Fagstein » TQS

Fosse aux liones

Fagstein — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 06:37:49 +0000

Il n'y aurait plus de fautes de français dans les tableaux et dans les réponses.

Douglas Honegger, of Call-TV, to La Presse's Hugo Dumas last month, in response to concerns that this awful, ethically questionable pay-to-play lottery show that aired during late nights on TQS might return to making awful gaffes when it returned to the network now called V.

And this week, they forget how to spell "Lionne".

(via Capitaine D)

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.

V pour vendre

Fagstein — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 23:42:33 +0000

It's been suggested to me that V's website is a bit heavy on the advertising.

I don't see it, do you?

The telethon goes on

Fagstein — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 09:39:04 +0000

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.

Donations are still being accepted until Dec. 31. Be sure to kick in a few extra bucks as you raise your middle finger toward the Rémillard brothers.

There’s no “V” in “Foundation for Research into Children’s Diseases”

Fagstein — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 06:51:43 +0000

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.

As a commenter on Therrien's blog alludes to, it seems an odd decision since the network had no problem a few months ago trying to get viewers to call them and give them money just to get them to stop their endless encouragement.

UPDATE: Some context: The network (which you'll recall doesn't have the burden of a news department) is seeking to cut more staff.

The end of Call-TV

Fagstein — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:11:43 +0000

It's official: the TQS disaster known as Call-TV won't be returning to the airwaves.

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.

Ex-TQS employees get full severance: ruling

Fagstein — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 22:55:46 +0000

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.

Now, the Canada Industrial Relations Board has ruled that Remstar must pay 340 former TQS employees 100% of what they are owed, which Hugo Dumas has put at between $3,000 and $50,000 per employee, for a total of $8 million.

Coverage from Presse Canadienne, Radio-Canada, Richard Therrien and Rue Frontenac.

Remstar says it is analyzing the decision.

A grievance challenging V's use of subcontractors for news gathering is still under way.

Dumont 360: It could be worse

Fagstein — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 06:06:53 +0000

Dumont 360 set

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).

Richard Therrien expected disaster, but it wasn't.
Josée Legault had lukewarm criticisms.
Michelle Coudé-Lord thought it was too long.
Mario Asselin was disappointed.
Projet J is neutral.
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.
Christiane Charette had a panel debate Mario's performance (skip to 2:55 of the clip for the judgments).

Dumont 360 is basically a 60-minute talk show with Dumont as the moderator of a panel discussion. He's joined by Ève Couture, who chips in with news, man-on-the-street interviews and other stuff with the help of the giant touch-screen wall:

Eve Couture and the giant touch-screen wall

A five-minute segment of headlines is the closest the new TQS comes to having a newscast.

Rather than spend the hour on a bunch of different topics, Dumont picks one topic and sticks with it throughout the show. On Monday, it was the Olympic Stadium. On Tuesday, school dropouts. Serious, debatable issues, at least.

There's also a short segment in which Dumont gives his opinion (which I guess means the rest of the show is not-opinion). The segment is only a minute long, but he manages to get a good point in there.

Dumont and his producers weren't perfect in the debut, but that's understandable. The errors will lessen as they get more comfortable.

What struck me most about this show is how good an orator Dumont is. Perhaps it shouldn't have - this guy had been single-handedly running a political party for almost two decades - but he seems to speak to the camera better than Claude Poirier or Richard Martineau on LCN.

Nevertheless, I have a few humble suggestions for improving the show:

Bumpers longer than five seconds bore the audience

Decrease the length of those bumbers. They slow down the show. If you need them to keep viewers occupied while you walk from the desk to the giant wall, consider rethinking that and either staying put or cutting to something else in the meantime.
Giant touch screens seem to be all the rage in TV today, probably because of CNN. But they have a tendency to fail on camera, they're patently unnecessary, and they don't even look cool. You have a director who cues the videos, let that person do their job. Keep the giant screen, but don't touch it.
Your table (actually three tables) looks very Toutlemondeenparle-ish with Dumont at the centre. It's huge, and when you have guests it looks like you're sitting across the room from each other. If you have to get up to hand your guest a piece of paper, you're sitting too far from each other. Find a comfortable distance so that you can interact without getting squished.
I know you're a populist, but I honestly don't care what some moron on the street thinks of the issue of the day. Let your audience comment, but keep the streeters to a minimum.
V should allow us to embed videos into blog posts and elsewhere, so we can better share the stuff we see.
Cool it with the hands. Gestures are good for public speaking or accusing the opposition of nastiness, but they just get in the way when you're hosting a TV show. Don't tie them behind your back, but don't use them unnecessarily.

