You know how they say it's so bad it's good? This is worse than that. No wait, it's even worse than that. It's so bad, it's not even the bad that's worse than bad, it's so bad people watch it and live-tweet about it to talk about how bad it is.
December 12, 2009 – 4:39 am|Posted in Montreal, TV
The Telethon of Stars (left to right): Tania Krywiak, Lori Graham, Jed Kahane, Michel Lanteigne (foundation chair), Claudia Marques, Paul Karwatsky, Randy Tieman (photo: Telethon of Stars)
Aww, don't they look adorable?
The Telethon of Stars, which aired last weekend on CFCF but didn't air on V (formerly TQS), raised just under $4 million for research into children's diseases. That's a noticeable drop from last year's $4.2 million, and well off the record of over $5 million, but considering how hurt the campaign could have been from the loss of a French audience (the CTV telethon was "bilingual", though as you can see it was still a CTV event), it's not bad.
November 13, 2009 – 1:51 am|Posted in Montreal, TV
It's one of the few special programs produced locally, and a key part of that whole "local TV matters" thing: every year in December, CFCF runs a 24-hour telethon to raise money for the Foundation for Research into Children's Diseases called the Telethon of Stars. It's been an annual tradition since 1977.
While originally in both languages on CFCF, the telethon was eventually split up with the French version airing on what was at the time CFCF's sister station TQS. The two telethons would pool their money together, last year raising $4.5 million.
But with its rebirth as V, CFJP has apparently decided the telethon isn't worth the expense anymore, according to Richard Therrien. Instead, some francophone flavour, including Chantal Lacroix, will be included in CFCF's broadcast on Dec. 5.
The late-night infomercial, which I described as unregulated gambling when it debuted this summer, was a headache for the cash-starved network. The charges to people's phone bills caused many complaints, and even led to a decision against it by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council on the same day they renamed the network to V. TQS-V's response was to disown the show, which is produced out of Austria along with similar shows for other countries, mostly in Europe.
Those of you who hunger for such television can, Richard Therrien points out, still watch Play TV Canada, which airs late at night on CIII Global Toronto and CHEK Victoria. For twice the price.
When TQS went into bankruptcy and was sold to Remstar, the struggling network laid off dozens of employees, including its entire news division. Remstar offered 20% of their contractually-obligated severance pay, arguing that the station was in bankruptcy and the layoffs happened before Remstar took control. It treated former employees as creditors instead of employees.
TQS haters were eagerly anticipating the premiere of Mario Dumont's new daytime talk show Dumont 360, one of the star attractions to V's fall lineup.
Though the rebranded station launched on Aug. 31, Dumont's show made its premiere a week later (ironically, on Labour Day, when most people with weekday jobs would take the day off) with Dumont introducing himself.
The critics' analysis: It could have been a lot worse (updated Sept. 9 with more links).
Hugo Dumas pointed out that reporters' V-branded microphones gave the impression that V is doing journalism again, when the news reports are still being outsourced to ADN5.
This week has a lot of changes for television both local and nationally. Two main reasons for this: it's September and the fall season is starting, plus CRTC broadcast licenses for conventional television stations end on Aug. 31.
MuchMusic's digital specialty channels MuchVibe, MuchLOUD, MuchMoreRetro, PunchMuch go commercial-free. MuchMusic and MuchMoreMusic - which still have enough viewers to sell commercials - continue to air ads, as will programs that are simulcasted on the digital specialty channels and Much or MMM.
CTV-owned "A" channel in Wingham, Ont., shuts down local programming and CKNX-TV becomes a retransmitter of CFPL-TV, the A station in London. The station is part of three that CTV had looked at selling or shutting down. Another, CKX-TV in Brandon, Man., has been sold to Bluepoint Investmestment Corp., and the third, CHWI-TV in Windsor, Ont., was saved from shutdown after the CRTC approved the Local Programming Improvement Fund. All three had received offers from Shaw to buy them, but then Shaw changed its mind.
