Monthly Archives: June 2013
CRTC allows Bell to buy Astral, keep TSN 690
Astral CEO Ian Greenberg, left, with BCE CEO George Cope at May’s CRTC hearing
Fans of TSN 690 are cheering now that the CRTC has approved Bell’s acquisition of Astral Media, and allowed the combined company to keep four of the five English-language commercial radio stations in this market, despite the fact that this goes beyond limits set in the commission’s common ownership policy.
You can read my story explaining the station’s future in The Gazette, read Bell’s press release announcing its acceptance of the decision, or get nerd-level detail below.
The decision makes Bell a dominant player in the television and radio markets in Montreal, owning the top-rated TV station with by far the top-rated local TV newscast, as well as the largest English-language radio newsroom and both English-language commercial talk stations.
In radio, Bell’s commercial market share reaches 76%, with the remaining quarter held by CKBE (92.5 The Beat). That might change once a new talk-radio station owned by TTP Media goes on the air, but we don’t have a date for that yet, and it could be as late as November 2014.
Perhaps even more troubling than the market share of Bell and Astral combined is what happens when you consider Bell and now-rival Cogeco. The two players will have a 96% commercial market share in Montreal’s French-language market (Radio Classique and Radio X are the only others big enough to subscribe to ratings agency BBM) and a 100% commercial market share in English Montreal.
The CRTC cited a few factors that swayed its decision to grant the exception: TSN 690’s niche format, the thousands of submissions it received asking for it to remain on the air, and the fact that the combined company would own only two French-language radio stations in Montreal.
Mountain Lake PBS off air after lightning strike
UPDATE (July 31): It’s back on. See below.
If you’re wondering why you’re tuning into PBS and getting nothing, it’s because the station is off the air.
WCFE, the PBS station based in Plattsburgh, N.Y., announced on Wednesday that its transmitter was off the air after a power transformer at its transmitter site on Lyon Mountain was struck by lightning, causing it to catch fire. (This was after a separate lightning strike Tuesday night that hit the transmitter itself.)
The end result is that the transmitter isn’t running because it doesn’t have power, and the difficult-to-access transmitter site won’t be easy to repair. (UPDATE June 28: The station says the transformers were destroyed, and it could be about three weeks until repairs are complete.)
Most cable providers get the signal from Mountain Lake PBS by simply capturing it off the air with an antenna. Canadian cable companies don’t pay over-the-air American television stations for distribution (something that some U.S. TV stations have been lobbying to change recently), so they don’t really need to have a relationship at all between them.
Videotron in Montreal actually distributes two PBS stations, both of whom are near the Quebec border: WETK, the Burlington transmitter for Vermont Public Television, is the other. But WCFE is the only one distributed in high definition. (Interestingly, the HD feed of WCFE is offered for subscribers to WETK, which means if you choose WETK à la carte but not WCFE, you can have access to WCFE in HD but not SD.)
So until this situation is resolved, or Videotron decides to substitute WETK’s HD feed for that of WCFE, Montrealers wanting to watch PBS will have to settle for doing so in standard definition.
UPDATE: The Adirondack Daily Enterprise reports that the transmitter won’t be running again for some time. But service to Videotron cable will be restored in “the next couple of days” and was back on Time Warner Cable in the U.S. on Wednesday night.
UPDATE (July 2): Videotron has put WETK HD on channel 650. We’ll see if they switch it back when WCFE is back on the air.
UPDATE (July 31): The station’s transmitter went back on the air a week ago. Videotron has switched back to using WCFE HD on channel 650.
The “Lori said it would rain!” umbrella
Canada AM’s Jeff Hutcheson shoots a promo with the umbrella
Just after shooting the last Montreal special episode of Canada AM, showing off Gregory Charles at his Vintage theatre in the Old Port, Jeff Hutcheson shot a promo outside for CTV Montreal. It was kinda lame, a fake telephone conversation whose contents I don’t even remember, but had to do with the weather. But the punchline was Hutcheson opening up a CTV News umbrella and turning it around to reveal the words you see above: “Lori said it would rain!”
He shot a bunch of takes of the promo, and had trouble locking the umbrella open each time. Eventually, as they were doing extra takes to fine-tune various points of the bit, it broke:
I guess we have it, the producer said to a laugh. They didn’t have a back-up umbrella.
I was fascinated by this umbrella. Was it a one-off? Are there piles of them in a promotion office somewhere? Can you buy one?
Louis Douville, CTV Montreal’s general manager, said they’d ordered about a dozen of them. But my query apparently made him think about “wider distribution, maybe even as contest giveaways.”
He also said I could have one. But blasted journalistic ethics mean I have to turn him down. (I don’t keep swag of non-trivial value unless it’s given away to the general population or was acquired in a non-journalistic context from someone who doesn’t know I’m a journalist.)
I like the idea of popular but local references like this. And I’m sure people would be interested in owning an umbrella like this. But I wonder how many.
