, it still means the local voices are cut.
And this isn't Saturday nights they're talking about - they're cutting the weekday morning shows, the most important timeslot of any radio station.
Corus's press release says Arcand and Mario Cecchini will be visiting these regions this week to meet the media. Hopefully they'll get some tough questions about why people in those regions should continue to tune in after their local voices have been cut. (UPDATE Feb. 19: See below)
Local voices are important, and that's evidenced most by how little coverage there is here so far. Only Radio-Canada stations and Gesca papers mention the cuts, and the change in Mauricie has no local coverage whatsoever that I can find online UPDATE: Le Nouvelliste had the story the next day, and other papers have added coverage.
UPDATE (Feb. 19): Le Nouvelliste has a report on what Paul Arcand is telling the regions he's visiting this week:
There will still be local journalists who will produce local news reports during the morning, and if something important happens, they will have the ability to stay on air (somehow I doubt that's going to be practical in the long term).
Nobody's going to be hearing Montreal traffic reports on regional stations.
He finds the term "Montrealization of the airwaves" insulting for some reason. He says that's not what happening, even though it's regional programming being replaced with Montreal-based programming.
Afternoon shows are being extended, so the amount of local content is the same (only, instead of needing a morning host and an afternoon one, you just have one host on a longer shift).
This is good for the regions because he'll be dealing with more regional issues and they will get a larger audience.
This has been done before, badly, and that's why people don't like this idea. But Corus has a magical ability to do a good job, and if they don't then people will complain.
A war of words is being played out at KahnawakeNews.com between CKRK (K103) and Brian Goodleaf, whose company sponsored a fundraiser involving Boston Bruins alumni to raise money for the station.
According to Goodleaf, the money ($55,000 of $103,000 raised) was targetted to help fund the construction of a new building for CKRK, a small but beloved station on the reserve. But after the money was raised, Goodleaf imposed conditions on CKRK receiving the money, including that they match the donation. Goodleaf argues that the station's building fund has disappeared (suggesting it might have simply gone missing) and that donors gave the money expecting that it would be used for a building instead of going into the station's general budget.
The radio station counters that the fund was used to keep the station afloat when it got desperate, and that Goodleaf knew this before the event, and it is unfair that Goodleaf imposes conditions after the fact.
Negotiations between the two sides have been unsuccessful (which is why they're now fighting it out in the court of public opinion) - CKRK refuses to accept the donation with strings attached, and Goodleaf refuses to withdraw the conditions. Goodleaf says if a deal can't be reached he will donate the money to local non-profit organizations (or, if they ask, refund the money back to donors).
February 15, 2010 – 2:36 pm|Posted in Business, TV
Bell TV (formerly Bell ExpressVu) announced on Friday that it will begin offering à la carte packages for customers in Quebec, in an obvious response to Videotron, which already offers à la carte packages.
Here's a comparison chart to give you an idea of how they match head-to-head on à la carte packages:
Package
Videotron
Bell TV
Basic + 15 à la carte
$37
$40
Basic + 20 à la carte
$39
$44
Basic + 30 à la carte
$47
$47
1 extra channel
$2
$2
5 extra channels
$5
N/A ($2x5=$10)
10 extra channels
$10
N/A ($2x10=$20)
15 extra channels
N/A ($5+$10=$15)
$15
20 extra channels
$15
$19
30 extra channels
N/A ($10+$15=$25)
$22
Both Bell and Videotron tack on a $3 "network access fee" and a 1.5% LPIF fee, neither of which are included in their advertised prices (and aren't included in this table). None of the prices include installation, equipment rental, or bundle rebates (which is why Bell's basic rates are $10 more than advertised).
It's no coincidence that Bell's basic + 30 is the same price as Videotron's, that's the whole point behind Bell's offering, which is only available in Quebec. People in Ontario who might want to benefit from this aren't allowed to for no good reason other than Bell is better able to screw them over.
CBC asked the Competition Bureau about this obviously targetted pricing, but they said it would actually increase competition between Bell and Videotron in Quebec, and be good for consumers here. That's true, but it's obviously unfair to consumers in Ontario and elsewhere who won't have à la carte packages for the sole reason that Bell doesn't have a competitor in those areas willing to offer that option.
The CRTC should look into this, and consider requiring direct-to-home satellite providers to give the same options to customers in all areas unless provincial or local regulations make different demands.
