Category Archives: Montreal

We interrupt this programming to ask you for money

December 1, 2011 – 3:07 am| Posted in Media, Montreal, Radio

Today, Dec. 1, is La grande guignolée des médias, the day during the year when various Quebec media and other groups unite for the cause of raising money and supplies for various charities.

What I like most about this campaign is that it's entirely independent of the guerre des médias. Its list of participating media includes Quebecor (including the Journal de Montréal, 24H, Canoe, TVA and VOX), Radio-Canada, La Presse, Cogeco (including CKOI, Rythme FM, 98.5, CKAC and The Beat), Astral (including CHOM, Virgin Radio, CJAD, Rouge, NRJ, Canal D, Canal Vie, MusiquePlus, MusiMax, Télétoon, Vrak.tv and Ztélé), V, Télé-Québec, Transcontinental (including Métro), TV5, MétéoMédia, RDS, Groupe Serdy (Zeste and Évasion) and CHOQ.FM (UQAM's student radio station).

It would probably be easier to list the media not part of this list: Le Devoir, Voir, some community radio stations and a larger number of anglophone media (including The Gazette), many of which have their own holiday fundraising campaigns.

Volunteers will be collecting money at metro stations during the rush hours, and donations can be dropped off at Loblaws/Maxi/Provigo stores or Laurentian Bank locations.

Here's to hoping they have a day worth reporting on.

UPDATE (Dec. 3): It looks like they raised at least $150,000 in Montreal alone.

La Presse's Patrick Lagacé, in response to a piece by Le Devoir's Stéphane Baillargeon asking if it's the job of journalists to be panhandlers for charity, says there's plenty of other things journalists waste their time on. He has more on his blog. Baillargeon's piece is, sadly, subscriber-locked.

La Presse auctions off its journalists

As part of the Grande guignolée, La Presse is once again auctioning off activities with its columnists. These lots aren't cheap - three or four figures, depending - but they're for a good cause. Bidding ends at 4pm.

Just please make sure Lagacé doesn't win.

Tele...Webo...Phoneothon!

Another event happening this week is the big annual fundraiser for the Foundation of Stars, formerly known as the Foundation for Research into Children's Diseases. Last year, you'll recall, the foundation decided to do away with the telethon they had done for decades, replacing it with a "webothon" that was streamed online. I panned the idea because going online would rob them of the big thing being on television gave them: visibility.

As it turns out, the foundation seems to have realized that, and they've abandoned the webothon idea. Without the financial means to put on another telethon, they've switched medium and gone to radio, organizing a "phoneothon" on CJAD, Rouge FM and Boom FM stations. It happens Sunday, Dec. 4, from 10 am to 7pm.

As the organization's latest annual report shows (PDF), the switch from television to the Web resulted in a drop of about $500,000 in fundraising. And because fundraising costs stayed about the same, that drop came out of the bottom line. The result is that there was $700,000 less given to hospital research centres in the 2010-11 fiscal year than the year before.

Let's hope that using radio instead of television can provide a happy medium between visibility and cost control that results in maximum benefit for the foundation and, of course, the children it's trying to help.

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Concordia broadcasters want a bigger audience

November 30, 2011 – 11:38 pm| Posted in Montreal, Radio, TV

CJLO's AM antenna in Ville St. Pierre

Concordia University's student-run television and radio stations are always looking up, looking for ways to grow. It's been more than a decade now that both have gotten their funding directly from students instead of through the Concordia Student Union. They've since split their funding sources and have asked students for increases in their per-credit student fees.

CJLO, the radio station, has been transmitting at 1690 kHz since 2008, out of an antenna in Ville St. Pierre, just down the hill from its Loyola studio. It produces a full schedule of programming, most of it music-based but with some talk and information programs as well. But the 1 kilowatt transmitter on AM doesn't reach out very far, and many students don't have AM radios.

CUTV, the television station, has never had a broadcasting license. It can be seen on televisions on campus and on its website. Though it does produce a significant amount of programming, it's nowhere near enough to fill a full schedule without repeating every program dozens of times.

Both stations are looking to increase their reach through new ways of broadcasting, and to do that they each need more money, so both are in the process of asking students for yet another increase in their per-credit fees.

