You know, you can tell the media is paying a bit too much attention to itself when a newspaper writes a 600-word article on the retirement of one of its accountants.
Monthly Archives: February 2009
Journal Daily Digest: Quebecor fights back
Quebecor's myth-fighting www.lheurejuste.ca
Quebecor, tired of the “misinformation” being put out by the union representing locked-out Journal de Montréal workers, has responded with a website of its own at www.lheurejuste.ca. It features management responses to union talking points, though nothing we haven’t heard in the media and in articles in the Journal over the past week.
It also has PDF copies of those two-page spreads from the employer repeatedly re-explaining its position (one of the links is broken – the rest are giant images rather than properly-created PDFs). And you can download copies of ads saying how great Quebecor Media is at creating jobs, complete with stock photos of happy employees.
It’s kind of hard for Quebecor to play the victim here since they started the lockout without even making a contract offer. Their reverse-talking points are also less than convincing (they won’t say how much the Journal makes, though they admit that it’s still profitable).
Tout le monde en écrit
Last night was the big night with Richard Martineau and union boss Raynald Leblanc on Tout le monde en parle. There are plenty of summaries, analyses and just plain ranting of what happened:
- Rue Frontenac (naturally)
- Raymond Viger
- Hugo Dumas (La Presse)
- Martin Croteau (La Presse)
- Showbizz
- Cécile Gladel
- Cécile Gladel again
- Patrick Dion
- misspotin
- Le Journal Logique
- Temps et fiction
- Chroniques de Gradlon
- Dave Lévesque (Musique Plus)
- MafiaRose
- The best rundown comes from TV critic Richard Therrien, who criticizes Martineau for siding with the Journal against the union and for saying that the Journal and TVA have editorial freedom to criticize each other.
- The most unintentionally funny one comes from Pour un monde à droite, a blog with pictures of Stephen Harper and Conservative Party logos all over the place. Naturally, they see the show as a huge win for Richard Martineau against the evil unions and Radio-Canada. It’s one of the few blog posts defending Martineau’s appearance on the show.
- Matt Ouellett-Boucher’s blog is also worth reading. He writes a long piece about how Richard Martineau changed when he moved from Voir to the Journal, and how he’s become insufferable since.
Sadly, Radio-Canada still doesn’t put TLMEP online, so if you were busy watching the Super Bowl, you’re out of luck.
UPDATE: Therrien points out that TVA’s Le Banquier (which had Quebecor boss Pierre-Karl Péladeau on board in what I can only assume is a funny coincidence) had better ratings than TLMEP.
And in other news…
- The union is collecting evidence of scabbing at the Journal, according to the one-sentence lead of this paywall-blocked Le Devoir piece.
- Premier Jean Charest says his government shouldn’t encourage the Journal and discourages his ministers from giving interviews, but he says they won’t kick the paper’s journalists out of press conferences.
- The Association des journalistes indépendants du Québec says articles from Quebecor-owned alt weekly ICI have found their way into the Journal, thanks to a new we-take-all-your-rights contract that ICI forced its contributors to sign and disgusted at least one columnist enough for him to leave.
- La Presse says Gilles Proulx will be the next freelance columnist to leave the Journal, following in the footsteps of Bernard Landry, Geneviève Lefebvre and others.
- Patrick Lagacé speaks of the Journal this morning, pointing out that many of the newly-hired managers look more like journalists than managers (I noticed that too), and that layout being done in Toronto is what’s keeping the Journal publishing – if they had to do that as well, their jobs would become a lot more difficult.
- Blogger Ken Monteith writes an amusing anecdote (complete with Google-bombing links) about how he’s been trying to stop the Journal (a paper he never subscribed to) from delivering to his home. (Lagacé also says he got a Journal this morning, despite not being subscribed for a while.)
- Today is Buy a Newspaper Day, which won’t help the workers at the Journal much.
Super Bowl commercials FTW
The Gazette’s Denise Duguay reports that Videotron did not, in fact, substitute its NBC HD channel for CTV HD as CTV’s press release suggested it would, meaning she was one of the few Canadians to watch NBC’s Super Bowl commercials without having to hook up an antenna.
Of course, for those who want to see them, they’re all over the place online: Just for Laughs, Spike, NFL, FanHouse, YouTube, MySpace. Some include so-called “banned ads” and other attention-grabbers.
Dominic Arpin provides some of his favourite ads. But really, they all suck.
Oh, and that was a good game today, even if I could pay only half attention to it.
Work, damn you!
An inconvenient snowbank (Fagstein file photo)
So blue collar workers had put in so much overtime hauling away snow that they reached the 70-hours-a-week limit set by law and had to take a day off before going back to work.
