...

Haha, just kidding.

This week's West Island Chronicle has a big cover photo from the downtown parade, whose caption includes this rather insensitive part: "The persistent rain thinned the crowds a little this year, but they couldn't put a damper on the fun being had by many."

Inside, more photos, but no mention of there being a fatality.

Similarly, The Suburban has a parade photo on its front page, a story about the parade on Page 2, and a photo gallery. But the death was buried on (depending on your edition) Page 13 or 22.

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The STM will be introducing three new routes and extending a fourth during its quarterly schedule change (links go to Planibus PDFs):

• 120 Lachine/LaSalle (Mon-Fri all day): Though not officially an express bus, this is being billed as a faster alternative to the 110 Centrale that connects Lachine with the Angrignon metro station. It has 18 stops compared to the 110's 53 stops. Western terminus is Victoria and 55th Ave., passing through the Lafleur-Newman bus terminal, and then the Angrignon metro. Its eastern terminus is actually the Carrefour Angrignon. Service on the 110 bus is not being reduced.
• 196 Parc Industriel Lachine (Mon-Fri daytime): An STM bus that connected nowhere with nowhere now goes somewhere: the eastern (northern?) terminus has been extended from Cavendish and Côte-Vertu to the Côte-Vertu metro station. There's also a minor kink about halfway through the route that takes Joseph-Dubreuil St. to 32nd Ave.
• 427 Express Saint-Joseph (Mon-Fri westbound mornings, eastbound afternoons): An express doubler for the 27 Saint-Joseph during rush hour, this bus keeps going after it reaches the metro, going down St-Denis and Berri and then René-Lévesque to terminate at the Guy-Concordia metro station. This will minimize transfers (taking many workers straight to their offices) as well as take some pressure off one of the most congested sections of the metro system during rush hour: the orange line between Laurier and Berri-UQAM. Only 32 departures each day, but it's highly targetted to rush hour, with a headway of only 10 minutes. Service on the 27 is unaffected.
• 747 Express Bus (24/7): The airport express bus, discussed in more detail in this post.

Metro cars may have fewer seats

Though it was reported back in January, it seems more certain now that, with all the delays pushing back the new metro car contract, the oldest cars still in service, the MR-63s used on the green line, will need to be kept longer and get an interior redesign to fit more people.

Unfortunately, the only way to fit more people into a confined space like this is to remove seats. The STM was to have put two prototype cars in service yesterday - one removes single seats near the ends of each car, while the other removes single seats near the centre of each car (removing double seats, like was done when the MR-73s were refitted, apparently isn't feasible with these cars because of all the equipment underneath the double seats).

Obviously, not everyone is happy about the idea of squishing even more people into these cars and taking away the cherished single don't-have-to-touch-anyone seats. Discussions are already under way at MetrodeMontreal.com and the Canadian Public Transit Discussion Board about it.

All-articulated bus routes in June

The Gazette's Andy Riga has gotten Marvin Rotrand to tell him that three lines - 121 Sauvé-Côte-Vertu, 467 Express Saint-Michel and 535 R-Bus Du Parc/Côte des Neiges - will be served only by articulated buses as of June. Articulated buses will also be used on the 80 (Du Parc), 139 (Pie-IX), 165 (Côte-des-Neiges) and 67 (Saint-Michel) within a year, with studies about whether to expand them to the 18 (Beaubien), 24 (Sherbrooke - downtown), 105 (Sherbrooke - NDG), and 197 (Rosemont). Aside from having high ridership, the routes also need longer stop zones to accommodate the longer buses.

New daycamp fare

Buried in Riga's piece is mention of a new type of fare the STM will be introducing on June 1. A daycamp fare will cost $12 and cover a trip for adult and 10 children under 13. (Children 5 and under already ride free with a fare-paying adult). This is similar to the family pass they brought in in 2008, which allows kids to ride free with their parents, but only on weekends and holidays.

This new fare will be welcome news for all those who take large groups of children on public transit, but will probably suck for a lot of people if this means more armies of prepubescent kids board STM buses around the island.

Service disruptions reported on Twitter - twice

In case you missed it, the STM is now finally reporting on the status of the metro system using Twitter and Facebook, as well as on their homepage. So far it has reported only one disruption - the green line going down on Sunday.

Annoyingly, the reports on Twitter and Facebook are all done twice - once in English and once in French. Nevermind that the STM hasn't been the most English-friendly organization on the planet in the past, but why not just setup two accounts if you're going to do that?

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The Société de transport de Montréal had a whole thing today, inviting members of the media out to the airport to show off their new bus route. I was tempted to go, but I don't get up before noon unless I really have to.

The route is the 747 Express bus, which finally provides a direct, non-stop link between downtown and Dorval Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport. It replaces an awkward public transit travel itinerary that involved taking the metro to Lionel-Groulx, hopping on the 211 or 221 and squeezing in with all the West Island kids, then either waiting half an hour at the Dorval train station or walking across the entire airport parking lot to get to the terminal.

It also replaces La Québécoise's Aérobus shuttle service between the bus station and the airport that used to run every half hour and cost $16. (And that was already much cheaper than the flat-rate $38 for a cab from downtown to the airport.)

More details from Cyberpresse, The Gazette, CTV, CBC, Rue Frontenac, Metro, the STM's press release, the airport's press release (PDF), or the Planibus with route and schedule (PDF).

The route enters service on Monday, March 29, and will be the STM's first 24-hours-a-day, 365-days-a-year bus service.

The fares

Probably the most confusing thing about this bus will be the fare structure. Even though this is an STM bus run by the STM and accepting STM passes, you won't be able to pay a standard single fare or use a single-fare ticket to get on (which, because this is a trip into and out of town, is what many people using it would want to do).