Dumont loves to use his hands

You can get more comments from Twitter users (#d360 seems the official hashtag, but #Dumont360 is more popular, or just search "Dumont 360"), or hear them straight from the horse's mouth: Dumont was the guest on V's Le show du matin Tuesday morning and asked what he thought of his premiere (Part 1, Part 2)

I'd make a suggestion about the news segment, but I'm hoping the powers that be recognize the viewer-attracting power of a proper newscast and bring back a news department some time over the next year.

Any other suggestions for Mario? Add them below.

UPDATE (Sept. 11): Patrick Lagacé says we should wait a bit before passing judgment. I agree that we shouldn't evaluate the show completely based on a single episode or two. But I don't think it's ever too early to offer suggestions on how Dumont could improve his show. Besides, first impressions are very important.

Welcome to the new TV

Fagstein — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 21:20:03 +0000

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.

This week's Bluffer's Guide (courtesy of yours truly) looks at the changes happening on the local television dial. The Globe and Mail's Grant Robertson also has a piece this morning, looking particularly at the upheaval at small money-losing stations owned by Canwest and CTVglobemedia.

Here's a timeline of what's going on this week in television:

Today, Aug. 31

5:30am: Channel Zero begins airing new programming on CJNT Montreal and CHCH Hamilton, only a few days after the CRTC approved the sale of the stations from Canwest. Channel Zero, which owns some cable channels but no conventional television stations, is supplementing CJNT's existing programming with foreign-language music videos and films. CHCH, meanwhile, will become all-news during the day (its afternoon schedule will have movies until the infrastructure is ready) with movies in primetime. The license officially changes hands at 12am on Sept. 1.
Showcase rebrands
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
5pm: CBC Montreal launches its new 90-minute newscast along with other stations across the country. The newscast will be structured as three consecutive 30-minute newscasts, and is part of CBC's "integration" (read: convergence) strategy of having journalists do stories for TV and radio at the same time (so they don't have to hire any more journalists). The competition says they're not worried.
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.
Three stations formerly of the E! network but owned by the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group - CHAT-TV in Medicine Hat, Alta., CKPG-TV in Prince George, B.C., and CFJC-TV in Kamloops, B.C. - begin airing programming secured from Rogers. It includes the Price is Right, the Tyra Banks Show and Judge Judy in daytime, and Hell's Kitchen and Law & Order: SVU in primetime.
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.

Thursday, Sept. 3

9pm: Fox airs a repeat of Fringe with a live on-screen Twitter stream of commentary from the show's creators

Saturday, Sept. 5

1am (10pm in Victoria): Canwest's CHEK-TV goes off the air... NOT. Canwest has accepted an offer to sell CHEK to its employees.

Monday, Sept. 7

5pm: Dumont 360, a talk show hosted by former ADQ leader Mario Dumont, premieres on TQS V.

Tuesday, Sept. 8

5pm: CBC Montreal's News at Six ... err, Five ... gets new anchors in Andrew Chang and Jennifer Hall.

Wednesday, Sept. 9

9pm: Télé-Québec premieres Voir, a show by the people behind the newspaper of the same name.

Also of note this week are the 25th anniversaries of MuchMusic (video, CP story) and TSN.

Did I miss anything? Suggest additions below.

V pour vidange

Fagstein — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 07:20:04 +0000

30 seconds earlier, 20 feet away:

Launch parties-o-rama (UPDATED)

Fagstein — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 06:54:30 +0000

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.

The two big ones were rebranding efforts: NRJ radio, which is what Énergie has turned itself into, and V, which is the new TQS.

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:

NRJ

NRJ:

WebPresse:

V

WebPresse:

Dans ma télé:

WebPresse looks at Le show du matin:

Dans ma télé looks at Le show du matin:

WebPresse looks at Le Mur:

VRAK.tv

WebPresse:

Rue Frontenac:

JVM Productions:

Dans ma télé:

CKOI

WebPresse:

Rock Détente

WebPresse:

Rock Détente:

Rythme FM

WebPresse:

Rythme FM:

Radio-Canada

Dans ma télé:

RadCan also has an entire blog devoted to the subject, with photos and videos (none of which allow you to link to them directly, stupidly).

TV columnist Richard Therrien has two articles about the launch in text form.

Télé-Québec

Dans ma télé:

More from Richard Therrien and Hugo Dumas.

Télé-Québec also has an entire website devoted to the subject, with videos for each show.

