Fagstein » On the Net

Justin Trudeau calendar has 33 pictures of Justin Trudeau

Fagstein — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 07:54:50 +0000

One of the advantages of living where I do is that I happen to be in the Papineau federal riding. It's apparently the smallest geographically in Canada because of its high residential density.

But more importantly, it's the riding currently being represented by Justin Trudeau, Liberal Party superstar and the closest thing this country has to a political prince, making him an easy target for harmless fun.

Being a constituent apparently gets me one free calendar every year. This year's came last week in my mailbox - almost four weeks into the year, far beyond the point when calendars in stores enter liquidation pricing. I don't know if it's a party expenditure (since it has the Liberal Party logo on it) or if it comes from his MP's budget (since it has his parliamentary contact information on the back).

What I do know is that, like last year's calendar (this is apparently his third), it's filled with pictures of Trudeau, in most cases more than one on each page. As you can see in the video above, I count 33 pictures of Trudeau in his calendar, which is the same as I counted in last year's. Some photos are captioned as "Justin", others "Mr. Trudeau", others are written in the first person, and the rest don't have a subject.

But that's not interesting. Nor is it interesting that his welcome message spends more time bashing the Conservatives than talking about his family. What's interesting is that someone thought it didn't look silly that a calendar with 12 months has 33 pictures of Justin Trudeau in it, and a year later decided that shouldn't change.

Terry DiMonte’s first day at CHOM … again

Fagstein — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 08:38:44 +0000

There are some things at CHOM that will always be constant: The name, the format, the listeners complaining that the same songs get played over and over, and every decade or so the program director deciding to shake things up by putting Terry DiMonte back on mornings.

DiMonte began his first shift back at Montreal's Spirit of Rock on Monday, and I managed to score an invitation to see it from the studio (even if it meant pulling an all-nighter after a late shift at work). This is the story of that day.

Terry DiMonte reads the paper just before he starts his first show. (And by "the paper", I mean the section in Saturday's Gazette seemingly devoted to him)

It's hard to imagine someone like Terry DiMonte being nervous about going on the radio. So I didn't take it too seriously when he warned me the week before that he would be a nervous wreck on his first day.

But as he walked into Astral Radio's Fort St. offices just after 5am, it was apparent he wasn't quite 100% back in his chair and it would take some time to make him fully comfortable. He knew he would be judged from the moment he pressed the button that turns on his microphone, that thousands of people who knew about him coming back (either through the promotional campaign Astral put on or through the full-page piece in Saturday's Gazette) would be tuning in just to hear his voice again.

He was worried about screwing up, absent-mindedly referring to Q107, the station he left a month earlier, instead of CHOM. Thankfully for him there were posters with CHOM's logo and frequency all over the studio, so he needed only look up if he forgot.

In the end, he didn't screw up. He got the call letters right, and the frequency, and the motto. He needed to be reminded of the phone number at one point, but mostly it was like he never left. And if he was nervous at all during his first break ("break" being how radio types refer to "the part where I'm on air"), he didn't show it as he said hi:

The first song for DiMonte's first show was Back in the Saddle by Aerosmith, which came as a suggestion on Facebook when overnight host Ronny Mack asked fans which should be the first song. DiMonte hadn't thought of that song as an option, but considered it very appropriate considering he's coming back from Calgary.

The team

Maureen Holloway joins Terry DiMonte on his first show

Shortly after the show began, DiMonte was joined in studio by Maureen Holloway. Holloway ~~hosts~~ is a big part of the morning show at Q107 in Toronto, and contributed to his former morning show at (a different) Q107 in Calgary. Both are owned by Corus. Because Corus no longer has a Montreal station with the sale of CFQR and others to Cogeco, she wasn't on the air here and Astral managed to reach an agreement to bring her on to do a segment just before 6am and have it repeated at 7:15.

But because Holloway was just finishing a vacation and happened to be in Montreal, she came into the studio and joined DiMonte for a few hours, giving him someone to chat with on air. His actual cohost, Heather Backman, doesn't start until Jan. 16.

Holloway's arrival, a surprise for DiMonte, resulted in a reunion for the two friends who have worked together for many years, going back to when DiMonte hosted the morning show at Mix 96.

The show has two other regular contributors, both of whom come in studio to do their bits: Eric Engels with his once-daily Habs report and Trudie Mason with news on the hour.

Mason did her first newscast at 6am:

DiMonte did some sports news after that, and got in a mention of Calgary Flames captain Jarome Iginla scoring his 500th career goal. It was a legitimate sports story of national interest, but a bit of a reminder that there's still a bit of Calgary in DiMonte.

Engels only comes in once a day. You can listen to his first Habs report here (MP3).

Esteban Vargas sits behind the big board pressing all the cool buttons

The last contributor to the show is the guy behind the scenes, board operator Esteban Vargas. I recognized the name, but I didn't know where I'd heard it. He suggested it might have been when he was doing odd shifts as a traffic reporter, which might have been true. But I think I actually recognize the name, oddly enough, from the Kelly Alexander Show podcast, even though I haven't listened to that in quite a while.

Though he's been at Astral for six years, and clearly knows what he's doing, there were a few jokes about child labour when DiMonte posted a photo of Esteban online.