Instead, the single-fare price is set at $7 (still less than half the old airport express), and in exchange you're given a one-day pass to use the entire STM network. Or you could just buy a one-day tourist pass, which is accepted on the bus and also costs $7.

All unlimited-use passes (tourist passes, weekly passes, monthly passes) are accepted on the bus at no extra charge.

I guess the STM is trying to get some money out of tourists with this, but it just seems unnecessarily confusing. Many tourists will want the tourist pass anyway when they're coming in to town, so it won't make much of a difference for them. Those heading out of town, meanwhile, will have no use for a one-day pass once they're on a plane.

Expect drivers of these buses to have to exercise a lot of patience explaining the fare structure.

The STM says transit passes will be on sale in the airport, so those who want a three-day pass or weekly pass will have that option before they get on the bus.

The stops

Nine stops westbound and 10 stops eastbound, including the two terminuses.

Going toward the airport:

• Station Centrale bus terminal (inside the terminal)
• René-Lévesque and St-Laurent (Chinatown)
• René-Lévesque and Bleury
• René-Lévesque and Mansfield (Place Ville Marie, Central Station)
• René-Lévesque and Peel (tourist information centre)
• René-Lévesque and de la Montagne (Lucien-L'Allier station, Bell Centre)
• René-Lévesque and Bishop
• Lionel-Groulx metro
• Trudeau airport

Going toward downtown:

• Trudeau airport
• Lionel-Groulx metro
• Guy and René-Lévesque
• René-Lévesque and Drummond (Bell Centre)
• René-Lévesque and Peel (tourist information centre)
• René-Lévesque and Mansfield (Place Ville Marie, Central Station)
• René-Lévesque and Jeanne-Mance (Complexe Desjardins, Complexe Guy Favreau)
• René-Lévesque and St-Laurent (Chinatown)
• Berri-UQAM metro
• Station Centrale bus terminal

The schedule

The schedule of this new bus is an improvement on the one it's replacing:

• Every 20 minutes during morning and evening weekday rush hours
• Every 30 minutes during midday and late evenings
• Every 30 minutes on weekends
• Every hour overnight between 1am and 5am

Depending on the time of day and traffic conditions, the entire trip from one terminus to the other is expected to take between 35 and 50 minutes (about half that for trips between the airport and Lionel-Groulx).

It's unclear at this point how this bus will affect other STM buses, like the 211 and 221 that shuttle between Lionel-Groulx and the Dorval train station, and the 204 bus that stops at the airport terminal.

The bus

The bus itself will be special, though very familiar to STM users. The outer design will have an airplane-chevron logo and the bus number painted on the body. Inside, the bus will be equipped with three luggage racks (one above each front wheel, and one just opposite the rear door), each with two shelves. This means the bus will have fewer seats than a standard bus of its size, but the ride will be more convenient for people with heavy bags.

The STM has modified eight buses for this route. With a route length of just under an hour and a minimum headway of 20 minutes, that would mean six buses in service during rush hour with two spares.

The fallout

Despite its confusing fare structure, since the bus is replacing a service already in place, and because people have been demanding better airport shuttle service for years, the demand is clearly there. The bus might not see dozens of passengers for every trip, but it won't be empty all the time either.

The STM estimates the bus will attract between 1,000 and 2,500 riders daily. With about 100 departures a day, this would mean about 10-25 people per bus on average.

As the ADM points out, this service will also be useful for airport employees who work at odd hours. I've seen a few of them half asleep on the 356 night bus (which stops at the airport) trying not to get thrown up on. Those employees aren't going to spend $16 one-way for the Aérobus, but they will take the STM's express bus if it comes with their monthly pass.

This service also doesn't preclude the creation of a train link between downtown and the airport. Both the STM and the airport still believe such a rail service is essential. But this bus will help bridge the gap until the rail dream becomes a reality.

The scandal

One group has already called foul in all this: taxi drivers. They're calling this a "catastrophe" for the industry, and complaining that they weren't consulted about it. Some are suggesting that the STM's move should be considered illegal competition from a government agency with the private sector.

Not that I don't have sympathy for taxi drivers, but this just exemplifies the fact that some industry somewhere will have a problem with just about anything the government does, especially when it makes our lives easier and saves us money.

(UPDATE March 17: Taxi drivers took their protest to city hall, though it's highly unlikely they'll be able to get anything changed at this point)

With that caveat in mind, I'd rate this service an about-fscking-time.

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It's been a rough few days, that's for sure. I am really heartened to see the support I have, especially from listeners. I can't tell you how much I love hosting Daybreak. I just wish the CBC loved me half as much. I guess I'll never really know why they don't want me.

- Nancy Wood, Feb. 22

Nancy Wood hasn't said much since she learned almost a month ago that she was being pulled from the host chair at Daybreak. Part of that is because Wood has never been one to draw too much attention to herself (at least, that's the impression I get from listening to her), and part of it is that there are still discussions happening behind the scenes - and CBC employees have been told not to talk to the media.

The short note above is all she wrote to me when I asked her about this whole thing almost three weeks ago. On Twitter, where she has a personal account, only this tweet, saying she'd be glad to return to her job, but providing no new details about what's going on. On her Facebook account (which isn't open to non-friends), similarly cryptic messages.

Even though I've never conversed with Wood in person, those brief crumbs of thought tug at my heartstrings. Here we have a veteran journalist and a professional radio host who is being forced from her dream job and doesn't even know why. It's been reported that Wood was hospitalized for stress, and while I haven't confirmed that (and it's really none of my business), the emotional impact this has had on her seems pretty apparent.