TVA

WebPresse:

Dans ma télé:

WebPresse looks at Occupation Double's (female) candidates (take a wild guess on what criteria they were chosen):

RythmeFM at the same Occupation Double unveiling:

(Hugo Dumas also has a sarcastic take on OD.)

Plus photos and text from Suzanne Lortie of Showbizz.net, articles from Le Devoir, Rue Frontenac, Presse canadienne, LCN, Métro, Journal de Montréal and two articles from Le Soleil's Richard Therrien.

VOX

OK, nobody cares about VOX, it seems. There were only two journalists present for their launch, and they were from Gesca papers. Odd since VOX is owned by Videotron which is part of Quebecor.

Musique Plus

WebPresse:

Radio Énergie:

Télétoon

Bombe.tv has the video, which concentrates mostly on some lame "viral video" ad campaign which they imply was successful. But a look at the statistics for the video in question (an intentionally bad quality amateur-style video of a Télétoon van supposedly being stolen) shows a paltry 4,000 views (12 tweets), and its leading referrer is ... a blog post at bombe.tv, which is hardly "viral" since they were in on the whole thing.

Seriously, can we please stop with these things as publicity stunts?

Or, at least, when you do something that is as clearly unoriginal as planting a fake video and manufacturing fake virality for it, could you refrain from referring to it as "new" or "something no one else has done" or "2.0"?

And not that bombe.tv has a lot of journalistic integrity built up over the years or anything, but it's still a bit disconcerting to know that they would intentionally deceive their audience for the sake of an advertising campaign.

V?

Fagstein — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 02:55:11 +0000

That's what TQS is going to change its name to: V. Not Canal V, just V. This, after seven months of brainstorming, is the best they could come up with. The idea is that the network will have a lot of stuff starting with V, and so this links it all together.

Coverage:

I guess Canada has this thing about single-letter networks: E!, /A\, D and now V.

And yet, the same thing I said about "A" a year ago still applies: The name is ungoogleable, and therefore useless in a new media environment. Go ahead, put "V" into a Google News search and see what comes up. Compare that to TQS. If you think that's a minor issue for a television network, you clearly don't understand how the Internet works.

Even Remstar should have figured that out quickly. The website isn't v.com or v.ca, but vtele.ca. That should have clued them in that their idea was flawed.

Besides, V is also the name of a bunch of other television networks around the world: the multinational Channel [V], Portugal's Canal V on Cablovisao, plus all sorts of networks that call themselves VTV.

Maxime Rémillard and TQS's PR team expect all the media will be talking about this in the morning. And he's right, the story is everywhere. But in what is perhaps the worst timing ever, the news will be packaged (like in this Radio-Canada piece) with news that came out earlier Wednesday that TQS had violated the Canadian Association of Broadcasters' code of ethics with unfair contests on its Call-TV program.

That story is being reported at Presse Canadienne, Rue Frontenac, La Presse and Le Soleil, among others.

The decision of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, which decides on complaints against private broadcasters, is available online. In summary, it takes issue with the fairness of the contests, particularly with one that asked callers to guess names that turned out to be anything but guessable: Pancho, Hakan, Gabor, Darko, Lamar and Nanno. (I'm not sure if those were chosen to be intentionally deceptive, or because the show is shot in Austria and the crew have no idea what names are common in Quebec.) It also said the program was not being transparent enough about its rules, which is especially a problem when people are asked to pay to take part.

TQS, for its part, didn't put up a defence of the program. Instead, it absolved itself of responsibility, claiming Call TV was an infomercial, and wanted to pass the buck to creator Mass Response.

The CBSC rightfully called this suggestion ludicrous on its face, reminding TQS that broadcasters are responsible for everything they put on air.

But the CBSC also said it could only adjudicate stuff that was broadcasted, not the stuff that went on behind the scenes. It couldn't comment on how people were charged for their calls, or whether they might have been overcharged. That, it said, was the responsibility of the government or another government-run body.

That's one of two big problems with this decision: It doesn't solve the underlying problem. This isn't an issue of inappropriate content making it to air, or a broadcaster providing biased information during a newscast. This is an unlicensed overseas gambling operation masquerading as a quiz show to deceive people out of their money one dollar at a time. The investigation must be done by Quebec's gambling authority, not the CBSC.

The other big problem goes to the heart of the CBSC itself. It's one of those industry-self-regulation bodies, and so it's in its best interest not to impose serious fines. Therefore, it doesn't impose any fines or other serious punishment for such gross violations of its codes.

Instead, despite being found in violation of its own industry's code, the only thing TQS has been mandated to do is air a short notice twice during the next week.