The magical computer box lists songs, commercials, traffic reports and all the other live an recorded sounds that go into a show.

Terry needs a clock

It was one of those things. If you see in any of these videos DiMonte looking ahead and up as he talks, he's looking at a non-existent analog clock. There used to be one on the opposite wall, but it disappeared some time after he left in 2007. There's one on the wall behind him, but that's incredibly awkward to try to look at when you're on the air from that chair.

DiMonte explains the reason best in the video, but the clock provides a reference not only for the time (which he can just read off his computer screen), but also how much of the show is left, and how long until the top of the hour. After decades in radio, it's become second nature to him to see an hour in terms of the analog clock and to mentally plan accordingly.

DiMonte was repeatedly assured that a clock would be acquired and installed.

Media circus

There were quite a few people around to witness DiMonte's return. In addition to myself, the studio was visited by cameras from:

Global Montreal

CTV Montreal

... and CHOM's own promotions department. (There was a second, more professional-looking camera also taking video)

The CHOM video of DiMonte's first day has been posted online. It includes his first and last words on his first show. The latter part includes a specific thank-you to me, which I didn't expect. My mom heard it, but in case you want to listen to just that part, here it is (MP3).

A complete list of DiMonte's news coverage is at the bottom of Monday's post. So far it includes a Saturday feature and live chat with The Gazette, a story and later in-studio interview at CTV Montreal (they've produced a behind-the-scenes video vignette), and a brief on Global Montreal, plus wherever Astral's press release has been republished.

But DiMonte has also been talking to non-traditional media. Besides me, he's talked to Gazette blogger Bugs Burnett and the Cornwall Free News, besides one-on-one chats with people on Twitter and Facebook.

Terry appreciates you calling

Plenty of DiMonte's critics say he has a huge ego and everything is about him. While I'd never accuse any successful media personality of not having an ego, DiMonte spent quite a bit of time his first day answering calls from listeners, even with the studio filled with people and everything else going through his mind.

The calls were relatively short, and some had to be interrupted because DiMonte had to go back on the air. In general, they went something like this:

Even Andrew Carter at CJAD was getting calls from people welcoming DiMonte back, one Astral employee walked into the studio to report with a laugh. (I tweeted that, resulting later in Carter coming in and asking "who's Fagstein?" - after a bit of nervous panic, we introduced ourselves, and it turns out he likes the blog.)

DiMonte also communicated via Facebook and Twitter, as he's become a bit more adept at social media in the past few years.

Cake

A special cake was brought in to celebrate DiMonte's first show

A special "welcome back Terry" cake was brought in, much to DiMonte's surprise. That missing bit on the left is where he stuck his finger in to taste the icing. "I bet that's fantastic," said the guy who continues to be worried that his return to Montreal is a one-way ticket to extreme weight gain.

What's next?

In case there are still people in Montreal who don't know about DiMonte's return, the big promotional push will come next week when Heather Backman joins the show and things start moving on all four wheels. I haven't been told of any extreme promotional plans, just the usual contests (including their "man cave" watch-the-Super-Bowl-with-Terry deal) and advertising/marketing.

Maureen Holloway and Terry DiMonte share a hug as she departs for Toronto

UPDATE (Jan. 16): CHOM's website has some audio clips from DiMonte's show. They include more episodes of Holloway's Dirty Little Secrets, Engels's Habs Report and Pierre Houde of RDS talking about Michael Cammalleri, as well as interviews with visiting artists like Martin Short, Mark McKinney and Demetri Martin.

There's also a short-answer get-to-know-Heather segment, in which we learn they haven't yet decided whether they'll call her Heather Backman or Heather B.

The year in music, as mashed by DJ Earworm

Fagstein — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 06:59:24 +0000

I'm not a music critic. I couldn't dissect a song to tell you what parts of it are good and what parts are bad. That's why you won't see me writing about music a lot.

But this is an exception.

The above is United State of Pop 2011 (World Go Boom) by DJ Earworm. It's a mashup of the 25 most popular songs of 2011, including songs by Katy Perry, Bruno Mars, LMFAO, Rihanna and Adele. It was uploaded to YouTube on Christmas Day.

And it's awesome. But I expected it to be.

To describe it as a "mashup" seems unfair. In reality, this is a song created from little bits of other songs, a masterpiece of musical editing that is as awe-inspiring by its complexity as it is catchy in its melody.

If you haven't heard of this before, you need to listen to the previous years' versions:

Each is just as impressive. And for added awesomeness, each can be downloaded free as an MP3. Just follow the link in the YouTube description to DJ Earworm's website.

Want to watch me talk in front of a brick wall for half an hour?

Fagstein — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 18:54:54 +0000

Last month, I gave a talk to some student journalists from Ontario and Quebec who gathered in St. Henri as part of a regional conference of Canadian University Press.

I occasionally get asked to talk to students, and like most professional journalists I'm happy to do so, because it gives me a chance to help others and because it totally inflates my ego to see so many people look up to me.

As it happens someone was there with a camera and recorded the whole thing.

About half of the talk (which is in English but has questions answered in English and French) has been posted to YouTube in three parts (keep in mind I was low on sleep and didn't have enough time to prepare a script or even a list of talking points, so you'll hear a lot of "uhh"s and awkward pauses - the question period is better):

I was asked to talk about "online freelancing", but as I explain right off the bat there isn't really much of a difference between online and regular freelancing, except (usually) for the pay.

