News about news

https://twitter.com/_JamieMac_/status/885189154128224257

• Be careful about your questions, journalists.
• A high school newspaper spotted a cellphone number for the U.S. secretary of defence on a piece of paper photographed by the Washington Post and used it to conduct an interview with the guy.

At the CRTC

• A new affidavit from Raj Shoan appealing (again) his firing as commissioner has been published. The most interesting revelation (at least to me) in the document is that the Shoan case was brought up with Mélanie Joly’s predecessor, Shelly Glover, who eventually decided not to take any action against Shoan.
• Former CRTC commissioner Michel Morin has gotten an opinion piece published in several outlets (Montreal Gazette, Journal de Montréal, Le Droit, Huffpost, Huffpost Québec, Cartt.ca) complaining about the lack of leadership at the commission. Some of his points are questionable, such as the idea that other countries don’t have interim leaders at such commissions, or the idea that ADR TV has solved the problem of wireless emergency alerting in Quebec.
• Another round of radio station licence renewals, this time for Rogers stations in Ontario and Alberta.
• Ethnic station CKIN-FM 106.3 Montreal has had its licence renewed for a full seven years, despite a (dismissed) complaint last year about its shift toward mainly Arabic programming and a short-term licence renewal back in 2013.
• CJRS 1650 Montreal has also gotten a full seven-year licence renewal, despite the strange situation where the station (formerly known as Radio Shalom) has outsourced all its programming to a third party.
• A month and a half after it was approved, I asked the CRTC if it was going to publish the application by Rogers to buy CISL 650 AM Vancouver from Newcap, which it’s turning into a Sportsnet radio station. The commission finally posted the application, which shows a purchase price of $5.25 million for the station (for context, Newcap bought CISL and two FM stations in each of Vancouver and Toronto out of the Bell/Astral deal for $112 million in 2014, so CISL is well undervalued compared to its FM sisters). Rogers is also assuming $750,000 in “assumed liabilities”, the nature of which is redacted from the public documents but appears to be a lease of some sort.

TV

• The final eight-episode season of Montreal-based cop drama 19-2 is being upgraded from Bravo to CTV, where it will air Mondays starting July 31. Each episode will be available on Crave TV the day before broadcast.
• The Eastern Door talks to some of the cast of Mohawk Girls about shooting the series while being, in some cases, visitors to Kahnawake, and in other cases, pregnant or nursing.
• Cogeco has bought yet another U.S. cable provider, MetroCast, for $1.4 billion U.S. The acquisition comes with some financial assistance from the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, which takes a 21% ownership stake in Cogeco’s U.S. operations.
• CTV Toronto has begun rebroadcasting CP24 from 5-6pm weekdays. It’s unclear if this is just for the summer or if it will continue as other stations launch 5pm local news.
• The Daily Show has a new correspondent, Michael Kosta, who takes over from the departing Jordan Klepper.

Radio

• Newcap Radio has rebranded nine stations in small-town Alberta, eight of them to the Boom FM brand. Boom FM is a strange network in that it has stations from three ownership groups, Bell, Corus and Newcap.
• The transmitter of CIFM-FM in Ashcroft, B.C., burned to the ground in a wildfire.

Online

• Sans Filtre, a Quebec version of The Players’ Tribune, is getting republished in La Presse+ biweekly, starting with a piece by David Desharnais.
• The Daily Mail is being sued for copyright infringement over its continued use of viral videos. The suit is actually from a former supplier of such videos, whose contract the Mail terminated.

News about people

"Oops I did it again!" – @joannevrakas announces she's pregnant live on BT pic.twitter.com/1iJhK7yPA5

— CityNews Montreal (@CityNewsMTL) July 7, 2017

• Joanne Vrakas is pregnant with her second child. That means a new mat leave replacement will be needed (Laura Casella filled in last time, but she hosts Global’s morning show now, so that’s not an option.) Tina Tenneriello, formerly of CJAD and MAtv, is filling in for Vrakas on vacation, which would make her a top candidate for the more long-term replacement.
• Meanwhile, Cora MacDonald, formerly of CJAD, has been hired as one of City’s news reporters in Montreal, as it prepares for new CRTC obligations coming into effect Sept. 1 and a new local evening newscast some time in 2018.
• La Presse welcomed its four “diversity” interns this week.
• La Presse’s Jean-François Codère is switching beats after a while on the tech beat. He’s moving to transportation after a few weeks in sports.
• Dan Barnes of the Edmonton Journal will cover amateur sports for Postmedia. He replaces the Calgary Herald’s Vicki Hall, who left the company last month.

Jobs

• Videojournalist, CityNews Montreal
• Associate Producer, VICE du jour in Montreal
• Business reporter, Canadian Press in Toronto (deadline: July 17)
• Atlantic reporter, Globe and Mail (deadline: July 19)
• General manager, FPJQ (deadline: July 20)
• On-Air Host, CHOM 97.7 (deadline: July 28)
• CEO, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (deadline: Aug. 15)