In a referendum of Concordia Student Union members Tuesday to Thursday this week, CJLO is asking for an increase from 25 to 34 cents per credit. This works out to $10.20 a year for a full-time student taking five classes a semester. CUTV is asking for an increase from 18 cents to 34 cents per credit, which would almost double its funding.

UPDATE (Dec. 3): Both questions passed, The Link reports. Following a rubber-stamp from the university's board, the fees will be applied to students' tuition bills.

Broadcasting equipment at CJLO's offices, sending its signal online and to its AM transmitter

The plans

Here's what they want to do to make themselves more accessible.

CJLO wants to setup a low-power FM retransmitter downtown, which would cover the downtown campus. "The frequency we are looking at is around 10 city blocks and no commercial station seems to want it," station manager Stephanie Saretsky tells me. "We have been told by our AM consultant that the response from the CRTC should be favorable because of this fact. Obviously nothing is guarenteed, but CJLO cannot start the application process without the fee levy."

The CRTC has said there isn't more space on the FM dial in Montreal (106.7 is an exception, now that it has been vacated by Aboriginal Voices Radio and the pirate station KKIC, but an application is pending to use that frequency). But the city is saturated only in terms of high-powered stations. There are options available for low-power transmitters covering a small area, and this seems to be what CJLO is looking for - something just to cover the downtown campus, so students can tune in between classes.

CUTV, meanwhile, doesn't want to setup a broadcast transmitter, but it does want to get on cable television, where most viewers are anyway. CUTV's plan is to apply to the CRTC for a community channel license, which would require cable systems to carry the channel. In the short term, the station is looking to get time on VOX, the community channel run by Videotron.

Both plans are admirable, though the campaigns by both groups are tying the increased funding to the new broadcast licenses. Neither group has actually applied for one yet, and the likelihood of success is far from absolute. Getting a new FM transmitter in Montreal - even a low-power one - isn't easy, particularly if it's just retransmitting another station. The CRTC process is hardly a formality or a rubber-stamp. For CUTV, the group would have to convince the CRTC to give it a channel on the cable dial even though there already exists a television station in Montreal devoted to programming from its four universities - Canal Savoir.

And it goes without saying that if these applications fail, neither of these groups is going to voluntarily reduce its student fee.

Still, I wish them luck. CJLO deserves to be heard, and a low-power retransmitter covering just the downtown campus makes a lot of sense. CUTV, meanwhile, has a lot of promise, but without a continuous outlet there isn't much incentive to produce sufficient quality of quantity of television programming.

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Montreal Geography Trivia No. 83

November 21, 2011 – 12:00 pm| Posted in Montreal, Pop quiz

Quebec once had a small village called Dixie.

Where is it now?

UPDATE: Enough of you were close that I'll give it to you. Dixie was a small village (hamlet?) in the 19th century in what is now the lakeshore in western Lachine and eastern Dorval. It had a population of about 300 when it was made part of Lachine. You can see a map of it here from 1894, and another here from 1913 after it became part of Lachine. It only had two roads, Lakeshore Road (now St. Joseph Blvd.) and a "road to station", which is now 55th Ave.

As Zeke points out below, the name remains in use as that of a small uninhabited island just offshore near where the old town was. And as Jean Naimard points out, there's also a street in Lachine called Rue Dixie.

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CRTC gives clear channels to TSN, Tietolman-Tétrault-Pancholy

November 21, 2011 – 11:46 am| Posted in Montreal, Radio

The CRTC's decision on Montreal AM radio stations came out this morning. Here's the skinny:

The two other applications, TTP's English-language news-talk station and Cogeco's English all-traffic station, are denied, not because the CRTC feels they are without merit, but because the other applicants made better cases for the two clear-channel frequencies and neither would accept 990 as a backup. The CRTC hints that the two might be approved if they reapplied for other vacant AM frequencies (like 600 or 850), but that these applications would have to be reconsidered on their own merits.

Also Monday, the CRTC denied four applications for low-powered AM radio stations in Montreal, three of which would target ethnic communities and the fourth a religious station. The CRTC felt they would negatively impact the five existing ethnic stations, notably CKIN-FM 106.3 (Mike FM's sister station), which has programming targeting the South Asian and Latin American communities, and religious station Radio Ville-Marie (CIRA-FM 91.3).