I turned on YouTube's transcription service on that first video, and the first words out of my mouth get recognized as this:

"Service to the following online freelancing outsourcing harvest session ... really ridiculous"

Sounds about right.

I reference a few things in the talk that I should link to here:

Last call for interns

It's not part of the videos uploaded to YouTube, but I also talked a bit about my internship application to The Gazette.

The deadline for applications for next summer's interns is coming up Dec. 16. Applications (cover letter, CV and up to five clippings) for jobs as reporters and copy editors (print and online) can be sent to city editor Michelle Richardson (The Gazette, 1010 Ste. Catherine St. W., Suite 200, Montreal Quebec H3B 5L1). The jobs are full-time for 10-12 weeks somewhere between early June and mid-September, paid at 80% of the starting salary of the position, which works out to a decent pay for a student. It's open to people who are university students in the current academic year.

Applicants need a driver's license and need to be bilingual (i.e. able to speak, listen and read in French).

The full posting (PDF) is posted on Concordia's journalism department website along with postings for other internships.

This internship is how I got started, and look at me now!

Oh, wait...

On aime Annie Brocoli

Fagstein — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 04:12:01 +0000

Okay, I admit, maybe it's just that Annie Brocoli catches my eye more than other artists. But I still think there was a cameraman or director who paid a bit of extra attention to this lady.

UPDATE: And at the actual ADISQ gala:

The contradictory stock photo

Fagstein — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 06:00:18 +0000

I find it funny how the lady in the Sun News Network promo complaining about how "political correctness has run amok":

is the same lady promoting government assistance to old people in Quebec:

(Click on the photos to get links to where they come from)

This is, of course, a stock photo. I tracked it down to German photographer Martina Ebel, who sells it through various stock photo sites. She confirmed the photo was hers, though she didn't give me information about the model, who appears in dozens of other photos taken by Ebel.

I'd be willing to put money on the assumption that this nice-looking old lady is not Canadian, has never requested financial assistance from the Quebec government, and has never watched the Sun News Network.

But that's not important, right? What's important is the illusion that this photo represents an actual person we can relate to, and who are news media or the government to dispell us of the false impressions they planted in our minds?

Besides, it's so heartwarming that right-wing media blowhards and left-wing government money wasters have at least one thing in common: the same taste in generic old women.

My six minutes with Ezra Levant

Fagstein — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 01:44:58 +0000

With apologies to Stephen Colbert

It wasn't quite the way I pictured it would be, but on Friday evening I was on national TV for the first time.

Well, maybe calling it "national TV" is an exaggeration. It was during the 5pm hour on a Friday, and the audience was probably somewhere in the low five figures at best. I was actually more curious about the experience than I was excited about the idea of having wide exposure or getting famous or something.

I got an email just before noon on Thursday from Aaron Rosenberg, a production assistant with The Source with Ezra Levant, the first of four (now five) prime-time "straight talk" programs on the new Sun News Network. He wanted me to appear on the show on Friday to discuss a proposal that has been floating around recently about establishing a "professional journalist" certification in Quebec.

The proposal has been public information for quite a while. I've even written about it multiple times as it made its way through the Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec and was a key feature in a report on journalism by professor Dominique Payette. But it was only after Quebec culture minister Christine St-Pierre proposed a public consultation on the matter, prompting an opinion piece from Graeme Hamilton in the National Post, that Sun News and others took notice.

Last Tuesday, Levant went on a rant in video and in text, questioning why Quebec has a minister of communications, suggesting that the fact that St-Pierre and Payette were former Radio-Canada journalists showed this was some government/CBC conspiracy to control what we see and hear through "government journalists". His opinion piece contains such loaded terms as "Soviet-style", "dictator", and "corrupting influence".

I responded to Rosenberg that "I'd be happy to clear up some misconceptions people may have about this proposal." I figured that was a more diplomatic thing to say than "I'd be happy to provide some information to combat the ridiculous hyperbole being spewed by your show's host." My only condition was that I be out of their Montreal studio by 3pm so I could make it to my real job at 3:30.

No problem, he said. The show is recorded in advance, around 2-3pm, so there's no trouble getting me out by 3.

TVA/LCN building at 1600 de Maisonneuve Blvd. E.

I had an appointment for 2pm Friday at the TVA building on de Maisonneuve Blvd. I've never actually been in this building before, so it was an educational experience. I stopped by security, got an electronic pass and made my way to the 10th floor. There, I wasn't quite sure where to go (there's no sign for "Sun News" anywhere), but someone eventually found me and brought me to ... makeup.

I hadn't really expected that part. I know TV people get makeup and hair done before they go on air, but I wasn't a journalist or an anchor, I was just a guy they were bringing in to talk about something. So while making some small-talk, the makeup artist patted my face to get rid of the buckets of sweat, then put on some flesh-toned foundation. The hair guy played with my hair for a few seconds, and I was done. Next, I was brought into the TVA newsroom.

TVA newsroom with boxes everywhere

I was seated at an empty desk at the far end, and stayed there for a few minutes. There were boxes all over the place, because everyone was moving around. TVA just launched a new studio, and this one on the 10th floor is being dismantled and replaced with a new one for LCN.