And presumably make Call TV more fair. Otherwise they might get an even more strongly-worded letter.

TQS’s Le Mur

Fagstein — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 22:32:55 +0000

It's based off a Japanese game show. Rue Frontenac has details.

It could be worse: At least it's not Call-TV. (via Dans ma télé)

TQS is supposed to announce its new name on Wednesday. So far the Internet hasn't discovered what it is.

L’information qui VOUS préoccupe

Fagstein — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 16:25:38 +0000

Mario Dumont likes to point. And do things in slow-motion.

(via the Clique)

Taxi 0-22 $

Fagstein — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:26:16 +0000

The Quebec version of Cash Cab has started filming. Unlike its anglo Canadian counterpart, Taxi payant not trying to pass itself off as educational or science programming, instead headed for the generalist TQS network.

There's a comment to be made here about yet another international reality show franchise being licensed for local adaptation and that qualifying as original programming, but it's too sad to analyze, so I'll let the CRTC do it for me:

The Commission notes that TVA broadcasts a significant amount of Canadian programming and applauds that fact. However, the Commission notes that for several years TVA has been broadcasting programs based on foreign concepts and produced in-house or by independent Canadian producers. These include the popular programs Star Académie, Le Banquier, Le Cercle and La Classe de cinquième. The Commission notes that other conventional French-language broadcasters are also taking part in this trend, including the CBC (Tout le monde en parle, Pyramide) and TQS (Wipeout, Le mur, Call TV).

The Commission is concerned by this growing trend is to the detriment of the development of creative Canadian and Quebec talent. The Commission intends to discuss the issue at the 2011 public hearing.

Rue Frontenac has a story.

TQS’s Call-TV: Finally a show for compulsive gamblers

Fagstein — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:24:40 +0000

On Monday, TQS came out with its newest far-fetched idea: Call-TV, a daily 90-minute show in which people call in to win prizes. The reviews were unanimously unpleasant: Ridiculous. Tedious and repetitive. So bad it's good. Frustrating. Worse than the Monsieur Showbiz reruns it replaced.

Oh, and it forgets how many Os are in Toronto.

In the current pathetic state of the mouton noir, it's nice to see them go back to their roots as a low-budget network that's willing to try anything and look pathetic doing it. I might even think of applauding it if it had been an original TQS idea instead of an Austrian creation (the show is even filmed in Vienna).

But there's another thing that bugs me about it: you have to pay to take part. An entry fee of $1 per call or text to have a chance to win a prize (the show doesn't take the first caller, but waits for a bunch of people to call in and then picks one at random).

Marketing contests and prize draws operating in Quebec and elsewhere are usually very careful about giving a "no purchase necessary" option in order to stay legal. Usually this involves sending a postcard or self-addressed stamped envelope, which nobody does because that costs money too. But for Call-TV, there is no option that forgoes payment. And since there is an element of pure chance involved, this should technically qualify as a lottery, no?

In the UK, the Call TV format was investigated to see if it qualified as gambling. The report didn't make a conclusion, arguing that it was up to the courts to decide if this qualifies. (Even if it had reached that conclusion officially, the difference in laws means you couldn't make the same conclusion in Quebec.)

Whether or not it successfully exploits a loophole in Quebec's gambling law, or is even sanctioned by the government, it just rubs me the wrong way. It's like a slot machine you can play at home. Is that really what you want in television?

At least, at $1 a call, compulsive gamblers can't lose their life savings in 90 minutes.

UPDATE (June 9): La Presse's Hugo Dumas did some calling to various government regulatory bodies (CRTC, Loto-Québec, Régie des alcools, courses et jeux, CBSC, Department of National Defence) and got responses ranging from "our lawyers are looking into it" to "technically it's not our department".

UFC on TQS

Fagstein — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 07:57:28 +0000

This one is a bit old, but I haven't noticed much coverage of it in the anglo media: TQS has signed a deal with UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) to air 52 hours of UFC programming in Quebec, including four live matches, the first one on April 1. The programming will be produced by IDI, the production company of Marc Trudeau and Anne-Marie Losique, who I guess want a little violence to combine with their sex.

It's a pretty big step for the bankrupt television network whose budget was so small it couldn't put a simple entertainment news program on the air without it becoming a laughing stock.