The second decision has an impact on the first, in that one of the stations had applied to use 600 kHz. The denial of that application means the frequency is available to the big commercial players. Tietolman-Tétrault-Pancholy has hinted that it might be interested in that frequency, provided it can use a tower or get space for one to build themselves. The only one capable of doing that frequency right now is Cogeco's towers, which will continue to go unused, but Paul Tietolman says he has no intention of asking Cogeco for them.

You can read a summary of what's going on in this article I wrote for Tuesday's Gazette. Below, I go into a bit more analysis.

The hierarchy

Reading the decision, it becomes clear how the CRTC judged the applications based on hierarchy:

  1. CKGM's frequency change clearly made the strongest case, because it was an already-existing station and because moving it would offer another frequency for another applicant. (The CRTC likes to make as many people happy as possible.) Its content - sports - is also better suited to a signal that carries farther into the regions. So CKGM wins the biggest prize, 690 kHz.
  2. Tietolman-Tétrault-Pancholy's application was taken seriously, and the CRTC believes enough in its business plan that it is willing to give them a chance. But it wasn't going to give the one applicant both clear-channel frequencies. So TTP gets 940. And since they said they would not accept 990, one application has to be denied. The French market is stronger in Montreal and its surrounding regions, and there isn't as much direct competition for a French news-talk station as their is in English with CJAD, so the French station gets approved.
  3. Cogeco's application for an English all-traffic station couldn't convince the CRTC that it required a signal so powerful that it can reach into Gaspé. They made a valiant effort, saying that they need to be heard across the Ontario border for people who commute from that far, and that their application should be approved because otherwise the existence of the French all-traffic station would create an imbalance in services to different languages. But the CRTC remained unconvinced. And since Cogeco wouldn't accept anything but 690 and 940, that application had to be denied.
  4. Dufferin's Radio Fierté gets 990 more by process of elimination than anything else. Two applications were approved for clear channels, and the other two wouldn't accept 990, so Dufferin gets it. That isn't to say the CRTC wasn't excited about their application and eager to increase the diversity of the radio industry in Montreal. But it seems pretty clear that if TTP would have accepted 990 for its English station, it probably would have gotten it.

Calling their bluff

One thing I like about the CRTC decision is that it calls a lot of bluffs from the applicants.

Cogeco went all in, saying it's 690, 940 or nothing. I find it hard to believe they're just going to walk away from $1.5 million a year, and their deal with the Quebec government was already modified once when they decided to make CKAC an all-traffic station. Because that $1.5 million is based on costs instead of audience (otherwise it would be more for the French station), there's no reason to believe they couldn't reach a deal for another frequency like 600 or 850. Cogeco's Mark Dickie told me before the decision that there is no Plan B. If that's true, they either have to come up with one or walk away from this project.

The latter option would be particularly embarrassing because both parties have been acting as if this was a done deal. The government has been advertising a coming English traffic station, and Cogeco has even asked for applications for potential traffic hosts, with only a footnote at the bottom pointing out that these jobs might not actually ever exist.

Is Cogeco willing to walk away from $1.5 million a year? Is the Transport Ministry willing to walk away from their promise of all-traffic radio in English? We'll see.

The CRTC also called the bluff of Tietolman-Tétrault-Pancholy, which originally said it wanted both clear channels or nothing, then softened that stance suggesting the English station could find another alternative frequency. They continue to insist that they need both stations for the business plan to be viable, but say the English station might not need to be a clear channel if they can get adequate coverage in Montreal and the West Island. So far 600 kHz seems to be the only one able to do this, but that would require either expanding the site they were planning to use or using Cogeco's CINW/CINF site in Kahnawake. The latter option is very distasteful to Tietolman and his partners.

When I finally reached Tietolman on Monday, he said he wouldn't comment (other than to point out that TSN said it would be fine with 940, which I guess means TTP felt the CRTC should have given 690 to them and given 940 to TSN). Tietolman said he and his partners are going to study the decision carefully and decide where to go from there.

