Just when you thought the ex-Expos couldn’t embarrass themselves further, quickly grabbing the worst record in baseball by losing their first seven games of the season (and 10 of 11), they made themselves into even more of a laughing stock by misspelling their own name.
I’d laugh if it wasn’t so sad.
Anne-Marie Losique held a party to celebrate the CRTC granting (last month) a license for an adult-oriented specialty channel that will launch next year.
Actually, it was a press conference to promote Pole Position, a pay-per-view reality show in which young women compete to see who is the best exotic dancer.
Needless to say, the media came. Rue Frontenac was there. (Great photos, somewhat sarcastic story) Metro was there. And 33mag. And 7 Jours. Le Soleil’s Richard Therrien came down from Quebec City. La Presse had (critical) columns from Nathalie Petrowski and Hugo Dumas. Cyberpresse was there with video.
The National Magazine Awards released its list of nominees for this year. The Walrus and l’Actualité lead the nominations with 28 each. Maisonneuve Magazine has 10.
Not to diminish the value of these nominations, but there are 341 of them. Are there even that many people working in magazines in Canada?
Another term to add to the zeitgeist of CRTC talks about conventional television funding is the “American retransmission consent model,” thanks to a comment from Rogers during hearings this week on whether conventional television broadcasters should be allowed to collect fees from cable and satellite companies for retransmission of their channels.
Asked by the commission a House committee whether Rogers would approve of a U.S.-style system in which cable companies have to seek permission (and therefore pay fees) to carry conventional television stations, Rogers said it would, provided carriage was optional.
CTVglobemedia pounced on this, issuing a press release in which it praised Rogers for agreeing to fee-for-carriage in an “industry-to-industry solution” that follows the “American retransmission consent model.”
I personally think this is a better idea and could live with this kind of compromise. If broadcasters choose to demand fees that are too high for carrying their signals, the cable and satellite companies (or better, the consumers themselves) could decide it’s not worth it and use their rabbit ears instead to get the channels for free.
Not that I think the CRTC and all the players involved would support such a system.
Michael Geist also weighs in on this issue.
For those who want to keep track, here are the various pros and cons to running a conventional television station instead of a cable specialty channel:
Pros
Cons
Richard Therrien in Le Soleil asks what purpose the CRTC serves, which is kind of a misleading title because his article advocates stronger regulation of private broadcasters. He argues that TVA is abandoning Quebec City, asking the CRTC to reduce its local programming requirements and producing generic non-regional shows out of its Quebec City studios.
Global TV, TVA and Sun TV have received final approval from the CRTC to suspend parts of their licenses relating to cross-media ownership (Canwest and Quebecor also own newspaper properties) and replace it with a standard policy called the Journalistic Independence Code. The code provides for an independent body (half controlled by the industry it’s regulating) to adjudicate complaints related to independence of co-owned media outlets. The outlets are to have completely independent news management, but there are no restrictions on news gathering, which means corporate management is free to force as much convergence as it likes, provided editorial boards are separate.
The CRTC mentioned it got complaints from concerned citizens who were up in arms over these firewalls being taken down, but the commission essentially argued (as I have) that these complaints should have been brought up when the Journalistic Independence Code was discussed in the first place.
The Governor-in-Council has issued a report about minority-language broadcasting in Canada (English programming in Quebec and French programming outside Quebec). The report, which is in no way binding, concludes that in general, language minorities have sufficient access to programming, mainly due to the CBC, national specialty channels and the Internet.
It does, however, also bring up a few suggestions for strengthening access to French-language programming in English areas. Among them:
None of these are binding, and most aren’t even formal suggestions. But they might come up in more formal contexts at the CRTC in the coming months and years.
As for the flip side – English programming in Quebec – the report concludes that anglo Quebecers have ample access to English-language programming.
The CRTC has approved a request from Rogers to add Fox Business Network to the list of foreign channels eligible for rebroadcast on Canadian cable and satellite services. This means that Rogers Cable and others can add FBN as an option on digital cable or satellite (assuming they can negotiate a reasonable price for carriage).
Fox Business Network is a competitor to CNBC (and a really bad one at that if you look at the ratings). CTV argued to the CRTC that it would also be a competitor to its Business News Network (formerly Report on Business Television). The CRTC determined that this was not the case because BNN focuses on Canadian business and there is no programming common to both networks.
Besides, they’d already approved CNBC, which is a far more formidable competitor than Fox Business will be.
The CRTC has released financial figures for specialty, pay and video-on-demand services. It shows increases in both revenues and profits, but no increase in the number of people employed (in fact, it went down by six people). The headliner was that for the first time ever, spending on Canadian programming by these services topped $1 billion.