Quebec Press Council roundup

Fagstein — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 08:29:03 +0000

A new round of decisions from the Quebec Press Council has been posted to its website. In addition to the Gazette case I mentioned earlier, and other dismissals, were some slaps on the wrist:

CFCF found to be non-cooperative with the council in a case brought by Marie-Claude Montpetit over the fact that CTV News Montreal reported on her being charged with a crime but did not follow up that she was acquitted.
Richard Desmarais of TQS got slapped for saying a lockout at Petro Canada was all about the union boss not wanting to work - a statement he made without any supporting evidence. Desmarais and TQS did not present a defence to the council.
Lamine Foura of CINQ FM was blamed for allowing a caller to make defamatory statements without intervening, as well as for a political conflict of interest.
Nicolas Asselin of the Nord-Côtier newspaper was found to be in a conflict of interest serving as an advertising salesperson and journalist for the same paper, after a complaint from a competitor. A related complaint concerning the content of his editorials was dismissed.
Serge Gagnon of L'Horizon was found to be in a conflict of interest after he refused to publish an article about a local artist who was critical of the city of Trois-Pistoles. Gagnon also works as a graphic artist for the city.
Robin Philpot, a controversial PQ and Saint-Jean-Baptiste activist, got a partial victory in a case against André Noël of La Presse for a column he wrote. The council ruled that the piece lacked balance and that it attacked his dignity unnecessarily, but it didn't go so far as to say it was wrong or that Noël or La Presse were biased against him.
Three hosts at CKRB radio in St. Georges saw a complaint against them upheld after they complained on air about a regular caller. Other complaints that they had hurt his reputation or uttered falsehoods were dismissed.

UPDATE (April 3): Le Devoir reports on these decisions a week later, saying the decisions were released "yesterday" which I guess means I'm psychic.

Politicien noir de la télé

Fagstein — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 19:59:55 +0000

TQS announced today (though La Presse had the scoop this morning) that Mario Dumont will be joining the network as a show host starting in September. You'll recall TQS already has a daily newsish show hosted by a politician in André Arthur (who's been a bit lacking in his Parliamentary attendance duties lately because of it).

Perhaps more interesting, Dumont is also being brought on as a consultant to the Rémillards, to advise them on the regenesis of their television network.

What do you think Dumont is going to recommend as far as TQS's regional stations go?

UPDATE: Pat Lagacé has some tips for someone trying out TV for the first time. Richard Therrien meanwhile points out that the ADQ opposed Remstar's gutting of TQS's news division, and now Dumont is profiting off of it.

Not gonna sugarcoat this: 2 laits un sucre taken off the pot

Fagstein — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 06:26:46 +0000

Hey, remember TQS? It used to be a TV network until it cancelled all its programming and replaced it with ubercheap crap.

Guess what they're doing now.

Yep, they're cancelling the ubercheap crap. Goodbye Monsieur Showbiz, Le Retour and 2 laits, un sucre. On the plus side, there's hints that news might be coming back (no doubt with cheaper, nonunionized and inexperienced multiplatform journalists).

UPDATE: Lise Lareau of the Canadian Media Guild has some thoughts on TQS and local TV in Canada.

TQS union suffers court setback

Fagstein — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:22:21 +0000

The Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal from the union representing (former) employees of TQS in Quebec City. The union had demanded that certain payments to emplpyees (severance pay and pay equity payments) be bumped to the head of the line before other creditors in the network's bankruptcy dealings. A lower court rejected that demand, ruling that these payments should be dealt with on the same level as other creditors.

Other regular payments to employees (salary, vacation and other benefits) still had priority over creditors.

The union says it's not giving up and will pursue other avenues to secure these payments for its members.

Fagstein » TQS

Fosse aux liones

Related Posts

V pour vendre

Related Posts

The telethon goes on

Related Posts

There’s no “V” in “Foundation for Research into Children’s Diseases”

Related Posts

The end of Call-TV

Related Posts

Ex-TQS employees get full severance: ruling

Related Posts

Dumont 360: It could be worse

Related Posts

Welcome to the new TV

Related Posts

V pour vidange

Related Posts

Launch parties-o-rama (UPDATED)

NRJ

V

VRAK.tv

CKOI

Rock Détente

Rythme FM

Radio-Canada

Télé-Québec

TVA

VOX

Musique Plus

Télétoon

Related Posts

V?

Related Posts

TQS’s Le Mur

Related Posts

L’information qui VOUS préoccupe

Related Posts

Taxi 0-22 $

Related Posts

TQS’s Call-TV: Finally a show for compulsive gamblers

Related Posts

UFC on TQS

Related Posts

Quebec Press Council roundup

Related Posts

Politicien noir de la télé

Related Posts

Not gonna sugarcoat this: 2 laits un sucre taken off the pot

Related Posts

TQS union suffers court setback

Related Posts