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.
(So I’m a bit behind…)
Rue Frontenac, the website of locked-out Journal de Montréal workers, launched its classified ad section today. Their taking classifieds by phone or email. No prices are listed online.
And finally, as a demonstration of the excellent reporting skills that the Journal is missing because of this lockout, I give you this Rue Frontenac report on the Snuggie.
The Gazette, Feb. 17, Page A1
My beloved paper today made a pretty big deal of their new Daily Commuter “one-stop guide” website. Really, it’s just a page with links to transit stories that have appeared in the paper (including Max Harrold’s Squeaky Wheels weekly column), Transport Quebec traffic cameras, and public transit agencies.
Of course, with the stories we’ve been seeing lately from the local news media (ahem), calling it the “Daily Complainer” might be more accurate.
What’s more interesting is that this isn’t the last topic page you’ll be seeing on news websites. Not only does this make it easier to find articles of a certain type, it makes it look like there’s an entirely new section even if it’s just a grouping of articles that have already been written (some even going back a few years).
The AMT has just announced that it is adding even more days to its coupon distribution for that 50% rebate off next month’s train passes for people who were inconvenienced by train problems over the past month and a half.
As I said previously, the AMT has no way of distinguishing those who were inconvenienced or delayed by train breakdowns from any other form of transit user. They are simply assuming that anyone who takes the train does so on a monthly pass and will continue to do so over the next two months.
So why not take advantage of that? Here’s how you can save $25 off your next STM transit pass, even if you’ve never taken the train and never plan to:
With those steps, you not only save $24.75 ($28.75 if you can get the coupon without taking the train) on your next monthly pass, but you can use the train all you want in Zone 1 (to Montpellier on the Deux Montagnes line and to Lachine on the Dorion line) during the month of March.
Better still, this scheme will also save you money with the 25% discounts in April and May.
If the AMT wants to throw money away, why not grab some?
Coupon distribution starts Wednesday during the morning rush hour. It continues Thursday and Friday, and Feb. 24 and 26 (where coupons will be given out during the day and evenings as well). People can also call 514 287-TRAM to find out where/when/how to get coupons.
*You can also grab a paper metro transfer and buy a “combined” train ticket for a smaller price.
I got a letter in the mail today from Videotron saying that they’re upping the basic digital cable price by $1 a month (plus taxes) as of March 15. I wouldn’t have minded it so much (hey, times are tough, right?) if my bill hadn’t already gone up by $1 a month (plus taxes) when Videotron decided to cancel one of my channels and then charged me a new, higher rate when I changed my lineup (because it was a “new” service).
So why are they charging more now? Well, all the investments they’re making in infrastructure (that won’t affect me), including all those jobs they’re creating in Quebec.
And those investments have made a difference, after all (emphasis mine):
Customer surveys indicate that our customers’ satisfaction level remains high; indeeed we are in the top league of suppliers of cable TV products in Québec.
Well, if Videotron is one of Quebec’s top cable TV providers, then it must be good, right? And if customer surveys reveal high satisfaction, I’d be stupid if I wasn’t satisfied too. I mean, it’s not like Videotron has an absolute monopoly over digital cable TV in this area and is abusing that to suck as much money out of customers as possible, knowing full well that their only other option is another customer service nightmare with Bell’s satellite TV.
Taking a look at parent company Quebecor’s latest quarterly financial report (PDF), I see that Videotron made $579 million in profit in the first nine months of 2008. Mind you, most of that money was taken up by amortization and capital costs, which left a paltry $150 million of actual profit from Videotron’s 1.7 million customers (which works out to about $100 profit per subscriber over nine months).
So I can really see how that extra $1 a month is vital to the future operation of Videotron’s services.
UPDATE: Rogers is also raising its cable/internet rates. Coincidence?
Sue Smith
CBC Montreal has announced that Sue Smith, currently the host of CBC Television’s Living Montreal program, will take over as the host of Radio Noon on CBC Radio One. Her first show as its permanent host will be one month from today, on March 16.
Radio Noon, which airs across Quebec from noon to 2pm weekdays, has been without a permanent host since Anne Lagacé-Dowson left to run as a candidate for the NDP in a federal by-election. They’ve been trying to fill it since August while relying on guest hosts, most recently Steve Rukavina.
Even Richard Bergeron is outpolling him in the race for mayor of Montreal.
Still recovering from elbow surgery that has had him sidelined since November, New Jersey Devils goaltender Martin Brodeur has been welcomed into the fold of Rue Frontenac, the website published by locked-out Journal de Montréal employees. They even got a formal news release issued to mark the signing. Financial terms, if any, were not disclosed.