Media reaction to this was:
- To explain that the reason for this law is to protect everyone’s safety and it’s better to take the day off now than in the middle of the next snowstorm
- To question whether we need more blue collar workers or should consider staggering their work hours instead of using them all at once when a snowstorm hits
- To point out that blue-collar workers are humans, who have been without a contract for a long time, and who haven’t gotten paid for all their overtime in the past month
- To call on citizens to do their part to make snow clearing faster and easier
- OUTRAGE! How dare they stop working when they’ve only put in 70 hours a week?
I would think the answer is obvious.
NDG Monitor to go online-only
Less than a year after it relaunched itself, the NDG Monitor newspaper will stop printing as of next week and focus exclusively on its website. The decision results in the layoff of two salespeople and a newspaper manager, but not the editor, reporter or freelance columnists.
The newspaper dates back to 1926, though its downfall began in 1996 when it was acquired by Transcontinental. In an effort to save costs, the community newspaper chain (which owns just about all of the community weeklies in the Montreal area, except The Suburban) cut staff and increased “efficiencies” by having the newspapers share content and design. It even went so far as to rename the Monitor the West End Chronicle, essentially making it a zoned edition of another newspaper (and confusing plenty of readers).
Transcon brought the name Monitor back last year, but by then it was too late. The paper had lost all its personality, and people stopped reading it.
I’d wish it luck online, but the website is so crappy (Transcon cookie-cutter messiness that’s more interested in pushing other Transcon products than featuring local content) that without a significant redesign I’m pretty sure it’s on its way to failure as well.
The Monitor’s final print issue will be Thursday, Feb. 5.
CTV ruins Super Bowl ad fun
This blog post is from 2009. For the latest details, click here.
It’s Super Bowl Sunday, and for those of you who have no idea which NFL teams are playing in the big game, you’ll probably want to avoid CTV.
The national television network is carrying over 10 hours of Super Bowl coverage on the main network, plus a bunch of stuff on TSN and even MuchMusic and Space (convergence marketing yay!)
We’ll remind you at this point that the Grey Cup, the championship game of the Canadian Football League, wasn’t carried on CTV but rather CTV-owned TSN.
In case you’re more interested in the commercials than the show (CTV News says it’s one of the big reasons to watch, without a hint of irony), well there’s bad news for you. CTV has ensured that as many loopholes are closed as possible to prevent Canadian viewers from seeing any non-CTV commercials. Bell TV is being forced to simultaneously substitute CTV for NBC nationwide, and Videotron has apparentl agreed to do the same across the province, according to the CTV press release I’ve pasted below.
CTV is planning on giving Canadians access to the commercials online (assuming I’m reading this correctly) at the Just for Laughs website. But I don’t think that’ll satisfy viewers.
So during the broadcast, we’ll be stuck with whatever CTV has to offer (assuming they even fill all their spots). We don’t even get the privilege of a spousal cheating ad.
Those of you who want to (legally) watch NBC’s Super Bowl commercials live have one remaining option: Hook up an antenna to your TV and tune in to WPTZ.
CTV blocks commercials yay!
CTV Delivers SUPER BOWL XLIII in Stunning High Definition and 5.1 Surround Sound to Quebec Viewers
– Bruce Springsteen highlights half-time show on CTV –
Toronto, ON (January 30, 2009) – CTV confirmed today that viewers in Quebec will be able to see complete coverage of SUPER BOWL XLIII in stunning High Definition and 5.1 Surround Sound on CTV HD. Despite suggestions otherwise, CTV’s presentation of SUPER BOWL XLII will feature “spectacular image and sound quality” on CTV HD, available to Videotron, Bell TV, Star Choice and Cogeco subscribers.
CTV’s exclusive Canadian coverage of SUPER BOWL XLIII, featuring the Pittsburgh Steelers taking on the Arizona Cardinals, begins at 12 noon ET from Tampa, FL, with six hours of pre-game programming (visit CTV.ca to confirm local broadcast times). The CTV HD broadcast will include the greatly-anticipated half-time show featuring Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street band.
CTV encourages viewers interested in SUPER BOWL commercials to visit www.justforlaughs.com/superbowl, where many of this year’s advertisements have already been posted.
Calling the SUPER BOWL on CTV is the NFL broadcast team of Emmy Award-winners Al Michaels (play-by-play) and John Madden (colour analyst), while reporters Andrea Kremer and Alex Flanagan patrol the sidelines. Emmy Award-winner Bob Costas hosts the pre-game, post-game and halftime shows alongside co-hosts Cris Collinsworth, Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick, studio analysts Tiki Barber and Jerome Bettis, reporter Peter King, and special guests – and SUPER BOWL champions – Tony Dungy, Mike Holmgren and Matt Millen. The SUPER BOWL halftime show, sponsored in Canada by Diet Pepsi, features Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, while Faith Hill sings ‘America the Beautiful’ and Academy Award-winner Jennifer Hudson sings the national anthem prior to kickoff.
For more information on CTV’s extensive multi-platform coverage of SUPER BOWL XLIII, click here.