I also noticed that there were 10 high-definition television screens at the other end of the room, and not one of them was showing the Sun News Network. They had the usual main networks, plus CNN. One even had TVA's shopping channel.

After a few minutes twiddling my thumbs, I was brought to just outside Studio J, a single-camera room with a fake backdrop where remote interviews take place. There was a man in there, and I was next in line to use it.

Studio J at TVA with its fake backdrop

By now it's about 2:30. After a few minutes, the interview before mine wraps up, and a technician begins setting everything up for me. The earpiece is cleaned with alcohol and clipped to the back of my shirt, and I'm handed a lapel microphone to run up the front of my shirt and clip on. I'm showed the volume control, the camera is pointed at me, and they arrange to hook it up to Sun TV in Toronto. It takes a few minutes, but I finally start hearing the live Sun News feed in my ear. It's the voice of anchor Caryn Lieberman, who hosts the 1-3pm show.

The technicians leave, and I wait. And wait. And wait. I can hear the network in my hear, as Lieberman does her regular segment talking to producers and hosts about what's coming up on their shows later (she talks to Levant, but he doesn't tease his segment with me). I don't see the network on the monitors though. Instead, one is showing an infomercial on TVA, while the other shows a western movie with Clint Eastwood on specialty channel Prise 2.

After about 10 minutes, I hear a dial tone, and the signal goes blank. I keep waiting. I start wondering if they've forgotten about me. I peer out the window, and spot some recognizable TVA faces walking about, including Pierre Bruneau. I'd say hi, but I'm literally tied to a chair.

Finally, just before 3pm, after about 20 or 25 minutes of waiting, I hear a crackling in my ear and then the tail end of an interview between Ezra Levant and another guest. Levant says "coming up, a blogger with a funny name" and then throws to commercial. After the music stops, he asks if I can hear him, and for the first time I'm actually talking to someone in Toronto.

Camera setup in Studio J. Look straight into the camera, I'm told.

Talking, but not seeing. I can see myself on one of the small monitors next to the camera lens, but I don't see Levant. During our entire interview, I can't see the man I'm talking to. If you see my eyes wander a bit, that's partly why. I'm talking to a voice in my ear.

I make some crack remark about him saying I have a funny name. He responds that he actually likes it, and likes my blog because I'm not "beholden to" any group. By the time the show goes to air, he re-edits the piece to say "an unusual name" instead of "funny", which I kind of find funny.

Our conversation goes on identically to what ended up on air. Levant suggests my name would somehow cause me to break human rights laws in Canada, something I dismiss politely. I then explain through the interview that this wasn't St-Pierre's idea, that this was the journalists - not the government - that first proposed it, and that this isn't a bill or a law yet but a public consultation. I even get Levant to admit that his five-alarm fire "is maybe not a five-alarm fire after all", though I doubt that means they're going to treat the issue any differently.

I was actually a bit surprised by how many important points I was able to get across. I've done enough six-minute interviews for radio that I know how fast they can go. The only thing I didn't get a chance to do was challenge Levant's bizarre characterization of the FPJQ as a "secret society" with a "secret handshake", which isn't even remotely close to being true.

I should probably point out here, for the sake of those who don't want to read my earlier posts, that I actually agree with Levant on the fundamental issue here. I think creating a professional journalist status is a bad thing, and could have lots of negative repercussions for freedom of information, creating two classes of journalists and using government power to establish an elite media that has even more reason to look down upon the rest of us. It's hardly a conservative-only viewpoint. Even Le Devoir's editor was critical of this idea. But just because I agree with his conclusion doesn't mean I agree with the reasoning or the conspiracy theories.

Anyway, eventually Levant cuts me off in the middle of an "uhh" and it's over. He throws to commercial again, and after a few seconds the line goes dead. No goodbye or thank-you, just a click and nothing. I'm just a guy sitting alone in a room again. Being about 10 minutes beyond my 3pm deadline, I unclip the microphone and earpiece, grab my bag and slip out the door. I arrive at work just on time for my 3:30 shift.

A rather unfortunate preview image for the interview video on Sun News's website

Why?

I haven't published a full review of the Sun News Network. If I ever get enough free time, I'll finally put it together. But I've seen a lot of the network, and I know it well enough to question its commitment to journalistic integrity. As much as I think some of the opinions its personalities have are worth debating and worth adding to the public discourse, it's the way they express those opinions, ridiculing those who disagree with cherry-picked facts or even conjecture made up from pure paranoid fantasy that really gets me, just as it does when I see it on MSNBC or in clips from Fox News.

But, since government censorship is unlikely to stop it (nor should it), there are two ways to deal with this: boycott them, hoping that their business model will eventually fail and they'll have to shut down for economic reasons, or work with them, treat them like adults, and try to engage them in constructive dialogue like adults.

Maybe it was because of an irrational desire to want to build bridges with enemies in the wake of Jack Layton's death, or maybe it was a naive hope that the truth could act as a cleansing force, but I decided to try the latter option. And I think Levant's viewers were probably better informed about an important issue after my appearance than they were before.

Call me naive if you will, but I think once Sun Media gets over its persecution complex, we can start having honest, serious discussions about the issues being brought up by conservatives.