Is she gone or isn't she?

This whole situation is in a strange kind of limbo because the CBC hasn't yet made any public announcement. So not only has there been no comment from management about what's going on (other than to say she hasn't been fired from the CBC), but there's been no comment on Daybreak itself about the matter. The journalists who work in the Montreal radio newsroom, the same ones who desperately try to track people down for comment about matters of public interest, are under orders from management not to comment themselves, even though many of them are outraged about what's going on. Instead, they're being asked to forward all inquiries to communications man Hugh Brodie (who, of course, hasn't gotten back to me).

Even though no announcement has been made yet, the process of scrubbing Wood has already begun. The Daybreak homepage doesn't even mention her anymore, replacing her photo with one of the "Daybreak team" (which interestingly includes Steve Rukavina, even though he's not a regular Daybreak columnist - Rukavina has been one of the fill-in hosts and is one of the rumoured candidates to replace her). Fill-in hosts now don't even bother mentioning that they're "filling in for Nancy Wood" - instead leaving the whole thing ambiguous and treating listeners like idiots.

The CBC seems to think this decision is official enough to take Wood off the website but not official enough to actually confirm it to listeners. Go figure. Attempts by journalists and others to talk to those in charge have been met with boilerplate answers from the audience relations department saying they don't comment on staff issues.

Voice for the voiceless

While the CBC remains silent, others have spoken up. Four Gazette columnists (Mike Boone, Basem Boshra, Doug Camilli and Henry Aubin -- UPDATE: times three) and one La Presse columnist (Marie-Claude Lortie) have written about the matter, all saying the decision makes no sense (though the fact Wood once worked at The Gazette might have had something to do with it - I hope they're as loyal when I get fired from a radio host job). Letters are still coming in to the Gazette, leading to a lot of ink with her name on it.

Listeners themselves have also gotten in on the action, setting up a Facebook group in protest (almost 500 527 members now), and flooding the program's official Facebook page with questions and demands (all the while, the columnists and researchers who use it pretend like they can't see all the comments, instead talking about the weather and asking for story tips). There are even rumours that there might be a protest outside McLean's Pub on Sunday when the Daybreak team and other CBC personalities will be hosting a pre-St. Patrick's Parade breakfast.

Epic fail

To say this was a blunder by CBC management is to make a huge understatement. This is a mess. The only thing the corporation can hope for now is that most listeners forget about Wood and move on when they announce who will replace her. This is ironic because morning hosts are humanized so listeners can relate to them, and that builds an emotional connection. That emotional connection is great for building audience loyalty, but it really sucks when their favourite radio host gets the shaft. The audience could leave en masse (unlikely, since they don't have much of an alternative), or decide to turn on the next host, blaming him or her for getting Wood reassigned.

Mike Finnerty got oodles of marketing when he was host of Daybreak. What about Nancy Wood?

On the other hand, maybe forgetting Wood is exactly what most people will do. The CBC didn't spend that much marketing her, and she had only been in the big chair for five months before they decided to pull the plug, giving her no time to build a following. There's clearly a small, motivated group of listeners committed to keeping her there, but it's not clear whether that group will reach a critical mass.

Even if we accept that getting rid of Wood was the right decision (and that will depend a lot on who they bring in to replace her), the way it was handled was awful. To announce to the staff that you're going to get rid of the show host, then tell the staff to keep that information quiet, then tell the host that she actually has to stay on like a lame duck for a few more months to finish out her contract, then to ignore the inevitable protest from listeners, all while not announcing who will replace the jettisoned personality - I can't think of a worse way this could have been done.

In private radio, the decisions are quick and final. Hosts are called in, told they're being let go and asked to surrender their security passes. They're not allowed anywhere near a microphone, so they don't become a loose cannon. The decision is publicized quickly, and program directors make some statement about how they decided to go in another direction.

I've never been entirely comfortable with the way it's done in private radio, not even allowing people a chance to say goodbye, but to have someone on air with a noose around her neck for months is just cruel.

As a result, Wood has hosted Daybreak only once since she heard the news - Friday, Feb. 19, mere hours before The Gazette broke the story that she was being dumped. Since then, fill-in hosts have given no indication why she hasn't been on the air.

Breaking with precedent

If local management at CBC look like they're having trouble writing the book about this kind of staff issues, it may be because they haven't gone through something like this before. The previous seven Daybreak hosts over the past 30 years all left because they decided it was time to move on. Bob McKeown left for the Fifth Estate in 1981, Dennis Trudeau left for As it Happens in 1985, and Jim Duff left in 1987 to start the ill-fated Montreal Daily News. The next three hosts, Jon Kalina (1988-1993), Royal Orr (1994-1996) and Dave Bronstetter (1996-2006), all left because they were tired of getting to work at 4am every weekday. And Mike Finnerty, who lasted from 2007 to 2009, left to join his partner in London.

Ratings aren't everything

Supposedly one of the main reasons for removing Wood from this position is that Daybreak wasn't doing well in ratings numbers (at least not as well as Radio Noon and Home Run).

I'm not against the CBC using ratings as a measurement of a show's performance. I think the CBC could learn a lot from what gets the attention of the people. But there must be considerations of quality above quantity. How was Wood as an interviewer? How well did she do technically? How does she manage her team? How does she connect with listeners? If the CBC's sole concern was ratings, they could just put pop songs on the air, or porn. Clearly they have higher ambitions.

One criticism levelled against Wood is that she's "boring". It's not a nice thing to say, but I see where the comment is coming from (especially in light of the ratings). Wood isn't a personality like Tommy Schnurmacher, Pete Marier or Murray Sherriffs. She's just a regular person like everyone else. And she goes to work and does her job like a professional.