Télévision régionale de Laval has asked for a license for a low-power (50W) television station serving the Laval area, on which it would air programming it is currently producing for Videotron’s Vox TV.
The station, which currently has a budget of about $400,000 a year and is affiliated with local media and the city of Laval, would broadcast on Channel 4, which would cause interference problems with CBOT (CBC) Ottawa and CFCM (TVA) Quebec City, both on the same channel (not to mention analog cable reception of Radio-Canada’s CBFT for homes very close to the transmitter).
The main motivation for this move, according to TRL, is that Vox isn’t giving its programming enough play, especially during prime time viewing hours.
It’s an ambitious move, and one wonders if the small group behind it would be up to the task of keeping such a station running (they’ve already asked for an exemption from a 100% closed-captioning requirement). But it’s nice to see some people still think locally-produced over-the-air television is worth something.
Though the CRTC hasn’t issued a call for public comment yet, news about Al-Jazeera English’s bid for CRTC approval is making its way around. It started in the Globe and Mail back in February, and has since hit the Toronto Star, Sun Media, LCN and Cyberpresse.
Al-Jazeera’s Arabic-language network is authorized for distribution in Canada, but with unique special requirements that put the onus on distributors to monitor its content. That made it too difficult (read: expensive) for cable and satelllite operators to abide by, so none have picked up the channel.
Al-Jazeera is trying to clean up its image as a radical jihadist network, launching an online campaign and even lobbying the Canadian Jewish Congress, which says it’s on the fence about supporting the network’s bid. Despite its reputation (many of its critics have never even watched the network), it is based in a relatively pro-U.S. country (Qatar), employs Western journalists for its English network, and reports on a lot outside the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Even PBS affiliates have used some of its reports (though that caused a kerfuffle).
Canadians will have their say when the CRTC opens the application for comments. The issue probably won’t be whether the network is approved, but whether the same onerous restrictions will be placed on its carriage.
The CRTC is asking for comments about a list of minor but general changes to its broadcasting laws, which provide for:
The CRTC has approved changes to the National Do-Not-Call List so that numbers added to the list stay for five years instead of three. It also clarified that independent politicians (who are not connected to political parties) are also exempt from the do-not-call rules. Arguments for these decisions are here.
The commission has also launched a public consultation on ISP traffic management, namely asking whether Internet providers should have the right to use traffic shaping during high-usage times to slow down peer-to-peer file sharing so that regular users have a chance to use more bandwidth. This comes at the same time Bell says it will charge independent providers metered rates instead of flat ones, effectively ending the idea of unlimited Internet access.
In case you missed it, a judge last week ordered a publication ban on settlement negotiations between the government and Groupe Polygone, an ad agency in the middle of the sponsorship scandal. The ban follows a previous one issued against the Globe and Mail and is more broad in nature, this time directed specifically at La Presse but also any other media outlet.
The gag order is only valid while the talks (which are supposed to be confidential anyway) are ongoing.
Monday in La Presse, Yves Boisvert says that reporting things that are supposed to be confidential is the entire point of investigative journalism. The Globe and Mail makes a similar point.
I don’t know how important it is to know the status of settlement negotiations, but I also don’t agree that either the federal government or a company that broke the law has any right to privacy in these negotiations, especially if one side (almost certainly in the government) has leaked that information to the media.
Those yellow arrow stickers on metro platforms are back, now with stronger adhesive. The STM is restarting its pilot project (same designs, same platforms) to try and organize the chaos of metro boarding by clearing a path for those getting off.
Not getting the idea
Unfortunately education isn’t quite sinking in yet for everyone.
Locked-out workers will no longer be allowed to picket the entrance to the Journal de Montréal office
The STIJM, representing locked-out Journal de Montréal workers, has been slapped with a temporary injunction limiting their picketing activities after recent events. They include:
The STIJM has a copy of the injunction (PDF) on its website. This is a temporary injunction, which means there will be another hearing about it. The way I read it, it doesn’t prevent them from protesting near properties owned by Quebecor or advertisers, merely from protesting on those properties. The “harassment” clauses, however, could be interpreted broadly enough to be worrisome to their rights to freedom of expression.
As for the other legal proceeding, about whether the Journal is using scab labour, they’re back in court on Friday. The CSN is calling on the government to have more inspectors to ensure businesses don’t use scab labour (telecommuting or otherwise) during conflicts.
The NDG Monitor, which shut down in February and became online-only, and recently criticized a borough-produced newspaper for being nothing but press releases, is now itself cutting and pasting press releases to create news stories, as evidenced by this story which is identical to this release from Concordia University (and doesn’t mark it as such).
