Monthly Archives: May 2014

| Montreal, TV, Video

ICI est là: Ethnic TV station posts its programs on YouTube

When the cooperative local ethnic television station ICI launched last fall, its website wasn’t a primary consideration. I asked its manager about posting its original programming online, but he was more concerned about getting the transmitter up and getting that programming on the air first.

Four months later, ICI has started making its programs available online in the simplest and most effective manor: By posting them to YouTube. Over the past two weeks, 171 videos have been posted, representing almost all of its local original programming, which makes up almost all of its schedule (it has only a couple of non-original programs, the Portuguese soap opera Bem-Vindos a Beirais, the dated OMNI cooking show South Asian Veggie Table, and the religious show Il est écrit).

The episodes are posted in their entirety, and for the moment anyway are without any restrictions or (additional) ads.

Being a television station that produces its own programming (or, more accurately, works with producers who create programming and sell their own ads for it) means there’s a lot more freedom to get video out without being stuck with geoblocking or custom video platforms.

Posting to YouTube is easy, offloads bandwidth costs, and is versatile, employing all of YouTube’s features from automatic captions to website embedding.

The videos show that, for the most part, ICI is doing what it promised. Many of its shows have left the confines of the green-screen studio and gone out into the field. Those that are shot in studio have unrealistic virtual sets where even the tables aren’t real, but they’re still better than anything we saw on CJNT.

Most of the shows still consist of dry interviews that demonstrate how little experience many of the people involved, particularly in front of the camera, have with television. But they’re improving. The shows are becoming more watchable as each week goes by.

The big question will be how long they can keep this up.

| Montreal, Opinion

No safe option for cyclists through Plateau/Rosemont underpasses

Which of these options is safer: Sharing a narrow lane with a car, or a narrow sidewalk with pedestrians?

Which of these options is safer: Sharing a narrow lane with a car, or a narrow sidewalk with pedestrians?

The accidental death of a cyclist riding a Bixi through an underpass on Saint-Denis St. got to me. Because I’ve ridden a Bixi through that underpass (under Des Carrières St. and a railway line) many times going to and from work, and I’m aware of how dangerous it is.

We don’t know the details of the accident yet. Did she fall off and then get hit? Was there a collision? Did she veer into the truck or did it hit her from behind? It’s important to figure this out not so much to assign blame, but to determine what safety measures are at issue.

Flowers and other objects mark a memorial to a cyclist killed at a St-Denis underpass.

Flowers and other objects mark a memorial to a cyclist killed at a St-Denis underpass.

The death was controversial because right next to the accident scene was a sidewalk with bollards preventing cyclists from using the sidewalk. In this case, at least, had the cyclist used the sidewalk, she probably would have lived.

So in response, elected officials acted quickly, removing the bollards and announcing plans to allow cyclists to use the sidewalk through these underpasses. The mayor of the Rosemont borough announced that new signs were installed Friday morning allowing cyclists to share the sidewalk with pedestrians.

https://twitter.com/francoiscroteau/status/461980309119324160

This applies not only at St-Denis, but at similar underpasses below that rail line where there is no bicycle path, underpasses that have been described as “tunnels de la mort”.

But is that really a better solution? To find out, I grabbed a tape measure and headed down to the underpass to measure the width of the sidewalks. (I ended up running into a guy doing the exact same thing while I was there.)

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| In the news, Media

Pierre Dion becomes Quebecor’s third boss in a year

Robert Dépatie was head of Videotron before taking over from Pierre Karl Péladeau.

Robert Dépatie was head of Videotron before taking over from Pierre Karl Péladeau.

If you’ve been following the news about Quebecor’s change in management, you won’t learn anything new here. I don’t know if the unspecified “health reasons” that Quebecor mentioned as the reason for CEO Robert Dépatie’s sudden retirement are the whole story, or if La Presse is correct and this is more about a difference of strategy.

But there are some things we do know. Dépatie was CEO of Videotron before he took over from Pierre Karl Péladeau as head of Quebecor and Quebecor Media last year. He comes from the telecom side, and he knew it very well.

His legacy includes some big spending: a deal the Globe and Mail puts at more than $1 billion over 12 years to acquire NHL broadcasting rights from Rogers, and a purchase of wireless spectrum for $233 million. It also includes big moves away from print media: The decision to shut down three free 24 Hours newspapers and either weeklies, then a deal to sell all 74 of its remaining weekly newspapers in Quebec to competitor Transcontinental for $75 million, and to shut down the flyer delivery service Le Sac Plus.

The effect of these moves will likely last more than a decade.

Both La Presse and Le Devoir suggest Dépatie wanted to go further, selling English-language Sun Media papers as well (it’s unclear if these would be the Sun chain or the smaller weekly papers, including the Osprey Media chain that Quebecor spent more than $500 million to buy in 2007).

Analysts quoted in various media have had very positive views of Dépatie, and their main concern about his successor, TVA president Pierre Dion, is that he comes from the broadcasting side and not the money-generating telecom side. There was a slight drop in the company’s stock as a result of the news.

On one hand, having a third CEO in under a year is destabilizing. On the other hand, Pierre Dion isn’t a stranger to Quebecor’s upper management. He, along with Péladeau, Dépatie, corporate affairs VP Serge Sasseville and more recently new Videotron president Manon Brouillette have been present during major events involving the company as a whole, whether it’s major announcements or big CRTC hearings. Dion has been on Quebecor Media’s board since 2004 and has been part of its major decisions.

La Presse asks whether this shakeup might prompt Pierre Karl Péladeau to abandon his political ambitions and take back control of the company he still owns. That presupposes, of course, that with his friends and former colleagues still in control of the company, that he doesn’t already exercise some sort of control, unofficially if not legally.

Pierre Dion may shift Quebecor’s emphasis and make different decisions, but I doubt there will be any big sea change. The company’s personality, whether you love it or hate it, remains the same.