I'm a regular listener to the Daybreak podcast (recorded just after the morning show ends and featuring replays of interviews from the show), so I've heard quite a bit of Wood's voice. It's not a silly voice, it's soothing, warm, but serious. She knows her stuff, and she can be compassionate or aggressive with an interviewee depending on the situation.

But to some people (including, apparently, CBC bosses), that's not enough. They think she lacks personality and leadership.

What's wrong with Daybreak

Daybreak is boring in some ways, some Wood's fault, many not. The show is incredibly repetitive. It keeps repeating the same news headlines, weather, sports news and traffic every 30 minutes, leaving only a tiny window in every half-hour block for actual content. And that content is inevitably filled with an interview with some bureaucrat struggling to express himself in English through the telephone while sipping his morning coffee. That interview will usually be about some serious but boring issue that was brought up in that day's newspaper (or, in many cases, the previous day's). And after six minutes of barely explaining anything, they're awkwardly cut off by the host because it's time to go to traffic again.

The powers that be at Daybreak prefer this to alternatives. Why not record interviews the day before and edit them instead of allowing people to just run out the clock live? Why not have your staff go out and produce package reports about issues and play them for morning listeners? Why not host an in-studio discussion about an important topic instead of relying on your reporters to regurgitate what they learned like an office gossip queen? (These things do happen on occasion, but not nearly as often as the interviews.) Why not have an opinion columnist who can make serious, insightful points about current affairs instead of the knee-jerk uninformed ranting we see in private broadcasting?

The reason they prefer the live interview is because it's easy. Call someone up the previous day, ask if they're willing to spend a few minutes on the phone the next morning, figure out what they're going to say, and write questions into a script. It's not that they don't want to do anything more interesting than that, it's that they don't have the time, and they don't have the budget to hire people with the time.

Of course, this has been how Daybreak has worked for years, and previous hosts had the same problem with many of the same staff, but managed to build an audience to management's liking. Clearly there is something about Wood that isn't taking off here. (But there's something about Bernard St-Laurent that is?) It's her show, and the subdued personality that makes her a great journalist is a fault when it comes to hosting a radio show - especially in the morning, "when boring radio is least acceptable," as one CBC insider told me.

Yes, blame the new boss

Supposedly the main reason Wood was pulled so prematurely was that the CBC was about to bring in a new regional boss - Pia Marquard - and didn't want her to be stained with this decision. That obviously backfired, and for good reason: If she disagreed with the decision, couldn't she just reverse it?

The public outcry from the Nancy Wood saga has probably been larger than the CBC anticipated (certainly larger than Wood herself anticipated). And this is before they've even announced anything to their listeners - that might kick this campaign into the next gear. We'll see if it's enough to sway the new boss to keep her.

But even if they do bring her back (and she said she'd love to come back), the damage is done. The marks of that noose will be around her neck even if she's never hanged, and she won't be able to breathe comfortably so long as she's in that chair.

If you want to express your opinion to the person in charge, you can write Pia Marquard at pia.marquard@cbc.ca.

Bullshit hits the fan

UPDATE (March 11): About the same time I posted this, word finally started coming out of the CBC that Wood had indeed been removed from her Daybreak post. This post on the show's official Facebook page has a text from Marquard that many listeners reported getting word for word:

First, we'd like to thank you for your dedication to Daybreak - we're glad to know that it's part of your weekday morning. We also understand that because you're a regular Daybreak listener, you are concerned about our recent decision to change the show's host.

Nancy Wood joined the Daybreak team as the interim host in August 2009. It was not a permanent assignment and when she returns from her current absence she will begin a new assignment at the CBC.

We understand that some of Daybreak's listeners will not only miss Nancy as the show's host, but have also asked for more details regarding our decision. Our policy, like most organizations, is not to disclose personal and confidential information regarding our employees. We think this is an important principle of privacy and respect for all of our employees.

We sincerely thank Nancy for her continued commitment to the CBC and most recently, while she was in the Daybreak host's chair. We look forward to continuing to work with her when she returns.

Thank you for listening to Daybreak

Pia Marquard
Managing Director, Québec

This is pure, unmitigated bullshit. Whatever the technical status of Wood's contract with the CBC, she was hired as the permanent host of Daybreak. There was an announcement, an interview with Mike Boone, a whole production. Her face became the official face of Daybreak. At no time was the word "interim" mentioned in relation to her post, nor was there any indication that the CBC was looking to replace her during her five months on the job.

Either I'm misunderstanding something pretty fundamental (like the definition of "interim") or Marquard is outright lying here.

As for statements about "personal and confidential information regarding our employees," please. We're not asking for her salary or even the reason she's on temporary leave right now. We want to know why the CBC has decided to make a programming change by removing her as the host of Daybreak.

UPDATE (March 13): Henry Aubin has another column on Wood, focused on the response of anglo Montrealers, who copied him on 92 emails to the CBC. The column also mentions an online petition that has just started.

UPDATE (March 16): Aubin devotes a third column to Wood, taking aim at the CBC in general and its irrational focus on pure ratings. He says that reversing their decision would show that they care what listeners think.

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Verdun politely declined, and turned around and suggested the city of Montreal do the same.

What was it?

UPDATE: William Moss got it right on the first shot: Montreal wanted Verdun to rename Church St., because there was already a Church St. in Montreal and they were worried about confusion. Verdun said its Church St. was bigger than Montreal's and suggested the bigger city change the name of its smaller street if it cared so much.

