Monthly Archives: March 2009

| Media

Quebecor locks out Le Réveil

Le Réveil

Two days after its union unanimously rejected a contract offer that would have meant massive layoffs and outsourcing of layout and administrative jobs to Montreal, Quebecor locked out employees of Jonquière weekly Le Réveil this morning, putting them in the same boat as their colleagues at the Journal de Montréal (though with considerably less news coverage). Counting employees of the paper’s printing plant who were laid off when the plant was closed recently, the union says Quebecor wants to reduce the number of unionized employees from 80 to only five.

The union, naturally, is outraged and sees this as part of a trend of lockouts and union-busting that also involved the Journal de Québec and Journal de Montréal.

I haven’t seen anything from Quebecor yet explaining their reasons (though they’ll probably sound familiar). The latest issue of the paper is from Sunday, and contains plenty of ads for Quebecor, including one with its financial statements:

Notice something missing?

Notice something missing?

Funny enough, that ad lists Quebecor Media’s assets, including four Montreal-based newspapers, but neglects to mention Le Réveil, the very paper this ad appears in.

| TV

CRTC roundup: broken television

Canadian television network breakdown

The big news this week is the release by the CRTC of submissions from major Canadian private television broadcasters whose licenses are up for renewal in August. This includes CTV/A, Global/E!, TVA, Sun TV, Citytv and OMNI. (TQS is the notable exception since it had its own dealings with the CRTC after it went bankrupt).

The CRTC has suggested having one-year license renewals (instead of standard seven-year ones) and dealing with the TV financial crisis in the meantime. The networks have gone along with that and are recommending status quo until August 2010.

The private networks (especially CTV Globemedia and Canwest) are re-repeating all of the please-give-us-money talking points they’ve been sending toward the CRTC for years now, including bringing up their pet project of forcing cable and satellite companies to give them money for putting their free over-the-air channels on their systems, mainly because they can’t find a way to make a profit off advertising and say the system is broken.

Among their other money-grabbing and money-saving ideas:

  • More access to the new Local Programming Improvement Fund (deigned to help with local programming at small-market stations) by expanding them to larger markets (Canwest even argues that CJNT Montreal should have access to the fund even though it doesn’t provide any local news.)
  • Having the ability to own their own production companies instead of being forced to use independent production houses
  • That the proposed 1:1 ratio of spending on Canadian vs. non-Canadian programming is “not viable” because it would mean cutting back on the very thing that is generating the revenue to keep the networks afloat (and besides, CTV argues, they’ve already signed contracts for the 2009-2010 broadcast year)

Canwest proposes a “5 and 10” rule that would require 5 hours a week of local programming for stations serving markets of under a million viewers, and 10 hours a week for stations serving markets of over a million. Since most Canwest stations already have local programming requirements far in excess of 10 hours a week, this would save it a lot of money. (It counts only four stations as being in large markets – even Global Quebec is considered small because it only counts English-speaking viewers, which means it would drop from 18 hours a week of local programming to only five)

Even Quebec’s TVA, which does plenty of local (or at least regional) programming, wants to cut back. It’s asking to reduce the amount of local programming at its Quebec City station from 21 hours a week to 12 UPDATE: They now say they only want to cut it to 18 hours a week.

Canwest even proposes going further than its continued demand for money from cable companies, and throw out some new ideas that nobody has suggested before, including:

  • Non-simultaneous substitution, which would replace U.S. signals with Canadiens ones showing the same programming, even if they’re not being broadcast on both channels simultaneously.
  • Banning commercial advertising from CBC
  • Government assistance for digital conversion
  • Tax cuts

UPDATE: More coverage from the Globe and Mail, which also looks at how much the networks are spending on Canadian versus foreign content.

Canwest wants Global Quebec to become Global Montreal

As part of its submission to the CRTC on license renewal, Canwest said it wants to convert only primary transmitters of its 15 major stations to digital by 2011, and as part of that it wants to convert regional networks Global Ontario and Global Quebec into local stations in Toronto and Montreal, respectively. CKMI-TV is actually based out of Quebec City (and also serves the Eastern Townships through a transmitter in Sherbrooke), but all its programming, including its newscasts, originate in Montreal.