My first Sun News appearance (unpaid, I should add - it's not like I did this for the money) was fun, overall. Whether I'd do it again, I don't know. It will probably depend on the issue, and on whether Sun News producers are as interested in reasoned sober analysis as they are in hyperbolic buffoonery masquerading as righteous political opinion.

The Ruth Ellen Brosseau love song

Fagstein — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 19:23:06 +0000

Well, you knew it had to happen eventually. Big Orange Crush (on Ruth Ellen Brosseau) is the creation of Snowman in Heat, a Vancouver-based band (about as far from Berthier-Maskinongé as you can get). You can listen to their other songs here.

The useless bike rack

Fagstein — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 04:07:55 +0000

Note to strip mall managers: I have this strange aversion to tying my bicycle to a rack that can be moved with one hand.

Maybe I'm just being paranoid.

Aaron Rand moves on

Fagstein — Fri, 27 May 2011 08:33:25 +0000

As it turns out, knowing about it for months didn't soften the blow too much.

Aaron Rand, who announced in February he would be leaving CFQR/Q92/The Q after more than 20 years as a morning host, spent his last day at the microphone on Thursday.

And when he finally said goodbye, there weren't too many dry eyes in the room.

I managed to score an all-access pass to this moment in Montreal radio history. I got up before the crack of dawn and spent the entire show as a silent observer in the studio, camera and video camera in hand. I got more than 200 photos and more than an hour of video. It's going to take me a few days to sort through all of it, but the money shot, as it were, is here.

The show included Paul (Tasso) Zakaib and Suzanne Desautels as special guests, along with a parade of fans and former coworkers including Patrick Charles and Rob Braide. Rand also got phone calls from such figures as Jean Charest and Gérald Tremblay (the real ones, not Tasso imitations) and Andrew Carter at CJAD.

Listeners got to hear most of the fun talk. But what they couldn't see was at the very end, as Rand was giving his goodbye speech, when Tasso and Suzanne (who never got the chance to really say goodbye after they were booted in 2009) buried their faces in tissues.

There was also Natasha Hall's final traffic report, which Andy Nulman at least thought was inspiring.

I found it a bit odd that I was the only journalist present for this. Rand's departure has gotten coverage, both when he announced he was leaving and this week. The latter includes:

But the only visual records of this event, besides my own, are those taken by Q staff and by unofficial photographer and bus driver by day Daniel Rochon.

I've already written about Rand, why there are few people like him nowadays on the radio, and his views on how clueless managers are ruining this art form. I don't like repeating myself, so you can just read those posts.

Suffice it to say it was a classy sendoff. The station let him say his goodbyes properly, even choosing his own music for his last show. They let him invite his old friends. (CJAD also showed class, letting Desautels and Charles spend part of the morning at a rival station). And they put a full-page ad in The Gazette, signed by his coworkers (secretly - he didn't see it until after the show):

Aaron Rand ad in The Gazette (Page A5, May 26)

Maybe it doesn't make up for having forced this talent to leave in the first place, but it was still nice to see.

Fans of the show are reacting on the Q's Facebook page and Rand's. If the number of comments are any indication, Rand will be missed.

Sarah Bartok takes over the big chair while the Q waits for Cat Spencer to become available in the fall.

UPDATE: From Rand's Facebook page:

Thanks for all the kind comments everyone.. The last hour of yesterday's final show was tougher than I thought it would be, but it was made easier, and it felt right to have Tasso and Suzanne both there. So today ... I slept in till 8:30 !!!! Spending time with my daughter and friends this weekend, and then ... joining Oprah on her yacht for a couple of weeks of R&R. (Please don't say anything to her though. She doesn't know yet.)

UPDATE (June 1): Another clip from my videos from that day, this one of Suzanne Desautels and Murray Sherriffs:

Ted Bird also writes for his Gazette blog about Rand and how radio stations ditching their best talent doesn't make business sense to him.

And in case you were wondering, Rand's attempt to set a ridiculous world record was ... eventually ... successful.

Does someone understand street-light morse code?

Fagstein — Sat, 07 May 2011 19:25:38 +0000

I'm pretty sure the aliens are trying to send us a message.

Radio: The problem child of the Canadian people

Fagstein — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 17:45:08 +0000

This National Film Board documentary about the state of Canadian radio (particularly CBC/Radio-Canada) in 1949 has some funny lines. My favourite is this one:

"Radio reads its fan mail and makes its listeners' surveys because radio has learned to trust the judgment of the listener. And in Canada, the listener gets what he asks for."

There's also some talk near the end about setting up a national television network and developing this new "frequency modulation" radio. And a clip of Oscar Peterson tickling the ivories.

Ups and downs at CFCF-12

Fagstein — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 09:13:15 +0000

I watched the special 50th anniversary broadcast of CFCF-12 last night. It was nice to watch for a local TV buff like me.

The anniversary special was preceded by a very short newscast. And since I made fun of a Global error the night before, I can't ignore the fancy camerawork on display during a broadcast that I'm sure many other people also had on their digital video recorders.

Wonky, indeed.

CFCF's own 50th anniversary blooper reel is here.