Though nobody's pointing this out, the CRTC decision combined with TTP's position should mean that the group will decline the license. I highly doubt that will happen, but if TTP doesn't get a decent frequency for its proposed English station, or if the application takes too long, they might face the choice of going with just the French station or going home.

Six months to a year

The big question for the winning applicants is when they're going to be on the air. Bell Media says it'll be "within six months" for CKGM, which would mean by the end of May (maybe just before the playoffs start, or just after the Canadiens are eliminated). It's unclear at this point whether it will operate for any length of time on both frequencies, though that has been the practice in the past.

Evanov/Dufferin hopes to have its station up within a year, but has to wait for CKGM to vacate its frequency first. The decision gives the group a second choice in terms of transmission site. It already had a letter showing it could enter into negotiations for use of the CJAD site, but as part of the hearing Bell Media committed to negotiating use of the CKGM site for another station on 990, and even said it would submit to binding arbitration concerning a transmitter sharing deal. Evanov tells me they will look at both possibilities.

Other coverage

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Terry DiMonte returns to CHOM Jan. 9

November 19, 2011 – 2:39 am| Posted in Montreal, Radio

Five months after the announcement that Terry DiMonte will be returning to CHOM-FM, not much has happened publicly. DiMonte is still in Calgary, co-hosting the morning show at Corus-owned Q107.

Corus is making DiMonte work all of the six-month obligation he triggered when he gave his notice in June. DiMonte has no trouble fulfilling his obligation as his contract stipulates, but it's clear from his comments on social media that he's eager to return to Montreal.

While those comments are pleasing his Montreal-based fans, they're also disappointing his Calgary-based ones, some Montreal expats who share with him a connection to this city they once lived in before economic factors brought them out west, but many just classic rock fans who have been loyal to the station and woken up with him every weekday morning since 2007.

DiMonte tells me his last day at Q107 will be Dec. 9. After that he returns to Montreal and prepares to go back on the air at CHOM. His first day back in his old chair is almost certainly going to be Jan. 9. Astral VP Martin Spalding, who courted DiMonte back to CHOM, says this was considered a better date than a week earlier, when many people are still on holiday.

Spalding's hands are tied in terms of marketing DiMonte. Not only is DiMonte still physically in Calgary, except for occasional trips here during his time off, but because DiMonte is still under contract with Corus, his brand still belongs to them. Astral can't market DiMonte until his contract expires, which will happen on Dec. 22, six months after DiMonte gave his notice.

Terry and ...

The biggest question for the past five months remains: Who will be DiMonte's partner on the CHOM morning show?

Spalding and DiMonte said they've met a lot of potential candidates - some in person, some by phone, with more still to talk to - but no decision has been made yet. (The decision will be a joint one between DiMonte and the station.) They don't even know if it's going to be one or two people. But they will have to make a call within the next few weeks.

"As you're probably aware, I am QUITE gunshy and very careful now after a certain time period in my old life...so I will be taking some time," DiMonte writes. Spalding echoes those thoughts, telling me that "this is a five-year play, so we want to make it right."

Spalding also said that there have been a lot of candidates, some they sought out, and some who offered to come on board. "It's amazing how many people have come out of the woodwork and want to work with Terry," Spalding said.

For those wondering, Ted Bird said he's not one of them. There have been no discussions between him and CHOM about a possible return, and he remains the big name at the K103 morning show in Kahnawake.

Two obvious candidates for the job are the ones currently holding it now: Rob Kemp and Chantal Desjardins.

Kemp might be headed back to an early afternoon shift if he's not on the morning show (currently Tootall does 10am to 3pm), though any reshuffling of shifts won't be decided until after the morning team is in place, Spalding said.

The outlook for Desjardins is less certain. Spalding said she's a "clear candidate" for the morning show co-host, but there's no lock on it. She might end up somewhere else at the station, perhaps at another Astral station in Montreal, either CJAD or CJFM.

Desjardins clearly wants to get the job with DiMonte, though.

"I really enjoy working for Astral and I hope to continue in the morning show co-host position when Terry arrives," she told me. "Seriously…who wouldn’t want to wake up at 4am every morning? ;)" (her emoticon, not mine).