Of course, Church St. in Verdun is now called de l'Église.

But, for an extra point, what became of Church St. in Montreal?

Montreal's Church St. was renamed shortly after Verdun's response. The downtown street, which runs only from Sherbrooke to Ontario, was renamed in 1927 after John Wodehouse, count of Kimberley, on the 25th anniversary of his death.

Though it is now part of UQAM's downtown campus and closed to traffic, Rue Kimberley still exists.

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Tickets are $12 for the weekend or $8 a day. The fun is at 752 Sherbrooke W.

And if you're into board games and other non-computerized geekiness, there's also the monthly Geek Outs at Burritoville on Bishop St. The next one is March 20 at 2pm. Attendance is free.

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45, 100, 131, 132, 159, 171, 179, 197, 221, 505

UPDATE: It took a day, but two of you (plam and Kaycee) got it within minutes of each other: These are STM bus routes that end at a métro station and share the same name.

From contributor and transit geek Shanake Seneviratne:

The practice of placing a bus route's ultimate terminus on the destination sign is not one that has been adopted by the STM. Unlike other systems that indicate the endpoints of a route (Laval, Longueuil, Ottawa, and Toronto all do good jobs with their destination signs), Montreal has adopted a "dominant street or neighbourhood" naming policy. While this works well in principle, in actual fact this can backfire. The 168, for example, hasn't served Cité du Havre proper in decades. The 460 doesn't go on the Métropolitaine but rather parallel to it. The 215 is more deserving of the title Brunswick than the 208 is!

With new buses with excellent capabilities with regard to their destination sign, the STM can surely be more flexible and proactive.

Of course, most of these buses are actually named for the streets that the métro stations are named after, but there's an interesting debate on what names bus routes should take.

Maybe it's just because I'm so used to the Montreal system, but I tend to like it for the most part. It runs into trouble when routes don't take any particular street for very long. Naming buses for their destination assumes that people are going to that destination. While métro stations and terminuses are certainly big draws for transit users, they're not the destination for all.

Besides, with maps at most bus stops now, and the increasing use of smartphones to get information on the go, the importance of the name of a bus route has diminished.

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Montreal City Weblog: http://w5.montreal.com/mtlweblog/

The new version is a big change from the 90s-era design that has gone virtually unchanged since 2001.

One of the side-effects of the change is that the old RSS feeds have disappeared, and those (like me) who subscribed via Google Reader haven't seen any new posts since Feb. 19. So you should pick up the new feed at http://w5.montreal.com/mtlweblog/?feed=rss2

The new site also allows her to enable comments, though for now the plan is to use it sparingly.

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Ted Bird

Ted Bird, who left CHOM in January and has been looking for another job since, has picked up a new gig as a weekly sports commentator at CFCF, the station announced today.

Bird, who since leaving the station has started up a personal blog, a Twitter account and a blog for The Gazette, will be offering his take on the world of sports during the Monday newscast at 6pm and 11:30pm (or, more accurately, during Sports Night at 11:45, head honcho Jed Kahane confirms), starting the day after the closing ceremony of the Olympics (March 1).

Stories at CTV and The Gazette.

Here's the release:

For Immediate Release - Monday, February 22nd, 2010

Bird Lands at CTV

Montreal radio personality jumps from morning drive to supper-hour screen:

CTV is pleased to announce that veteran Montreal morning man Ted Bird is returning to the airwaves as part of the city's #1 English language Sports team.

Every Monday on CTV News at 6pm & 11:30pm, Ted will weigh in with his 'Bird's Eye View' on the world of sports.

"I'm flattered by CTV's confidence in me and excited about broadening my broadcast horizons into the television milieu", said Bird. "I'm especially grateful for the opportunity to reconnect with everyone who's taken the time to say they miss hearing my voice.  Sadly, you now get the face as well".

"Ted's quick wit and solid sports analysis have earned him a loyal following with Montrealers", said Jed Kahane, CTV's Director of News and Public Affairs. "We're delighted to be able to get him back on the air with this weekly commentary".

"Bird's Eye View" will begin airing on CTV on Monday, March 1st.

UPDATE: Bird tells me this opportunity came through a lunch he had with CFCF veteran Cindy Sherwin, whom he worked with at CJFM way back when. (Let this be a lesson folks: Networking is what gets you jobs.) That led to discussions with Kahane, who decided to bring Bird on.

Bird also recognizes that having a spot on the most-watched anglo newscast in Montreal will give him a lot more exposure than a blog on the Gazette website, and he laments on that blog that he'll start to be recognized by his face as much as his voice.

UPDATE (Feb. 24): CFCF is running 30-second ads promoting the new segment with Bird walking through Central Station.

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• Smoke-free TV people still love us

What is this a crudely-drawn image of?

UPDATE: Clément Côté gets the answer right below: It's the route of the 128 Saint-Laurent bus, one of the STM's more convoluted routes.

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I got a visit at the end of January from two Concordia students putting together a package for their TV class about blogging. The result is the video above, which is very brief and probably doesn't give you any insight you didn't already have into me (except the fact that there's an embarrassingly large pile of unread newspapers in my sparsely-decorated living room).

A bit more interesting is that they also visited Midnight Poutine's Jeremy Morris, shadowing him and his new partner as they recorded a podcast (you can listen to that particular podcast here).

If you haven't heard it, Midnight Poutine's Weekend Playlist Podcast is a weekly podcast, about an hour long, that features music from bands performing locally over the coming week (almost always independent bands performing at smaller venues). Not only is it useful in that sense (if you like the music, you can go see the band that week), but it gives people a chance to discover new music they can't hear on commercial radio because they're too busy replaying that Black Eyed Peas song for the 10,000th time.