The change wouldn’t affect programming but would allow CKMI to attract local advertisers, even though Canwest says they would not be taking advantage of this much.

CTV wants to pull the plug on CJOH-8

In its submission to the CRTC, CTVglobemedia put forward a long list of television transmitters it said it would not apply for licenses to renew past August. Included in that list is a retransmitter for CJOH Ottawa in Lancaster, Ont., on Channel 8. Montrealers and off-islanders with good TV antennas will note that this transmitter serves southwestern Quebec since it is just across the border. Shutting the transmitter down means those near the Ontario/Quebec border will have to tune into CJOH’s Ottawa transmitter or CFCF-12 in Montreal.

The Obituary Channel?

The CRTC has granted approval for a regional Quebec cable channel called Je me souviens, which will be devoted essentially to obituaries and related public notices. The CRTC did not agree to a request to carry local advertising in addition to the obits, however.

The channel (which is a private venture unconnected to the major broadcasting companies) is interesting because it’s an original idea and because it’s a regional network (most cable networks are national in order to reach as broad an audience as possible).

But if Astral Media couldn’t keep its TATV shopping channel on the air, does a regional channel of nothing but obituaries stand a chance?

UPDATE: I see CJAD reads this blog.

Pay up, CFAV

The CRTC has denied a request from Laval radio station CFAV 1570 AM, which wanted to be excused from the $8,000 a year it has to pay to promote Canadian artists. Its excuse is that it’s not making a profit. The CRTC says rules are rules.

Rogers wants carte blanche on OLN

Rogers has asked for some very radical amendments to its license for the Outdoor Life Network (OLN). Among them, it wants to be able to use sitcoms, comedy shows and animated shows, reduce its restriction on televising live sports, and reduce requirements for Canadian content. The proposal was so radical it caught the eye of the Globe and Mail.

TVA wants carte blanche on specialty channels

Speaking of radical amendments, TVA has filed requests to add more programming categories for three of its specialty channels: Mystère (mystery), Argent (financial news) and Idées de ma maison (home/living). While some might make sense in a world where various forms of programming blend together (say, a game show about science), it’s hard to see some of these categories as being requested solely so that TVA can stretch the envelope and provide programming that has only a tenuous connection to the mandate of the channel.

Among the categories they’d like to add:

  • Religion programming
  • Professional and amateur sports, including live sporting events
  • Drama, sitcoms, comedy programming, animated programs
  • Music videos

I’m all for flexibility, but can you imagine a program that has music videos about mysteries? Or a sitcom about financial news?

The Weather/Emergency Network

Pelmorex, the strangely-named owner of the Weather Network/MétéoMédia, is asking for the CRTC to require that all cable and satellite companies operating in Canada have the networks as part of their basic digital services (it’s already required on analog cable). In exchange, the networks will act as “a national public alerting aggregator”, distributing emergency information.

To sweeten the deal, Pelmorex gives idle threats about how their existence will be in “jeopardy” if they can’t force that $0.23 per subscriber out of us, even though most Canadians already (happily) get the Weather Network by default.

Still, having the Weather Network distribute emergency information makes sense, if only because many such emergencies are weather-related and TWN already deals with emergency weather alerts.

The only problem is: Shouldn’t it be the broadcast networks (like, say, CBC/Radio-Canada) who distribute emergency information, so it’s over the air where everyone can receive it?

HD vs. SD

While Canal Évasion wants to start an HD version of the channel, the owners of three HD-only networks – Oasis HD, Treasure HD and Equador HD – want to distribute those channels in standard definition. This isn’t the first request of this kind I’ve seen, and is probably a reflection of the fact that while most Canadians have cable or satellite service, the number with HD service and sets is not as high as they had expected by now, and offering a downgraded SD signal will allow them to reach a larger audience.

And finally

The CRTC has approved a request to add five networks, all of third-language programming originating from east and southeast Asia, to the list of eligible channels for satellite providers.

| Media

Universities: Like real life, only without consequences

It’s so adorable when kids look up to real journalists. The Concordian this week has an interview with Gazette universities columnist Peggy Curran.