TV viewers might have noticed that Desjardins has been doing sports stories for CTV Montreal. (UPDATE Nov. 23 - She even got a turn behind the anchor desk, as you can see from the video above.)

She said she's "thoroughly enjoying the experience" and likes the work environment at CTV.

"But I still love the energy and immediacy of morning radio so I guess we'll just have to wait and see how everything plays out!"

I feel bad for Desjardins. I know the saying that in radio it's not if you get fired but when. Not getting the morning show gig doesn't mean she'll be fired, but to have your employment future be so uncertain for so long can't be a fun thing to experience. I know, because it happens fairly often for me. (The main difference being thousands of people don't notice what happens to me unless I tell them.)

Desjardins would make a welcome addition to the CTV sports team. That department is tiny (though still bigger than its competitors combined), and right now it's 100% male. And she seems very comfortable in front of the camera.

But radio is what she wants to do, and it's where people know her from. And Desjardins's ability to match (or even surpass) wits with the boys is probably more valuable at the classic rock station than the TV station. Aside from Desjardins, Sharon Hyland is the only woman with a shift at 97.7FM, and she's on weekends now.

It's possible DiMonte and Spalding will come up with a name so fantastic it will have fans going "Chantal who?", but it would have to be pretty fantastic to make me forget that these kinds of decisions have effects on the lives of real people.

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Behind the scenes with Tasso and Patrick at Mike FM

November 16, 2011 – 3:59 pm| Posted in Montreal, My articles, Radio

Patrick Henry Charles (left) and Paul Zakaib (aka Tasso Patsikakis)

Stop me if you've heard this one before: Big local radio personality decides he's had enough of how faceless corporations have micromanaged what happens on air, taking all the fun out of it. So instead, he's moving to a low-power station few of his fans have ever heard of, becoming a big fish in a smaller pond, sacrificing a big paycheque for more creative freedom. The small station, not licensed in a way that would normally make it a competitor to the big commercial stations, decides it's going to go after a bigger mainstream crowd to attract more advertising revenue.

It's easy to see the parallels with Ted Bird here. Give me another example of this happening and I can write a trend story about it.

I went by Mike FM (CKDG) last week to sit in on a broadcast of the Tasso and Patrick show, which debuted on Oct. 24. It stars Paul Zakaib, who has been better known as Tasso since the 80s and has been mostly off the air since he was sacked from the CFQR morning show he shared with long-time partner Aaron Rand in 2009. With him is Patrick Henry Charles, who worked on the Aaron and Tasso show from 2001 until he got a better offer from competitor Astral to be part of CJFM's morning team, but about a year later was moved into a position that gave him less airtime and far less exposure.

I talk about Mike FM and Tasso and Patrick in an article that appeared in The Gazette on Tuesday. It reveals, among other things, that there were talks about bringing an Aaron and Tasso show to the station, but they fell through the cracks when Rand was hired to do an afternoon show at CJAD.

So Zakaib called up his old pal Charles, who had recently left Astral because he felt his talents were being wasted there. They met with CKDG GM Marie Griffiths, and before long the Tasso and Patrick show was born.

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Scavenge: Impossible

November 10, 2011 – 10:04 pm| Posted in Fun, Montreal

I like scavenger hunts. I've participated in one or two, and provided the items on the list don't involve doing anything illegal, too embarrassing or too impossible (University of Chicago, I'm looking at you), I look forward to participating in future ones.

I missed one last weekend, the Impossible Montreal scavenger hunt, which was actually far from it.

Three teams participated, making videos and taking pictures to complete their tasks. As an example, here are each of the three groups performing their own haka:

There were other fun things, like doing a Rick Mercer-style rant about Rick Mercer or eating as many steamies as possible. Another one was Peter Mansbridge/Wendy Mesley slash fiction, that's just too good an idea not to link to, so here they are: The Sub-Librarians, The Flying Feltchions, #swag (bonus pointless references to Mutsumi Takahashi, Debra Arbec and Lori Graham in the latter).