UPDATE: Elias Makos points out something I hadn't noticed: Bell excludes a number of popular channels from its à la carte offering, including CNN, A&E, TLC, MuchMusic and Teletoon. You have to get a separate package for that.
The big change for one half of the Canwest empire now has a roadmap: Canwest announced this morning that Shaw Communications would buy a 20% equity interest and 80% controlling interest in Canwest Global once the company emerges from creditor protection.
Canwest Limited Partnership, which owns the National Post, Montreal Gazette, Canada.com and other publishing assets, is unaffected by this. They will still be auctioned off as part of their restructuring.
Corus Cable Empire?
Assuming the deal goes through (and there's no big reason to believe it won't), the Shaw family will have control over a worryingly large number of specialty channels in Canada. They have a controlling interest in Corus Entertainment, a company spun off from Shaw to get around a CRTC rule about cable companies owning specialty services - a rule that no longer exists.
Corus owns or has a majority interest in (copy-pasted from Wikipedia):
Add to all this minority stakes in mentv, One, Historia and Séries +, and you've got a pretty huge specialty empire here, 31 channels. That would put it ahead of CTVglobemedia's 29 channels, and way ahead of other specialty players Astral Media (9 plus The Movie Network and Super Écran), Quebecor Media (8) and Rogers (6).
It should go without saying that the specialty assets - and not the Global Television Network - are why Shaw is interested in this acquisition.
The release says that Shaw would operate Canwest as a standalone company (instead of, say, just taking its assets and giving them to Corus), but you have to think that some sort of consolidation is going to happen if they can get it past the CRTC.
Another (albeit minor) question is what happens to the few conventional TV stations that Shaw and Corus own. Shaw owns CJBN in Kenora, Ont. (a station with the distinction of being Canada's lowest-powered non-repeater, at 178 Watts), which is currently a CTV affiliate. Corus, meanwhile, owns CKWS Kingston and CHEX Peterborough in eastern Ontario, both of which carry CBC programming. None of the three stations are in cities with Global stations, so it's conceivable they could all become Global affiliates or even sold to Canwest and become Global owned and operated stations.
Shaw's second chance to prove its point
My favourite part of this story comes out of a quote from Canwest chairman Derek Burney (emphasis mine): “We look forward to benefitting from Shaw’s participation in a reinvigorated Canwest, as it is a strong business partner with a proven commitment to the Canadian television broadcasting industry. This significant investment in conventional television should be seen as a big vote of confidence in the industry and its future.”
Of course, Shaw and Canwest have been on the opposite side of the ugly fee-for-carriage debate, with each side spoutinghalf-truths at each other in a bid to scumsuck public support.
Remember those "cable company cash cows"? Funny how useful one of them has suddenly become now that the TV company needs a bailout.
But as much as this is ironic for the Local TV Matters people, it also forces Shaw to prove its point about how conventional television isn't in need of financial support from cable and satellite companies.
Last year, after Shaw sarcastically offered to buy three stations from CTV for $1, and CTV sarcastically accepted, it later pulled away from the deal, claiming that due dilligence showed the stations were hollowed out shells and work had been outsourced to other stations.
So will Shaw back down from its tough talk about fee for carriage? Will Canwest pull out of the Local TV Matters group, stuck in the same awkward position as CityTV and TVA where the parent company cares more about protecting cable profits than local television?
We'll find out within the next few months. (Though by the time Shaw's acquisition is final, the fee for carriage debate might be over.)
Canwest has released the results of a study that seeks to measure specialty television channels by quality rather than quantity of ratings. Instead of just pure viewer numbers, it seeks to rank networks by how attentive their viewers are, and how likely they are to pay attention to ads.
A cynic might notice that Canwest-owned networks, including Food Network, HGTV, History Television, Showcase (and its sister networks), National Geographic, Mystery TV and TVtropolis, improve their scores under this measurement. Under pure ratings, only one Canwest network (HGTV) comes in the top five, and only three (with History and Showcase) in the top 10. In the other metrics shown, Canwest networks have 2-3 of the top five and 4-6 of the top 10.
That cynic might wonder if Canwest would have released this study if Canwest-owned networks hadn't fared so well.
February 12, 2010 – 12:00 pm|Posted in Media, Opinion
The Sierra Club of Canada is complaining about a series that appeared in Canwest newspapers over the past few weeks sponsored by Shell Canada about the environment and the oil sands in Alberta. (The series also ran in the Toronto Star.)