My blog’s readers are obviously not a representative sample of the population, but definitely a good cross-section of hard-core fans. (Do local TV stations have those?)
So I put the question to you: Would you buy this umbrella? Or would you enjoy winning one in a contest? Or is it just a bit too cheesy for you to be seen walking around in the rain with?
UPDATE (July 6): Here’s the promo ad Hutcheson was shooting:
It’s just as cheesy as I had thought it would be.
Andrea Collins joins CTV Montreal as fill-in weather presenter
You’re going to see yet another blonde on CTV Montreal. Andrea Collins, who hosts the late morning show on Virgin Radio and the weekly Dinner Rush show on CJAD, has been added as a fill-in weather presenter. Her first shift was on the late show on Tuesday, and you can see her do the online weather update.
The station has been pretty light on the position for some time now. It needs to be done seven days a week, and besides Lori Graham on weekdays and Lise McAuley on weekends, there was just Randy Renaud (and he has other responsibilities). The situation was pressed even more because Graham is taking an extended summer vacation and only returning in August.
Funny how pretty people inevitably find their way onto television…
Paul Hayes says goodbye to The Beat
Paul Hayes makes off with the merch (photo via Paul Hayes’s Facebook)
While the public and the media was hyperfocused on René Homier-Roy’s final morning as host of C’est bien meilleur le matin on Radio-Canada (see audio, photos, video, Gazette story, HuffPost Québec story), there was another emotional goodbye on Montreal radio just a few hours earlier.
Paul Hayes, who we learned last month was leaving 92.5 The Beat to return to the U.K., hosted his final show on Thursday night. He had been the host of Heartbeats, from 8pm to midnight, since shortly after the station launched in 2011.
If you missed it, no worries. He recorded his final message on air and posted it online. He says it’s the first time he’s ever cried on air.
https://soundcloud.com/heartbeatshayes/paul-hayes-goodbye-montreal
“Over the last few years, I can honestly say that I’ve had the biggest career high of my life. It simply won’t get any better than this for me,” Hayes said, struggling through tears as he thanked his bosses and coworkers and listeners, and promising to come back to visit often.
“Who knows, maybe I’ll be back on the radio here one day too. I’d like to think it’s a possibility,” he said.
He also posted a note to his Facebook page thanking Montreal listeners:
CKBE FM – 92.5 The Beat – OK, so tonight is my last show on 92.5 and on Sunday I return to the UK to live after 3 years of being away.
It was the most impossible decision I’ve ever had to make in my life.
I cannot put into words how totally incredible this experience has been – It’s the biggest highlight of my career to date. To be broadcasting in North America and to have felt so welcomed by the people of Montreal has been amazing.
The Beat is the most fun and enjoyable place I’ve ever worked, full of talented people – a creative, relaxed, encouraging environment, and the best bosses anybody could EVER wish to have, in Leo Da Estrela Mark Dickie and Andre St-Amand.
I will always have a place in my heart for this city and the radio station, and I take away some of the most incredible memories. I don’t know if it could ever be better than it’s been here.
I felt the need to re-connect with the UK, friends, family, and have some time to catch up with myself a bit, as the last 3 years have been a total whirlwind.
I will be back to visit (probably in the summer months) and I know I’ll keep in touch with a lot of people from here, who have become very important friends in my life.
Thank you everyone in MTL! Much love. XX
Jeremy White takes over
About the same time Hayes was saying his goodbyes, Jeremy White announced on social media that he’s taking over Hayes’s former timeslot. White, a Kahnawake native, started working at K103 while he was still in high school, and has been at The Beat for a little more than a year, doing those thankless overnight shifts.
White’s enthusiasm for music quickly earned him high praise from his bosses at The Beat, who see a lot of potential in him, so this promotion makes a lot of sense.
Caption Peter Mansbridge
CRTC approves TTP Media’s French-language sports radio station at 850AM
Proposed propagation pattern of station at 850AM
Two years after CKAC abandoned the all-sports format to switch to a government-subsidized all-traffic station, Montreal is one step closer to getting a French-language all-sports radio station again.
On Wednesday, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission approved a licence for 7954689 Canada Inc. (Tietolman-Tétrault-Pancholy Media) to operate a French-language sports-talk radio station in Montreal at 850 AM.
The station, whose transmitter would be in a field on Ile Perrot and be pointing toward Montreal, would operate at 50kW daytime and 22kW nighttime, which as the graphic above shows would pretty well cover the Montreal area and its shores.
Its format is a bit unclear. The CRTC decision describes it as “among other things, debate programs, sports news, live games, interviews and open-line programs.”
The “live games” part will be difficult, at least at first. Canadiens games air on Cogeco’s CHMP 98.5FM, and Cogeco retains Canadiens French-language radio broadcast rights until the end of the 2013-14 season. The station also airs Alouettes games. And it’s unlikely to easily give up on either.