The BBM ratings system switches to the "Personal People Meter", a device that had been tested in the Montreal market, to allow nationwide monitoring of what people watch and listen to on TV and radio. The PPM is a pager-like device worn by sample audiences, and replaces the less accurate diaries that relied on self-reporting.
6am: TQS officially becomes V as the broadcast day begins with Le show du matin
8am (6am in Red Deer): CHCA, an E! network station in Red Deer, Alta., goes off the air. (UPDATE: Its last newscast, from last Friday, has been uploaded to YouTube in eight parts)
8:30am (5:30am in Kelowna): CHBC, a former E! network station in Kelowna, B.C., is rebranded "Global Okanagan" as the E! network shuts down.
Tomorrow, Sept. 1
12am: The CRTC begins billing cable and satellite companies 1.5% of their revenues for a Local Programming Improvement Fund, to help small-market television stations. Bell and Shaw, Canada's satellite providers, have responded by adding a 1.5% fee to consumers' bills beginning today. Videotron, Quebec's main cable provider, hasn't decided to follow suit yet.
At the same time, the CRTC lifts the cap on the amount of advertising conventional television stations can air. It had previously been at 15 minutes per hour. The CRTC believes that the market will self-regulate the amount of advertising (after all, a station with too many ads is going to lose viewers).
1am (10pm in Victoria): CHEK-TV in Victoria goes off the air. See below.
6am: As conventional broadcast stations across the country (at least the ones that are part of large networks like Global, CTV, CityTV and TVA) get new one-year licenses, new local programming requirements come into effect. They require 7 hours of original programming for small markets and 14 hours for large markets (the latter includes Montreal on both the anglo and franco side). TVA's local programming numbers are defined on a case-by-case basis: 18 hours a week for Quebec City and 5 hours a week for Rimouski, Chicoutimi and Sherbrooke. TQS, because it got special consideration from the CRTC after going bankrupt, isn't affected by these changes.
6pm: Global Quebec CKMI becomes Global Montreal with a rebranded evening newscast after a CRTC decision this summer allowed them to relicense and accept local advertising. Global Ontario is similarly changing to Global Toronto.
Wednesday, Sept. 2
1am (10pm in Victoria): CHEK-TV in Victoria goes off the air. See below.
August 26, 2009 – 2:54 am|Posted in Radio, TV, Video
Not having been invited the time to attend all the fall launch parties being put on by the radio and TV people over the last little while, I'm pleased to see that most of them are briefly summarized in video form.
But there were also launches for CKOI, Rock Détente, Rythme FM, Musique Plus, Radio-Canada, Télé-Québec, TVA, VRAK.tv and Télétoon, and fortunately the people at WebPresse believe these parties are news.
So here are the launch parties in YouTube format from various sources:
@in92days Really depends on the article 9 mins ago
@S_Tsirgiotis apparently 56 mins ago
RT @BasemBoshra: Thanks for retweeting every bit of praise you get. I was on the fence about you, but now that I see other people like y ... 59 mins ago
#SunNews, once so proud about not wearing sleeves, appear to be overcompensating http://t.co/MytNg8zp59 mins ago
@eliasmakos STM access to information requests can be done only two ways: fax and snail mail. 1 hour ago
STM has launched its Android app for bus schedules. Looks nice, but requires Internet access. 1 hour ago
McGill occupiers are having fruit thrown at them from the ground. By their supporters. So they can eat it. 2 hours ago
RT @CBCRadioCanada: For the latest updates on CBC's new digital service coming to #Hamilton, visit our (just launched!) Hamilton blog ht ... 3 hours ago
Winnipeg, Quebec City and Hamilton can support NHL teams, but just barely: report http://t.co/GYHwi94i4 hours ago
Getting bylines in the paper leads to strange things, like congratulatory emails from your 7th-grade math teacher. 4 hours ago