The full list is here (PDF, after some humourously-crafted rules). Each of the participating teams used Tumblr accounts to upload pictures, video and text of their exploits, which you can find here:

  1. First place: The Sub-Librarians
  2. Second place: The Flying Feltchions
  3. Third place: #swag (pronounced "hashtag-swag")
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Clear Channel Cagematch: Tietolman-Tétrault-Pancholy

November 9, 2011 – 2:14 pm| Posted in Montreal, Opinion, Radio

Over the past week, I have been taking a closer look at the applications for Montreal's AM clear-channel frequencies 690 and 940 kHz that were presented at CRTC hearings in October. In today's final installment, I look at the application from Paul Tietolman, Nicolas Tétrault and Rajiv Pancholy for a French news-talk station on 690 and an English news-talk station on 940. Though these are technically two separate applications, they are virtually identical in format and are being treated as one application here.

The would-be station owners at the CRTC hearing (from left): Nicolas Tétrault, Rajiv Pancholy and Paul Tietolman

Do you believe in radio? Do you believe that corporate greed and ineptitude has more to do with the decline of media than the Internet or changing habits? Do you think the thing the media sphere needs right now more than anything else is an owner with the heart of a mom-and-pop operation and the bank account of a Fortune 500 executive?

If so, the three men pictured above are here to be your saviours.

If you don't believe, if you think investing in talent has already been proven not to work, and that rigorous cost-cutting is the only thing that keeps radio profitable these days, then these three men will seem like morons willing to flush tens of millions of dollars right down the toilet.

Despite how closely I've followed radio, I can't honestly say which of these is true. I want to hope for the former, but the latter just seems more realistic.

And the success of these applications will depend, more than anything else, on which side of that fence three CRTC commissioners sit.

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Clear Channel Cagematch: Radio Fierté

November 6, 2011 – 4:28 am| Posted in Montreal, Radio

This week, I'm taking a closer look at the applications for Montreal's AM clear-channel frequencies 690 and 940 kHz that were presented at CRTC hearings in October. Today, I'm looking at the application from Dufferin Communications for a music-talk station for the gay community on 690.

Representatives of Dufferin Communications (Evanov Communications) and Proud FM in Toronto. Carmela Laurignano is in the foreground.

I didn't get a chance to talk to representatives of Dufferin Communications (a subsidiary of Evanov Communications - the two names were used interchangeably) during the CRTC hearing. I feel a bit guilty about that, but it's hard to see their proposal for a music/talk station geared toward the gay community as anything more than an also-ran in this battle between the heavyweights.

Evanov is an established but small player in the radio market. It owns 13 radio stations (including two whose purchase was approved a week after the hearing), mostly in small-market Ontario, but also two in Halifax and three in Winnipeg. It does not own any French-language stations.

Its proposal for 690 AM in Montreal is based on Proud FM in Toronto, a station of only 128 watts (up from 50) that airs programming of interest to the gay community (well, LGBT and whatever other letters you want to add to that). The programming would be mainly talk and music, with a bit of news of special interest to the community.

Characterizing Toronto's Proud FM as "very successful," Evanov VP Carmela Laurignano pointed out it's the only commercial radio station of its kind in Canada during a phone interview before the hearing.

Considering Montreal's vibrant gay community, it made sense for them to want to try that format here.

"We had been looking at it and studying it a little bit," she said. "We had been planning to do it anyway, but there was a call for applications."

Seeing a CRTC notice for applications for 690 and 940, Evanov put in its application for Radio Fierté.

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Clear Channel Cagematch: CKGM frequency change

November 3, 2011 – 4:24 am| Posted in Montreal, Radio

This week, I'm taking a closer look at the applications for Montreal's AM clear-channel frequencies 690 and 940 kHz that were presented at CRTC hearings in October. Today, I'm looking at CKGM's application to change the frequency of TSN Radio Montreal (formerly The Team 990) from 990 to 690.

What used to be called Team 990 hopes that number will change

Unlike the other applicants for stations on 690 and 940, the one from CKGM is to move an already existing station. It's a perfectly legitimate request, but it makes writing articles about this hearing difficult. You can't refer to "five new radio stations", because one already exists. Oh well, that's my problem.

The biggest strength of this application is that it's an established station with an existing audience. It's been on the air forever, but more significantly it has had just over a decade of experience as an all-sports station.

So why change frequencies? Coverage:

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