Their complaint is that the advertisement, like most advertorials, tries to pass itself off as news. It's got headlines and sidebars just like a newspaper page. It's not obviously trying to sell anything, but instead is presenting information in a journalistic sense. And the word "advertisement" doesn't appear anywhere.
Instead, it's described as a "special Canwest information feature on climate change, in partnership with Shell Canada", lending Canwest's name (and, presumably, its journalistic integrity) to the advertorial.
What's interesting to me is that the Sierra Club isn't complaining to Canwest or to a press council or the Canadian Association of Journalists or Canadian Newspaper Association. Instead, they're complaining to Advertising Standards Canada.
In other words, they're not arguing that the newspaper acted unethically. They're arguing that the advertiser acted unethically, and they're appealing to the advertiser's code of ethics.
It really says something, I think, when an advertiser is expected to have better journalistic ethics than a major newspaper chain.
The Sierra Club's complaint is essentially one about labelling. It's not labelled as an advertisement or advertorial, but as a "special information feature", which could mean anything and isn't clear.
Canwest's response, to Canadian Press and others, is this:
Canwest communications director Phyllise Gelfand said the stories were printed in a different typeface and laid out in a different style than the rest of the paper. Shell's "partnership" was referred to at the top of the page.
"That's enough," she said. "The average reader would notice the difference."
I don't agree. I'm a (former) newspaper editor, and a media critic, and it's tough for me to understand sometimes what is editorial and what is advertising.
Advertisers and newspaper publishers have come up with all sorts of euphemisms to refer to advertorial content (the word "advertorial" itself, for one). Special information feature. Advertising feature. Marketing feature. Joint venture. Advertising section. Do any of these really clearly say "advertisement" to you, the average reader?
Of course, if clarity were the goal, it would just come out and say "advertisement". But the goal isn't clarity, it's confusion. It's for the advertiser to piggyback on the journalistic integrity of the publication and convince readers that the publication somehow endorses what's being said.
And newspapers are only to happy to comply, sacrificing their integrity bit by bit for short-term financial gain.
February 12, 2010 – 12:30 am|Posted in Media, Opinion
It's a cute little video from Search Engine's Jesse Brown, making a point about how newspapers aren't all that. And his arguments are valid - there are a lot of ads, wire service stories, opinions, comics, games and other not-original-news in your local newspaper.
But what bothered me was the implied conclusion: Newspapers are so full of not-news that they don't deserve to be saved. They should be left to die, because they're worthless.
This, while he's holding up a copy of the Toronto Star.
February 11, 2010 – 7:18 pm|Posted in Montreal, TV
Viewers of CFCF's 6pm newscast were left scratching their heads this evening as they were presented not with their familiar anchors but with CTV News Channel's Marcia MacMillan, who presented national news but gave a special shout-out to viewers of CTV Montreal.
The local newscast began five minutes later. Turns out there was a fire alarm at CTV Montreal's offices on Papineau Ave., forcing everyone outside at a most inconvenient time. It continued as normal after an awkward handoff.
The infrequent, unplanned disruptions will give way to frequent, planned ones over the next two weeks as CFCF airs Olympic coverage for the first time in almost two decades.
The noon and 11:30pm newscasts will be pre-empted throughout the Games, and the evening newscast will be reduced to half an hour, bouncing around to fit in between live Olympic events.
For the most part, the newscasts will be from 5:30pm to 6pm, except for Valentine's Day and the last day of the Olympics (which features the closing ceremony in the afternoon and early evening, pushing the newscast to 7:30).
As usual, stories will be available on demand at ctvmontreal.ca, and CTV News Channel will have news throughout the Games for you heartless bastards who hate Canada.
Marriage proposal on CKBE-FM this morning. Video: http://t.co/YWgROblT25 mins ago
On CBC News Montreal, a story about a Marketplace report, then the Montrealer of the week, who was on Dragon's Den. #autopromo29 mins ago
Sonali Karnick promises "a special announcement about the show" on CBC Radio's All in a Weekend tomorrow. 52 mins ago
RT @eliasmakos: Letter from VDN cable to subscribers in downtown area, saying service will be shut down and offering Bell Fibe deal: htt ... 20 hours ago
@brendanshowbiz He's also on Team Thomas. 21 hours ago
La Presse is hiring http://t.co/EyK0oMhj - so that whole crisis that almost shut down the paper in 2009...? 2012/01/26
RT @ChantalCJAD800: Chatted w/ Etienne Boulay today on his new Als contract, the concussion and his new baby boy. Listen to the intervie ... 2012/01/26