I’d say I was shocked, but I wasn’t. I’d say I was disappointed, but my expectations for this Transcontinental project were low to begin with.
The Monitor’s deterioration as a legitimate news outlet began long before its last issue came off the presses. It started in 1996 when it was sold to Transcontinental, which gutted everything to save money.
Now all it does is list community events and republish open letters, while contributing whatever news articles can be churned out with as little effort as possible. The rest of the website is filler from Transcontinental and its other community weeklies.
The Monitor is going to die eventually as a forgotten relic of a time when small communities could sustain local newspapers. Though I mourn the loss of any voice and the job of any journalist, part of me thinks they should just put it out of its misery.
On the same day that the Pulitzer prize winners were announced, Editor & Publisher also announced the finalists for its EPpy Awards, which up until now I had never heard of. There’s just so many journalism awards I tend to miss some of them.
Unless something escaped me, the Globe and Mail is the only Canadian finalist, and it’s in three categories. Once again I point out that the announcement fails to include any links, so I do so here:
UPDATE (May 7): Winners announced, and bolded above.
The Financial Times has an interview with Miguel Syjuco, one of the many young people who joined The Gazette for a summer and then left for greener pastures (becoming an award-winning novelist). There he talks about the various cities he’s lived in and what makes them cool. (via mtlweblog)
The Gazette also interviewed Syjuco this week, about the book that earned him a Man Asian Literary Prize award. The National Post interviewed Syjuco in November, back when he won the award.
Syjuco takes part in a panel at the Blue Metropolis festival this week. Details are at the end of the Gazette story.
(Hey Miguel, you don’t per chance need an agent, do you?)
This is one of the reasons I’m not crazy about the Transcontinental weeklies. They have so little content of their own, but mask that by copying content from other papers or from the network. The result is the exact same story on the websites of multiple papers.
Perhaps I’m the only one affected because I subscribe to many of these papers, but I don’t understand why stories not based in a particular area are included in the feed (and posted to the website) of a community newspaper for that area.
Télé-Québec announced this week that a new show is going to start this fall that has the Voir newsroom talking about culture. This is to replace Ça manque à ma culture which was recently cancelled.
If this idea of an alt-weekly doing a cultural TV show is familiar, I can’t imagine why. ICI does the same thing, but it’s on Vox where nobody watches it. (I watched that show for the first time yesterday, it’s not bad for a Vox production, but hardly compelling either.)
Of course, they deny that they’re copying ICI’s idea.
It’s interesting to see if this becomes a bigger trend, having print journalists do TV shows related to their beats. It certainly saves money (yay convergence!) paying one person to do two jobs (ICI and Vox are both owned by Quebecor), and these roundtable discussions are super-cheap to produce – just put some guys in front of a camera and have them chat for a while.
But it also means we have fewer voices. Eventually we’ll be down to one journalist each from CTVglobemedia, Canwest, CBC/RadCan, Gesca and Quebecor covering a given beat. And maybe not even that.
La Presse "sur mon ordi" with NewspaperDirect
La Presse is promoting its new electronic edition “La Presse sur mon ordi“, which uses NewspaperDirect, the same service that’s being used by The Gazette, Sun Media and others.
For people who want a newspaper subscription but don’t want the hassle of recycling newspapers, want it a bit cheaper, like the computer bells and whistles and don’t mind reading on the screen, this format is a nice option at only $10 a month (about half the price of a print subscription, consistent with other papers).
One thing that’s different about La Presse’s approach is that it wants to charge existing print subscribers $2 a month for access to the electronic version. It’s a small amount, but I imagine reaction being something along the lines of “you want me to pay for something I’ve already paid for?” (except, you know, they’d probably say it in French).
They’re offering a free 14-day trial for those who want to try it out.
I laughed at least three or four times watching this. It is most excellent.
You know, the parts that aren’t gay.
See also: The Internet Stars are Viral, another Billy Joel parody.
Global TV made a big announcement about its website redesign. It includes 30 “refurbished microsites” (read: branded pages for each show), an “up-to-the-minute Twitter function” (read: link to Twitter account), an “enhanced” and “dynamically updated” schedule guide (read: a schedule) and coming soon a “newly revamped search engine” (read: they’re fixing the search engine).
The new website also includes a new video player, which most Canadians still don’t know gives them access to Family Guy and House on demand. (Though it still doesn’t work properly for me.)
And it’s got lots of boxes with rounded corners, scrolling Flash menus and gradients, which we all know are required in any properly-designed site of this era.