Brodeur was a columnist for the Journal de Montréal before the lockout, and made it crystal clear that he would not write for the paper in the event of a labour disruption.
The Gazette, Feb. 13, Page A4
Noticed this photo in my newspaper the other day. It’s on top of this story about police sweeping down and making dozens of arrests in an anti-gang operation. The original photo, taken at 6am, can be seen on Rue Frontenac’s website.
So not only are they providing enough material for their own website, but they’re doing enough journalism to be able to freelance it to the Journal’s competition.
I’m going through my feeds in Google Reader, cleaning up some dead wood from my over 500 subscriptions so I can compile a list of links for a blogroll. I went a bit nuts in 2007, subscribing to any blog I could find that was created by a Montrealer. So many of them haven’t been updated since then because their authors became disinterested, started up new blogs elsewhere or because the subject material became dated.
High up my list of “inactive” blogs was one that sounded familiar: “Une vie en musique”. That was the blog of René Lapalme, who wrote about music until his cancer forced him to write about that. I wrote about his blog, having never met him, shortly after he died (other bloggers had obits too). A few months later, it was wiped off the Internet. Now only a trip through the Wayback Machine can uncover some of what he said, because unevieenmusique.com is advertising cheap domains from Go Daddy.
Yes, Google Reader, I’m sure I’d like to unsubscribe.
Despite the extension of the deadline to June 12, television broadcasters in the Burlington and Plattsburgh areas have agreed to shut down their analog transmitters at 11:59pm on Feb. 17 as scheduled.
This means that Montrealers who watch TV over the air with an external or internal antenna will no longer receive programming on these stations unless their TV is digital-ready or they have a digital converter box.
The following stations, which count Montreal as part of their markets, are among the 25% of U.S. broadcast TV stations whose analog transmitter will stop programming on Feb. 17:
Associated Press has a running list of the stations shutting down next week.
People who get television by analog cable, digital cable, pirated cable, direct-to-home satellite, illegally-pirated U.S. direct-to-home satellite or by Torrenting it off the Internet will not be affected by the change (except to see all those DTV shutdown reminders on the local stations).
Elizabeth Thompson, who left the Gazette with a buyout at New Year’s and quickly got a job doing the same beat at Sun Media, has started blogging again for a group blog called “Eye on the Hill” (her old blog was called “On the Hill” so I guess it’s not much of a transition there).
Mix Virgin Radio 96 has become the latest radio station (oh wait, there’s another one) to pull music by Chris Brown from its playlist, citing his domestic violence arrest.
The decision, which isn’t groundbreaking either for radio or for the station, is being decried as “OMG CENSORSHIP” by people on its Facebook group. The station’s program director (who for some reason has changed his last name to “Blogg”) responds and morning host Lisa Player republishes some comments on her blog.
I’m on the fence about this kind of blanket ban of an artist. On one hand, this tool could be misused. On the other hand, a station should have every right to decide for itself what it should play, and if they want to ban someone they don’t like, that’s their choice.
I’d be happier if the decisions rested with actual DJs instead of corporate-minded program directors, but DJ freedom went out the door long ago, sadly.
I should also applaud CJFM for standing up to criticism on its Facebook page (and it’s gotten quite a lot of it) when other media outlets would just delete those kinds of comments.
Yesterday was February 12, the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln, the -1th birthday of the 2010 Olympics, and the second birthday of this blog (the day I turned in my soul and embraced arrogance and sarcasm).
Today is February 13, Friday the 13th, 1234567890 Day, and my birthday.
Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, the 150th birthday of the state of Oregon, and the 20th anniversary of the Salman Rushdie fatwa.
So much to celebrate. Go ahead, have some cake.
With the recent comment moderation scandal at the CBC (yeah, I’ll just go ahead and call it a scandal there), some people have asked whether we’re all that interested in hearing uninformed comments from random people attached to news stories.
I’ve argued before that high-traffic websites (like CBC) should be more stringent with moderation, because nobody is going to read through hundreds of comments for the few that are actually worth reading. At the very least, some sort of comment ranking or “featured comments” system should be put in place to make the quality ones stand out.
I also argue against so-called “reverse publishing”, where anonymous or pseudonymous web comments are republished in offline media.
This video, spotted on Nora Young’s Spark blog, is a good (and funny) example of the pointlessness of filling the airwaves with comments from random people who don’t know what they’re talking about. (I could have also posted a video of CNN’s Rick Sanchez reading Twitter comments, but that’s more sad than funny.)
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.