UPDATE: The team that brought us the video above also had this shortish video interview with The Gazette's Sue Montgomery about her trip to Haiti.

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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).

The full schedule is on their website and reproduced below:

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.

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Before: North American Street View map in October

After: North America on Street View

Of note is that now the entire Trans Canada Highway, from St. John's to Victoria (or Sydney to Vancouver, if you prefer) is on Street View. If someone wants to waste a lot of time, they can construct a video simulating a drive from one end of the country to the other.

The Great Pavement Change on Highway 40/417 at the Quebec-Ontario border

It's not everywhere, though. There's nothing from the Gaspé peninsula, nor anything northeast of Tadoussac.

Southern Quebec is well blanketed by Street View

Montreal and its suburbs

But in and around Montreal, almost every road now has Street View, including some that for some reason were previously left off (like an area around Roxboro).

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What is the significance of the shaded area of this map?

UPDATE: COOL FAT MICHAEL FROM THE JERSEY SHORE ‘87 and Jim both got the right answer: these are the borders of the village, town, city and ward of Sainte-Cunégonde, sandwiched between St. Henri (whose eastern border was Atwater) and Montreal.

Not only was this independent city tiny (in 1840 it had 10 inhabitants), it was also short-lived. It was developed after it was bought by Alexandre Delisle and William Workman around 1850. At first, it relied heavily on bordering St. Henri for basic services like schools and a church, but the village's inhabitants, upset with the distance they'd have to travel and the taxes they'd have to pay, wanted some of their own.

Ste. Cunégonde was founded as a parish in 1875, taking its name from Cunégonde de Luxembourg. It was incorporated in 1887 and became its own city in 1890.

But around the turn of the century, Ste. Cunégonde faced the same fate as many other towns around Montreal at the time: merger. In 1905 it became a ward of the city of Montreal. By the midpoint of the 20th century, the boundaries ceased to have any meaning.

Today, the only remnants of the town are the buildings (including the old Sainte-Cunégonde church, now the Korean Catholic Mission on St. Jacques), and the street and park named after it.

For more on the village, you can read this book, published in 1893 by E.Z. Massicotte.

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For Montrealers especially, the U.S. ads are pretty forgettable. Local ads for Burlington businesses or ads for products and services that Canadians don't get. Besides, commercials in general are meant to be ignored. Nobody really cares whether the Ford ad lists prices in Canadian or U.S. dollars.

But then there's Super Bowl Sunday. And while the Saints and Colts fight for the National Football League's championship trophy, many television viewers will be looking at the full experience, which includes a halftime show and insanely-expensive commercials. Advertisers turn Super Bowl commercials into events, building up hype and spending through the nose on celebrities and special effects to justify the through-the-nose spending they're doing just to get the airtime.

So if you're a Montrealer watching the Super Bowl and want the U.S. commercials, what can you do?

Here are your options:

1. Watch WCAX-DT over the air. As much as the CRTC would like, it can't stop U.S. stations from transmitting across the border. So you can hook up an antenna and watch it that way. The CBS affiliate in Vermont broadcasts from the top of Mount Mansfield, which gives it good coverage in Montreal if you have a good antenna. The catch is that since last year it's broadcasting only in digital, which means you need a television with a digital tuner (most recent HDTVs have this) or a converter box (like this one or this one). (Also note, for antenna purposes, the WCAX-DT transmits on the UHF band, not VHF as it did on analog) Elias Makos has more details for Montrealers wanting to watch U.S. stations over the air.
2. Watch WCAX-DT on Videotron Illico digital TV (Channel 653). Videotron has announced that it will leave the CBS station's HD feed untouched during the game, instead of replacing it with the equivalent CTV feed. It can do this because of two rules about simultaneous substitution: that the Canadian signal be of equal or superior quality to the U.S. one, and that the substitution happen in an area covered by the Canadian station's over-the-air signal. Because CFCF is not yet transmitting over the air in HD (it has an HD feed that it makes available to providers), Videotron is not obliged to replace WCAX's HD signal with either the standard definition or high definition feeds of CFCF. Note that this is only for people with HD service. WCAX's standard definition signal on Channel 53 will be replaced by CFCF on Illico.
3. Watch WWJ-DT (Detroit) or KIRO-DT (Seattle) on Shaw Direct. For the same reasons as Videotron, Shaw Direct is not required to substitute the U.S. high definition signal for the local one in Montreal. Again, this only applies to the high definition signal. (via Digital Home)
4. Watch the game on Bell TV. The CRTC closed a loophole last year that would have allowed Bell to give most of its subscribers access to the U.S. Super Bowl feed. If you use Bell TV satellite service, you're out of luck.
5. Go to a bar or a friend's house. Some bars, like Winnie's and Winston Churchill's Pub, are advertising that they'll be carrying the "American broadcast" of the game, complete with U.S. commercials. Whether the bar has the U.S. feed available probably depends on whether they use Videotron, Shaw or Bell for their TV service.
6. Watch the ads online. These advertisers aren't about to sue people who put their ads online, and they're more than welcome to you watching them as many times as you want after the game. YouTube and Spike TV have special sites setup with Super Bowl commercials. The latter includes an archive of past Super Bowl ads. (UPDATE: Adweek has a section on Super Bowl ads too)

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This morning, apparently, the Montreal Metropolitan Community (which coordinates issues affecting Montreal and its suburbs) decided that, beginning in July, the Longueuil metro station would be subjected to the same fare rules as those in Laval: Montreal passes would not be accepted, and users would instead need a TRAM 3 multi-zone pass to enter the station.