It happened on the interwebs

Fagstein — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 08:02:16 +0000

You might have missed it because you were on vacation or something, but the ad agency écorce put together a form of online advent calendar in December with ... let's call them interpretations of things that happened online in 2010.

It was kind of hit and miss, but there were a few gems among the videos that were done for this:

Une fille inoubliable, by Les Appendices. My favourite sketch comedy fivesome, the stars of the Télé-Québec show covered an awfully written and awfully-sung song from a video that was posted to YouTube but later taken down (fortunately, the Internet keeps copies of these things). Even though they use the same lyrics and roughly the same music, the Appendices version is actually pretty good. At the very least, it had a much higher budget.

Contrat d'lezz, by le Girly Show. You've seen Contrat d'gars, right? The show that goes so over the top with the testosterone you can't help but laugh. It's hard to parody something that already doesn't take itself seriously, so Le Girly Show just turns it on its head and has women playing the lead roles. It's not much funnier than the original, but it has the same magic.

L'Année 2010 selon Carole. Carole aide son prochain is a straight-faced comic web series that ... I'll be honest, it's kind of hit and miss, though I like the concept. In this video, she takes on that lots-of-celebrities-political-message asking for a moratorium on shale gas exploration with some simple but effective satiric criticisms.

The rest of the videos from this project are listed on this page, and lots of other non-video-related recaps are also worth exploring.

(Did I miss something awesome? Think one of these videos is stupid and uninteresting? Tell me off in the comments)

Strong winds out west

Fagstein — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 02:22:00 +0000

I think what worries me most about the weather, as I saw it on tonight's Téléjournal, isn't that major cities on the west side of the country are farther east than they should be, but that the wind there is so strong it is repeatedly pushing Calgary into Edmonton.

The ho-hum Bye-Bye

Fagstein — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 08:56:12 +0000

This parody of Céline Dion and Julie Snyder: Funniest segment of the night, or mean-spirited attack on Quebecor? In this case, funny is in the eye of your employer

It's tradition in Quebec media to review each year's end-of-year special from Radio-Canada, the Bye-Bye. It went a bit crazy two years ago when Véronique Cloutier and Louis Morissette decided to take their first crack at it. So much so that there wasn't one to end 2009.

So you can imagine how much everyone was anxious to see what would happen when Cloutier and Morissette decided they would throw themselves into the gauntlet again and host the Bye-Bye 2010.

I watched it, along with my family, on New Year's Eve, and followed the reaction live on Twitter. My first thoughts were that it was pretty impressive, that they weren't overcompensating by pulling their punches compared to 2008, and that it wasn't likely to offend anyone ... or at least, no one not working for Quebecor.

The consensus was that the production values were good (particularly makeup and prosthetics, which in some cases made the actors barely recognizable as themselves and instantly recognizable as their targets), the parodies were well done, and the music videos were great, but the jokes fell flat, which is kind of the most important part.

The first professional reviews came quickly afterward (Richard Therrien's was up in less than an hour). But many others waited because they were to go in newspapers, and many of them published neither on New Year's Day nor on Sundays. It would be more than 48 hours before some people would read anything about it.

Here are some of the reviews that came out:

Therrien's blog post and later print review in Le Soleil gave the Bye-Bye high marks, calling it "excellent" and saying it achieved its goal of making up for the 2008 show.
7 jours had a review by Patrick Delisle-Crevier that was picked up by Agence QMI. It was more of a recap than a review, but the headline said "mission accomplie", which seems pretty clear.
Rue Frontenac's Pascale Lévesque gave it "two thumbs up", particularly for some of the jokes at Quebecor's expense and a wink in the direction of locked-out journalists.
Le Droit's Valérie Lessard thought it was well done, though she found the segments on Enfants de la télé and Joël Legendre sounded a bit too much like they were plugging these projects rather than just making fun of them.
The Gazette's Brendan Kelly bemoaned the lack of controversy, and agreed with others that it was better than 2008 but not an all-time great.
Steve Proulx wrote on his Yahoo! column that the entire concept should be thrown out the window, and that Infoman's special was much better than "du sous-Marc Labrèche"
Le Devoir's Stéphane Baillargeon found the show too simplistic, echoing the sentiment that Infoman was the better special and that celebrity impersonations should be left to Marc Labrèche
La Presse's Hugo Dumas noted that the "guerre des médias" wasn't put on hold for this special
La Clique du Plateau had a simple list of the good points and bad

Oh Lord...

Of course, none of these really mattered. What mattered was the review of Michelle Coudé-Lord, the arts editor at the Journal de Montréal.

From the Journal de Montréal for Jan. 3

The headline on Monday morning was "Un Bye-Bye prudent", which was a positive sign. It began with some compliments toward the show and its hosts. But then, as if on cue, Coudé-Lord took issue with them making fun of TVA for reasons that I'm sure are entirely unrelated to the fact that Quebecor owns TVA and the Journal de Montréal:

Encore une fois, la formule du couple vedette de Radio-Canada est restée la même, on tape sur les émissions de TVA plus méchamment que sur celles de Radio-Canada et on devient extrêmement mesquin envers Julie Snyder et Céline Dion.

Le sketch Des nouvelles de Céline fut le plus dur de la soirée.

Véronique Cloutier en Julie Snyder et Louis Morissette en René Angelil... s'en sont donnés à coeur joie.