This leaves Impact games which could be picked up by the new station. The Impact doesn’t have an official French-language radio broadcaster. And there’s plenty of out-of-market programming like tennis and golf and baseball. But the lack of other French-language sports radio stations in North America means it will have to at least translate all the coverage itself, unless it does something weird like sharing play-by-play guys with RDS.
The commission evaluates a market before awarding a licence for a new radio station to determine if the market can sustain it. In this case, the CRTC did not find any evidence that other stations could be threatened by this new one (competitors didn’t write to the CRTC to oppose this application), but did raise a concern that it “may face significant challenges when attempting to establish its presence in the market.”
But, taking into account the two existing licences and the potential for cost-savings by sharing resources, the commission felt it had a good chance and “would be a valuable proposition for listeners and small advertisers in Montreal” now that the market lacks a French-language all-sports radio station.
The CRTC has given the group exactly two years to get the station on the air, though it can grant an extension if necessary.
The 850AM frequency in Montreal has been silent since CKVL (which was started by Paul Tietolman’s father Jack) went off the air in 1999, replaced by Info 690.
TTP Media has licences for English- and French-language news-talk radio stations at 600 and 940AM, respectively. Neither has launched, but the French one at least is expected to be on the air by its deadline in November.
The group has promised an announcement within the next few weeks outlining its plans.
Statistics also released on Wednesday show that the three French-language AM stations in Montreal collectively (CKAC 730, CJMS 1040*, CJLV 1570 and CJWI 1610/1410) were back in the black for the first time since at least 2008. But that came at a price. From 86 employees when Info 690 still existed, to 47 after it shut down, it now has only 27 spread across the three remaining stations.
*CORRECTION: It turns out CJMS didn’t report financial figures, so it’s not included in the list of stations. That leaves CKAC, CJLV and Haitian station CJWI as the only French-language commercial AM stations in Montreal.
Midnight Poutine turns 300 (Thank you, Jeremy Morris)
The Midnight Poutine crew, from left: Theo Mathien, Amie Watson, Gabrielle Lefort, Gregory Bouchard
When I asked the current team behind the Midnight Poutine podcast why they do what they do, they all had the same answer: Jeremy Morris.
Morris started the podcast in 2006 with John MacFarlane, a former Gazette writer and editor who I worked with briefly (and was one of the key figures in the early days of what was then Habs Inside/Out).
After MacFarlane moved to the other side of the world, Morris continued the podcast every week, a lot of times by himself. Eventually he brought along some other Midnight Poutine contributors to join the podcast — Greg Bouchard during Pop Montreal in 2009, Amie Watson in 2010, Gabrielle Lefort soon after that, and Theo Mathien in 2011, and when Morris left himself for Madison, Wis., last summer, he left the podcast in their hands.
“We all feel like we owe it to Jer to continue,” said Mathien. “We were infected by Jeremy’s enthusiasm,” added LeFort. “It’s partially his level of devotion that causes us to keep this thing going,” said Bouchard. “If we stopped doing this, I would be annoyed that there isn’t another podcast like this to listen to.”
I wanted to write about Morris and the podcast when Morris left, but never found the time. Now, as the show hits its 300th episode, I made the time to head out to Pointe St-Charles and profile it for The Gazette.
You can read the Gazette story here. I’ll add some detail below.
Caroline van Vlaardingen in the big chair
Caroline van Vlaardingen shouldn’t be nervous about being an anchor. She’s been an on-air figure at the station for … you know, I think you could actually measure it in decades, even though she doesn’t look that old.
Part of her experience at CFCF has included some hosting duties, too, including the series “On-Line Montreal” in the 1990s, a one-hour live talk show. (Ad-lib for a minute on live TV? Ha! Try doing that for a whole hour, she says with a laugh.) She’s also hosted the station’s telethon, and she’s been a reliable fill-in anchor for many years now, in addition to some part-time teaching at Concordia’s journalism program.
Still, she’s stepping a bit out of her comfort zone this weekend. Van Vlaardingen is taking over the weekend newscast from Tarah Schwartz, who’s leaving the country for seven months for personal reasons. (I won’t say why, but let’s just say there were lots of crossed fingers from her colleagues at Thursday night’s upfront presentation.)
Van Vlaardingen has the anchoring thing down pretty well, but she got some pointers from Schwartz about some things unique to the weekend newscasts. Among them is that, because the schedule runs from 3pm to midnight, the weekend anchor comes in with little time to familiarize herself with the news before the 6pm newscast. And the weekend anchor lines up her own late-night newscast, which is something that Van Vlaardingen is new to.
I asked her on Thursday whether she’d see herself permanently in the anchor chair. She said she enjoys doing reporting, getting out into the field. The weekend anchor job, which includes three reporting shifts during the work week, is a good mix of both roles, and one Van Vlaardingen is excited to do.
But Schwartz has no reason to worry. Van Vlaardingen is happy to go back to being a reporter once Tarah comes back. “I’m just happy to hold down the fort until she returns,” she says.