The news came out not through the STM or the MMC, but via Longueuil mayor Caroline St-Hilaire, who sent out a press release expressing her outrage:

"Je ne peux pas et je ne vais pas cautionner ça!", a déclaré Caroline St-Hilaire, en indiquant que toutes les dispositions nécessaires seront prises pour que l'entente signée et valide jusqu'en décembre 2011 soit respectée.

This led to stories at Radio-Canada, Cyberpresse and Rue Frontenac, which follow the narrative St-Hilaire has created. Metro goes a bit further, adding that about a quarter of people who use the Longueuil metro use the $70 CAM instead of the $111 TRAM 3. (UPDATE: The STM's Odile Paradis says it's more like 15% of users, or 3,000 to 4,000 people.) The TRAM 3 gives access to the Réseau de transport de Longueuil bus network and the Agence métropolitaine de transport's commuter trains in Longueuil.

Why this change? Well, it makes sense, especially considering what's going on in Laval. The AMT has established zones for transit that crosses into multiple territories, and Longueuil is clearly in Zone 3. The fact that it accepts CAMs just like the rest of the STM network is more historical than anything. That's just the way it's been.

Even St-Hilaire accepted, it seems, that this would eventually change after 2011. But she's mad that Montreal and the STM appear to have gone back on their word and is doing this ahead of schedule.

(The Parti Québécois, meanwhile, jumps on an opportunity to pander to suburban voters and demands that government step in to not only reverse the decision but to reduce the fares for Laval users as well.)

This is happening, St-Hilaire says, because of Laval mayor Gilles Vaillancourt, who is refusing to pay for Laval's share of the taxpayer cost of the metro because he feels his city is being discriminated against. So he decided to take the transit system hostage until Montreal acquiesced to his demand that Longueuil be treated the same as the Laval stations.

Ironically, while this decision would theoretically mean that Laval will start paying its share, the release also says that Longueuil will refuse to pay its share for the metro until further notice.

Vaillancourt, meanwhile, says his city will now start paying its share of the STM's metro deficit, but it won't pay retroactively for the years that Laval paid more and Longueuil paid less.

This is absolutely ridiculous. These mayors are all acting like children, and apparently no adult is either able or willing to step in. Instead of suing Laval so the city lives up to its contract, or having the provincial government step in and order them to respect their agreement, everyone is acting as if Vaillancourt has a legitimate bargaining chip in his hand and is bending over.

Can I start refusing to hand over tax money until I get free pizza delivered to my apartment?

Still a good idea

If St-Hilaire is right and there is an agreement until 2011, then the decision should be overturned and postponed until then. But requiring a TRAM 3 pass at Longueuil just makes sense.

The people who will be affected by the change are people who don't use the RTL bus network, either because they live near the metro station (a tiny minority) or because they drive to it in their cars. We're talking about 3-4,000 people, including those who park in the 2,370 parking spaces outside the Longueuil metro. And to park there, they have to pay about $100 a month in parking fees. In other words, if they're taking the bus from home and using a TRAM 3, they will pay significantly less ($111) than they did parking at the Longueuil metro and using a CAM to get into the station ($170). Less convenient, but cheaper.

Perhaps there's a group of people I haven't considered who would be driven into bankruptcy by this decision, but I can't imagine they will be a large number.

Of course, St-Hilaire loses nothing by taking the stand she takes. Longueuil people like to use their cars, and they like not having to pay for things if they can get away with it. Just like everyone else.

It's time for Longueuil to realize that it is a suburb, and transit is more expensive there because of that. And it's time for politicians in all three cities to realize that holding your breath and screaming "NO NO NO!" is not a valid negotiation tactic.

At least, I desperately hope it's not.

UPDATE (Feb. 5): Nathalie Collard of La Presse agrees that this is silly, as does Projet Montréal, which suggests reducing the number of trains going to Laval and Longueuil.

La Presse also has a vox pop on the subject, and you can imagine what the opinion of the populace is.

UPDATE (Feb. 10): A Facebook group has started up.

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Out: Huntley Addie

Those expecting to see the weekly column of Huntley Addie in the West Island Gazette last Thursday (you know, all four of you) might have been surprised to see someone else in that place: former Ste. Anne de Bellevue mayor Bill Tierney.

Tierney, who had been mayor of the city since 1994 (excluding the time it was a merged part of Montreal), lost the November election, apparently because citizens didn't like his idea of having parking meters.

With all this free time on his hands now (tell me about it), he's been invited to write a weekly column about West Island issues in the section of the Gazette distributed to subscribers in West Island and western off-island areas.

In: Bill Tierney

When asked what happened, Addie, a teacher at John Rennie High School in Pointe Claire, told me it sort of goes back to the Canwest creditor protection filing, which screwed him as much as it did every other freelancer. It made him realize that he's doing far too much work for far too little pay (West Island Gazette columnists are paid $50 per 700-word piece, or about seven cents a word). So he kind of resigned, reluctantly. Or maybe it's more accurate to say that he gave up.

You can read Tierney's first column here. His second column, published today, is about apathy in local politics.

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For reasons that are still unclear, Lemieux apparently agreed to consider reinstating the editor position at Cités Nouvelles, but not the Chronicle. Both newspapers previously had one editor and one reporter. Even then, Marie-Claude Simard said she wouldn't be interested in returning to her job at Cités Nouvelles.

So all that's left for her and Albert Kramberger is to discuss their severance packages.

Of the four journalists at the two newspapers, only Olivier Laniel of Cités Nouvelles is still there. His reporting has been the only news in either paper since the beginning of January (his Cités Nouvelles articles are translated for the Chronicle). Raffy Boudjikanian, his former counterpart at the Chronicle, has already moved on and has been getting some work at the CBC.