«On va vous offrir la visite de l'utérus de Céline; Denis Lévesque va recevoir le placenta de Céline ou j'ai signé un contrat de trois ans d'amitié entre toi et Julie Snyder...» C'est mesquin, totalement gratuit et surtout pas drôle. Un numéro qui, espérons-le, a fait du bien au couple Cloutier-Morissette.

The next day in the Journal de Québec, Jean-Jacques Samson went one step further, taking issue not only with the Céline Dion/Julie Snyder parody but with Jean-François Mercier making comments about shale gas exploration. To many people, these were among the funniest parts of the night, but to him it was unacceptable vulgarity, apparently all part of a Radio-Canada conspiracy to use our tax money to attack the right wing of Quebec society.

I have to admit, my reaction watching the show for the first time was that it did take a lot more shots at TVA shows than those of Radio-Canada (the fact that it spent so much time parodying TV shows is something a few critics have pointed to as a weak spot). Wanting some qualitative data to back that up, I rewatched it and scored each sketch. Making fun of Quebecor TV shows got a +1, Radio-Canada shows (or the hosts themselves) got a -1, and I adjusted those based on how deep the digs were.

The segments, in chronological order:

A parody of Rencontres paranormales on TVA - targets the show and host Chantal Lacroix (+1)
A bunch of jokes comparing politicians to annoying family members at a holiday party (0)
On a échangé nos maires (parody of On a échangé nos mères on Canal Vie, which is just Wife Swap dubbed in French) - targeting the mayors of Montreal and Quebec City (0)
A parody of Marie-Mai's C'est Moi, targeting the Marche Bleue, the campaign to use taxpayer money to build a hockey arena in Quebec City, and a brief dig at Pierre-Karl Péladeau wanting to own it all (+1/2)
A parody of Julie Snyder's interview with Céline Dion on TVA, targeting the Dion family, Snyder and the relationship between them. Because Dion these days seems to be as much a product of Quebecor as Snyder (or at least that's how it's portrayed), and it's filled with digs at TVA, I'll mark this (+2)
A parody of Le dîner de cons, targetting Stephen Harper (0)
Dubois en promotion, a parody of Dubois en réalité on V targeting the show and Dubois's career (0)
A parody of the Bastarache commission targeting the commission, lawyer Suzanne Côté, and Jean Charest (0)
A parody of Lady Gaga's Bad Romance, targeting Liberal party fundraiser Franco Fava and Charest (0)
A parody of a Jean Coutu commercial, targeting BP (0)
A sketch involving André Caillé exploring for shale gas in the back yard of the "king de V", Jean-François Mercier (0)
A parody of Les Trois Accords's Elle s'appelait Serge, making fun of Joël Legendre for being a "girouette" with regard to Quebecor to sell his recipe book. (-1/2)
Lance et crampe, a parody of Lance et compte on TVA, targeting the show and ... being old (+1)
A parody of a musical commercial for Déménagement La Capitale targeting Jean Charest (0)
A parody of a Toyota commercial targeting its braking problems (0)
Les Arrièrés, a parody of Les rescapés on Radio-Canada, targeting Cardinal Marc Ouellet and the Catholic church (0)
A sketch about Chilean miners as a parody of a Swiffer commercial (0)
A second sketch about the Chilean miners targeting Occupation Double (TVA) contestant JoÈve (+1)
On prend toujours un arrière-train, a parody of On prend toujours un train on Radio-Canada, targeting Anne-Marie Losique and her new adult pay TV channel, including a dig at V's Zéro à $1000 (0)
A parody of Taxi 0-22 featuring poker champ Jonathan Duhamel, targeting Rogatien's political views but not really making fun of the show itself (0)
Another parody of Taxi 0-22 featuring figure skater Joannie Rochette (0)
Just after midnight, a joke about Quebec's sales tax going up to 8.5% (0)
A parody of a Nissan commercial, targeting the G20 summit and its fake lake (0)
Les restants de la télé, a parody of Les enfants de la télé on Radio-Canada, targeting Cloutier, Morisette, Antoine Bertrand, Kevin Parent, Pauline Marois and Clotaire Rapaille (-1 1/2)
Marc Hervieux singing Shakira's Waka Waka (0)
A sketch making fun of Xavier Dolan (0)
On bouche une case horaire la semaine, a parody Ça finit bien la semaine on TVA, targeting the show, Mélanie Maynard, Guy Nantel, Patrick Huard and Anik Jean (+1 1/2)
A parody of a Subway commercial targeting Scott Gomez's salary (0)
A music video featuring Canadiens coach Jacques Martin being auto-tuned (0)
Le vrai bafouillateur, a parody of Le vrai négociateur on LCN, targeting the show and host Claude Poirier (+1)
A sketch about the marriage of Grégory Charles, targeting the entertainer (0)

The net total: +7. Seven segments made direct jokes at the expense of Quebecor shows or personalities (as opposed to simply using parodies of shows as a conduit to make jokes at other people's expense), and the only ones at Radio-Canada's expense were one making fun of Joël Legendre (and that's not even really a Radio-Canada thing) and the stuff about Les Enfants de la télé, the show produced by Cloutier and Morissette that would have been really weird if they didn't parody.