Speaking of which, these Concordia kids want me to talk to them about something later this month. Any suggestions what topic of infinite wisdom I can impart on young journalist-wannabes (other than “you’ve picked the wrong profession”)?

| Blogosphere, Canadiens, Media

Traffic up at Habs Inside/Out

Habs Inside/Out traffic

Habs Inside/Out, my newspaper’s most successful online venture so far, is seeing 100% traffic increases over last year, according to a recent post from Mike Boone. Those kinds of numbers put all of their other blogs (and mine) to shame, but they are well-deserved because of the efforts put into it by Boone, Dave Stubbs, Kevin Mio and Pat Hickey, who all contribute to bringing breaking news to the site in addition to their day jobs for the newspaper.

| TV

Slash and burn at A Channel

A channel

It turns out CTV isn’t quite done with the cutbacks at its secondary broadcast network. After announcing it wouldn’t renew licenses for two southern Ontario stations, the axe has come down on 118 jobs at other stations across the network, including 34 in Ottawa/Pembroke, 18 in Victoria, 24 in Barrie, Ont., and more (42 by my math) in London, representing about 28% of the workforce.

As a result, various local programming is being cancelled. Barrie and London are cutting their morning programs, and like Global Quebec will be re-running their nightly newscasts in the morning.

In Victoria, the morning show will be replaced by “cameras … in the C-FAX 1070 radio station starting tomorrow to broadcast its morning show from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m.”

In Ottawa, it’s the reverse. The evening and weekend newscasts will be cancelled.

They can do this and still keep their broadcasting licenses because of a loophole in the CRTC’s local programming rules. It says stations have to air a certain minimum amount of locally-produced programming every week, but it doesn’t say that it has to produce that much, so stations can get away with producing an hour and a half of news and replaying it at 6am, and that counts as three hours of programming.

A Channel has never really made money. And since its acquisition by CTV it’s basically been a dumping ground for second-rate U.S. shows that won’t fit on the main network’s schedule. (The irony is that CTV never wanted the network. They were more interested in acquiring CHUM’s specialty channels and would offload A Channel onto Rogers. But the CRTC intervened and said they had to give away Citytv instead. Had this not happened, we might be looking at massive layoffs at Citytv right now.)

The union has issued a news release blaming CTV for turning its back on small communities, while also drinking its Kool-Aid that the whole problem is because cable companies are making money and not handing it over to CTV (as opposed to, say, CTV spending millions to acquire U.S. programming that could be spent on original programming).

UPDATE (March 12): the Ottawa Citizen looks inside the cuts at A Channel in Ottawa.

| Media

Journal Daily Digest: Guichets fermés

Journal picket

The protest of the day was against René Angélil, whose biography, published by a Quebecor-owned company, has just been launched.

In more interesting (and topical) news, at least a few people were seriously turned off by a Journal headline about the funeral of those kids in Piedmont. Perhaps annoyed by the fact that the public (i.e. news media) was excluded from the small crowded building where the funeral was taking place, the newspaper used the headline: “Cérémonie à guichets fermés“. At least one blogger and one letter-writer found that to be a tacky and inappropriate comparison between a private family funeral and a rock concert.

Meanwhile

| Business

The Source by Bell

The Source outlet in Eaton Centre downtown

Bell Canada, which apparently has lots of money to spare, has decided to buy up The Source, the overpriced electronics retailer which used to be Radio Shack and whose parent company went bankrupt in November.

Coverage from, well, everyone: Globe, Star, CBC, Forbes, WSJ, Reuters, Digital Home

Bell says it plans to use the outlets to hawk Bell merchandise like Bell Mobility cellphones (once the exclusivity contract with Rogers ends this year) and Bell TV satellite service.

The deal seems to make perfect sense, as both companies offer crappy product, have horrible customer service, charge way too much and yet survive because people who don’t know any better recognize the brand.