One journalist covering the entire West Island for two newspapers.

It's possible Transcontinental might choose to hire someone new, at least for the Chronicle. Maybe they'll pick some eager kid straight out of university. And that kid will jump into a job with a lot of responsibility and little pay, and wonder: How did I get so lucky to land this job?

It's amazing how much history can be erased with a simple turnover.

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November 2007 newspaper ad

This is part of an ad that appeared in The Gazette in November 2007, reassuring listeners after Standard Radio was purchased by Astral Media that their radio stations wouldn't suddenly change.

Since then:

• Two of these three stations have changed logos, making this ad all the more ironic
• All three have changed program directors (CJAD changed twice)
• CHOM has replaced its entire morning crew (at the time it was Terry, Ted and Kim)
• CJFM has replaced its entire branding with one that Astral purchased from England
• CJAD has fired a bunch of on-air staff

"Please be assured of our commitment to continue providing the same great listening pleasure you have come to enjoy," the ad said. "Respect for our broadcast audience and the public in general is a core value of Astral Media."

I'll leave it to you to judge, based on their subsequent actions, whether Astral Media stuck to their word.

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The shutdown cuts eight jobs at CINF, and two jobs (announcer Jim Connell and one technician) at CINW. The Corus Nouvelles newsroom, which laid off a dozen people a year ago, will continue operations, mainly feeding the talk station CHMP 98.5 FM. Three journalists, two traffic reporters and three operators will lose their jobs, while five journalists and three traffic reporters will move to CHMP.

Both stations began in December 1999, when they were owned by Metromedia. CINF began as CKVL in 1946, and spent half a century at 850 AM, before changing callsign and frequency and taking an all-news format. More details at the Canadian Communications Foundation.

CINW began as XWA in 1919, eventually becoming CFCF (the television station's call letters were taken from the radio station's, which stood for "Canada's First, Canada's Finest") and then CIQC in 1991. It spent just shy of 80 years on the same frequency. Its experiment in all-news was tweaked in 2005 with the adoption of news-talk format similar to CJAD and the hiring of hosts who were branded as opinionative like Aphrodite Salas and former CBMT anchor Dennis Trudeau. It failed completely in 2008 with the firing of almost all its staff and the switch to all-hits programming. Since then the station has been dead-last or close to it in the ratings. More details at the Canadian Communications Foundation.

Both stations ceased transmitting at 7:02 p.m. No fanfare, no countdown, not even a national anthem. They just stopped.

Coverage at CTV Montreal, LCN, Radio-Canada, The Gazette, CBC, or Corus Nouvelles itself (which copies a Presse Canadienne story). Blog posts from Maxime Landry and Sophie Cousineau.

Corus employees won't be making any public statements about the shutdown, instead referring people to a PR agency. Still, one disgruntled employee emailed me, complaining that a very small number of companies own far too many broadcast outlets, and the CRTC needs to step in.

UPDATE (Feb. 1): Jim Connell, the on-air personality laid off as a result of 940's closing, was on CFCF News at Noon today, lamenting the death spiral of AM radio.

So what now?

The release says Corus will surrender its licenses for the two frequencies to the CRTC. This means two clear channels (those that don't have to reduce power to avoid interference at night, meaning their signals carry much farther) are up for grabs. (Both frequencies were used by many years by CBC Radio - 690 in French and 940 in English - before both moved to FM and the all-news stations took up the channels). According to Wikipedia's list, the only other clear channel in Montreal is CKAC. A decade ago this would have been a huge opportunity. Half a century ago station managers would kill for even a chance at getting one of these.

But in the current media environment, the question is more whether anyone would bother.

Various theories are being brought up on the local radio discussion group, including:

• CJAD should move to 940 from 800 to take advantage of the clear channel. This was brought up last time the channel was available, but CJAD dismissed the idea, preferring its spot on the dial, which it considered easier to find.
• CBME-FM (CBC Radio One) should simulcast on 940 AM to reach more listeners. CBC dealt with the coverage issue by setting up a network of FM repeaters, including 104.7 FM in NDG. It's unclear if there are enough people having trouble receiving the station to warrant the expense of running an AM transmitter.
• Rogers, which owns a chain of all-news AM radio stations including CFTR 680News in Toronto, could setup a station here.

Other stations, especially those in the extended AM broadcast band like CJLO 1690, would definitely benefit from moving to the lower frequency and increasing their power. Or some new player (Rogers, perhaps?) could come in and setup a new AM radio station.

But the future of AM radio in particular doesn't prompt much optimism. New portable media players, if they have radio receivers at all, only do FM. AM radio has a smaller bandwidth, meaning the sound is less clear, and it's more susceptible to interference. Even the CBC realized that when it moved all its Montreal stations to FM.

As for the all-news format, I think there's definitely room for something coming up on the French side, with CKAC concentrating on sports, CHMP doing talk (and simulcasting a lot of CKAC, including Habs games) and leaving Radio-Canada alone on news. But on the English side, CJAD and CBC will be tough competition for any new entrant. One will take away any serious news listeners, and the other will take away the rabid angryphones who want to call in constantly to complain that there's too many potholes.

We'll see what kind of interest there is when the CRTC puts the two channels on the block.

Until then, the shutdown gives a rare opportunity to listen to far-away stations without interference from local frequencies. I got lots of stuff late at night from both newly created holes, stations overlapping each other to the point where I couldn't really understand any of them. The best I could hear was WEAV 960AM in Plattsburgh, which was carrying Sean Hannity when I tuned in.

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