Coudé-Lord suggests EDLT was included just so that they could go after TVA shows. I doubt they thought about it so clinically, and they made jokes at the expense of V as well, but I find it difficult to believe they couldn't take some good shots at a single other Radio-Canada program. Tout le monde en parle? C'est juste de la TV? Le club des ex? Or is it that Radio-Canada hasn't put anything new that's really good or interesting on TV other than that archive clip show?

I'll leave the judgment up to you, not that it really matters. Who keeps a scorecard watching a comedy show?

The ratings

As a quantitative measure of its power, we can look at Bye-Bye's ratings, though those might come with an asterisk because they only include live viewers and not those who watched from PVRs or online.

According to Therrien, the Bye-Bye had 2.315 million viewers on New Year's Eve, and another 1.33 million when it was repeated the next day. Though the numbers were less than they were in 2008, Dumas points out that 82% of Quebec francophone TV viewers that night were tuned to Radio-Canada.

Until TVA puts serious effort into some late New Year's Eve show (it didn't even try competing this year), Bye-Bye will have a nearly unanimous audience. This year won't change that.

Credit where it's due

The jokes might not have been the best in the world, but everyone loved the production values. Sadly, the list of people involved with the show on its website is incomplete. The show that aired included names of people who did prosthetics (Stéphane Tessier), costumes (Diane Lavoie, Sylvie Beaudoin, Marie-Lynn Beaulieu, Véronique Leblond), original music (Nicholas Savard-L'Herbier), makeup (Bruno Rhéaume and Olivier Xavier, with chief makeup artist Charlotte Vézina), hair (Manon Côté and Stéphanie Tremblay, with chief Louis Bond, stylist Catherine Demers and perruquière Géraldine Courchesne). It also properly credits Pierre-Luc Gosselin, who directed the music videos.

Eagle-eyed viewers also caught the name of Pierre-Luc Cloutier, credited as "recherchiste" - who got to know Véronique Cloutier as a member of Dans ma télé, a group that recently disbanded after Cloutier decided he didn't have enough free time to devote to such a volunteer measure.

Find this parody of Marie-Mai's C'est moi - 5 minutes of scanning on Tou.tv or 5 seconds of searching on YouTube

Learn from YouTube

You'd think that a show based almost entirely of individual clips would be put online in such a way that those clips would be individually accessible. Unfortunately, both the version on their website and the one on Tou.tv only offer it as one hour-and-a-half block with no table of contents.

The result is that if I'm looking, say, for that Véronique-Cloutier-as-Lady-Gaga parody everyone was talking about, I have to go to a bootleg version on YouTube. It has 19,000 views, which is 19,000 eyeballs that Radio-Canada or its Tou.tv website could have tried to sell advertising for.

Tou.tv is nice, but it's not enough to throw an hour and a half of video online and break it up at the commercials. Online video is about searching and sharing. It's about embedding into Facebook posts so people can share and comment.

Of all the things about this Bye-Bye, that ignorance of how online video works socially is what disappointed me the most.

If you haven't seen it yet, the entire Bye-Bye 2010 is on Tou.tv.

UPDATE (Jan. 19): Le Soleil's Richard Therrien says people's memories are fuzzy when they say that this year's Bye-Bye was particularly mean toward politicians.

CFCF looks at itself

Fagstein — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 18:45:03 +0000

I didn't catch this on Christmas Day (because, sadly, I was working), but CFCF aired a half-hour year-in-review special in place of its regular newscast. It featured some discussions with CTV staff, and little packaged bits from reporters about their favourite stories of the year.

Artist's conception of the new studio planned for CFCF's newscast

You can watch the whole thing on its website, but the highlight for local TV buffs is the final segment, which takes a look at their plans for a new studio (hinting that the newscast will be in HD in 2012), and finishes off with bloopers (the funniest ones involving Paul Karwatsky).

Season’s Greetings from CFCF-12

Fagstein — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 05:00:01 +0000

For CFCF's Barry Wilson, who hates it when people wish him a Happy Holidays:

Season's Greetings, Barry.

And a Merry Christmas to everyone.

(And thanks to hifichet, ladyjaye27, TVRetroQC, mtltv and others who are finding jems like these and putting them on YouTube so they can be enjoyed nostalgically by everyone.)

Meet the CHOM Patrol Unit

Fagstein — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 17:29:11 +0000

Making a joke about this would lessen its comedic value.

CBC Montrealers sing Christmas songs for a good cause

Fagstein — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 08:30:26 +0000

Those folks at CBC Montreal have taken to embarrassing themselves in front of the Internet to promote a holiday fundraiser for Dans la rue.

The Carolling Challenge will see personalities and listeners sing along in an effort to drum up donations. There's even a practice today at 1pm (in case you're not going to either the protest against the Journal de Montréal or the protest in memory of Mohamed Anas Bennis, which are both taking place at the same time), before they hit five locations between Monday and Wednesday. Send a picture of yourself at one and you could even win a bag!

After that, next Sunday, there's the annual Christmas Sing-In, a recording that will air on Christmas Day on the radio.

But if you just like seeing videos of CBC radio personalities singing Christmas songs (and if that's the case, there's something wrong with you), here's a bonus video of Sue Smith singing Santa Claus is Coming to Town:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK0UDIm71Eg

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