Any bets on whether Bell will fix the many fundamental problems with The Source’s business model?

| Radio

Patrick Charles joins CJFM morning show

Patrick Charles (Q92 photo)

Patrick Charles (Q92 photo)

Patrick Charles, who since 2001 has been working with the morning show on Q92, has jumped ship and (after some contractually-mandated downtime) will join CJFM 95.9 as the third morning host with Cat Spencer and Lisa Player. He starts on Wednesday. (via MediaInMontreal)

His old bio page at Q92 is still up in case you want to learn more about the guy. You can also hear his song parody work on MySpace.

| Media

2/3 support Journal de Montréal workers (by default)

Branchez-Vous has the EXCLUSIF today: a poll it commissioned shows that about two thirds (literally 66.7%) of Quebecers support the 253 workers who were locked out by the Journal de Montréal in January.

But the full results of the survey show that about the same percentage (65.5%) support the employees and their union in labour conflicts in general. So it’s probably fair to say that the level of support is more of a default position than any serious analysis of the conflict. This is backed up by results showing that while the vast majority (82.7%) of Quebecers are aware of the lockout, three quarters of them (70% in Montreal) say they know little or nothing about the reasons behind it.

Who wins in this is a good question. The union will no doubt consider this a big win, because it looks good on its face and because initially it seemed the public might turn its backs on the union because of the generous working conditions (32-hour weeks, high salaries, etc.). Despite Quebecor’s efforts, this seems not to be the case.

But public support is irrelevant if people are still buying newspapers and advertisers are still putting ads. We don’t know how this is affecting the Journal financially, but that will be the big decider in all this.

The online poll of 1125 adult Quebecers taken Feb. 10-16 (margin of error 3% 19 times out of 20) also breaks down its answers by region (Montreal, Quebec and other), though the only one that shows a significant difference is that people who live in and near Quebec City support locked-out Journal workers more than they would workers in general. This is probably a result of the long Journal de Québec conflict, which also began with a lockout.

Meanwhile

| Opinion, Public transit, West Island

Beaconsfield applies NIMBY to parking

Here’s a really short-sighted idea: Beaconsfield town council has approved a measure that would reserve 30 parking spaces near the Beaurepaire commuter train station only to permit-holding Beaconsfield residents.

While 30 spots at a station in Montreal’s equivalent to the middle of nowhere won’t make much of a difference in the long run, the worry is that this will become a trend. Other municipalities might enact similar measures, making it more difficult to park near train stations. Imagine if Pierrefonds restricted parking near the Roxboro and Sunnybrooke stations to only its residents, or if Montreal did the same for the Du Ruisseau station on the Deux-Montagnes line.

Such NIMBYism (while not foreign to Beaconsfield) is counter-productive to traffic problems and only serves to build walls between neighbouring towns.

| Pop quiz, Public transit

Nuit Blanche pop quiz

I had fun at the Nuit Blanche. I’ll put together a longer post with lots of pictures over the next day or two, but since it’s 6am and I want to get some sleep, I’ll just post this quickie.

Nuit Blanche pop quiz

When was this photo taken?

(I’ve scrubbed the EXIF data in case any of you want to be cute)

For bonus points, where was this taken?

UPDATE: Alex gets it right below, and I’ll just quote him: “Assumung 24:00:00 is midnight, then 28:00:00 would be 04:00:00 and 28:58:20 would be at 04:58:20, which means that if the metro left at 04:58:20 and there are 00:02:40 left before departure, the current time is 04:55:40 (AM)”

Some background: These are clocks installed at every terminus to tell the train driver when to depart. The top number is the time of departure, bottom left is the number of the train, and bottom right is time remaining to departure (it counts down to zero and then counts up until they reset it for the next train).

For scheduling purposes, the STM’s daily clock doesn’t reset at midnight. As far as bus and metro drivers are concerned, there are departures at 25, 26, 27 and 28 o’clock instead of 1, 2, 3 and 4am, as these departures (of day and night buses) are considered part of the previous day. You can even have two schedules running simultaneously if a night bus and early morning bus are on the road at the same time.

What’s so unusual about this sight, of course, is that trains don’t normally run at 4am. The last terminus departure is at 1:30am on Saturday nights on the yellow line. The last train leaves service 25 minutes later when it arrives at the Côte-Vertu station, making it 1:55 am or 25:55. Seeing the clock go up to 28:58 pushes it to new heights. (For those curious, the clock reset itself minutes later to 5am.)

Christelle got the second part of the question right (without getting the first). The picture was taken at Snowdon on the Saint-Michel-bound platform.