Trying to find creative ways of filling airtime now that Rogers has won the rights to NHL games, and with only so many new curling tournaments it can create, TSN has put its creative minds to work creating a new summer sport called Canadaball, and a league that it will own and have the exclusive rights to broadcast.

The sport, played indoors 12 months a year, consists of two teams of eight players each trying to get a ball in each other’s net. It’s sort of a cross between hockey, lacrosse and football, “except with the excitement factor turned up to 11,” the press release reads.

Full details of the rules are expected in the coming weeks, and the network says it will go on a national tour to promote the new sport and recruit players. Games should start being played this fall.

Faced with budget cuts that are putting increasing strain on news-gathering resources, the CBC has begun experimenting with an innovative solution: Get its audience to write their own news stories, and edit them.

Under the proposed crowdsourced model, people write their own stories about their organization’s community event or some injustice they’ve experienced at the hands of some company, and submit it for peer review. Other users comb through submissions, edit them and vote on their importance. The most popular ones bubble up to the top.

It’s sort of like a combination of Wikipedia and Reddit, said Avril Fürsht, CBC managing editor for new newsgathering technologies. “At the beginning, CBC News journalists will be guiding the process, but eventually we hope to make it entirely self-sustaining.”

The hope is that eventually local CBC News websites would have a mix of professional stories and those submitted by the public. Having the public produce its own community stories will free up what few professional journalists are left to do investigative pieces and enterprise journalism, Fürsht said.

The system allows citizen journalists to posts photos with their submissions, and the plan is to soon allow them to upload video and audio clips as well. And CBC is asking users what they think about a plan to offer $20 per submission for complete packaged TV and radio reports, as a way of “giving back” to the community for the content it offers.

The first stories are already up on the website. You can see an example of a crowdsourced TV report here.

Spurred by the CRTC’s recent decision to stop enforcing genre protection or nature-of-service requirements for specialty channels, Shaw Media wasted no time putting a plan in place to quickly capitalize on the newfound freedom. It announced that it will launch an all-Simpsons channel on April 15.

It won’t be all Simpsons, because of the requirement to have 35% Canadian programming. So the hours from 6am to 1pm will be devoted to classic Canadian comedies like Corner Gas.

In a press release filled with Simpsons references, Shaw said it was “totally having a cow” about the new channel, and that it would be “the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.” It implored people to “choo-choo-choose it” for their cable packages.

The Simpsons Channel will be available at launch on Shaw Cable and Shaw Direct. Other providers haven’t announced plans to carry it yet.

Shaw Media also said they’re planning other single-purpose channels in the coming months, including an all-Seinfeld channel, an all-NCIS channel, and an all-M*A*S*H channel.

MTL Blog, the ultra-popular viral news site, isn’t just expanding to Toronto, it’s also becoming only the second online-only journalism outlet to open a bureau at the National Assembly in Quebec City.

NatAss Blog, set to launch in a few weeks, will bring MTL Blog’s unique brand of award-winning journalism to Quebec politics. “Our goal is to turn it from boring to scoring,” the site’s press release says. A NatAss correspondent hasn’t been named yet, but “we’re well into the process of selecting” one, it says.

NatAss Blog promises stories not just about what bills are being presented and debated on the hill, but what goes on “behind the scenes” and in the personal lives of lawmakers and others who work there.

I haven’t seen any full stories yet, but some headlines from prewritten stories have been leaked. They include:

• 10 best NatAss cafeteria menu items
• 15 MNAs who are crazy about Nutella
• 5 hottest PQ leadership candidates
• Lorraine Richard’s 10 best places to eat in Quebec City
• You won’t guess what the government spent $38,296 on last week
• The 12 most insane provisions of Bill 193
• Here’s a picture of a homeless man jerking off on Rue des Parlementaires
• 20 reasons the Nordiques are totally coming back
• 17 myths about the CAQ
• 10 crazy ways to have fun during a budget lockup
• The changes to the healthcare system that will totally make you facepalm
• It’s official, Sylvain Rochon is joining the Committee on Citizen Relations
• 19 political aides who are rumoured to be sleeping with the enemy

Months after news surfaced that CJPX Radio Classique and sister station CJSQ in Quebec City were being sold to Gregory Charles, the new owner just announced that the stations are being rebranded and will move to a francophone classic hits format, abandoning the classical music they’ve been long known for.

The news is bound to anger classical music fans (I see a few of them lashing out already on Twitter), but Charles says the classical music format simply wasn’t profitable because not enough people were listening to it. He said he heard from many people in Montreal and Quebec City who said they wanted to hear more music from the 70s, 80s and 90s on the radio.

There’s no word if the employees of Radio Classique will be kept for the new stations, whose format launches tomorrow.

Responding to client frustration at being delayed an hour or more after some depressed person throws himself in front of a speeding metro train to end his life, the STM is testing out a new policy to dramatically cut down on delays caused by such incidents.

Under the old policy, the affected metro line would immediately come to a stop, emergency services personnel would be dispatched to the scene, and they would conduct an investigation while the station was evacuated. The driver would be treated for shock, the body would be carefully and respectfully removed, the area cleaned, and service would resume.

“We found that simply took too long,” the transit agency said in a statement. “So we’re finding ways to innovate and cut down on delays that frustrate users.”

As part of the new policy, once the the freshly deceased corpse will simply be pushed to the side of the track, underneath the platform of the station, to be picked up during overnight cleaning. A sheet would be left over the body so people on the opposing platform don’t gawk, and a surveillance camera would monitor the body to ensure it was not tampered with before police arrive to investigate the scene.

“Our simulations show this method cuts service interruptions down to about 10 minutes,” the STM said. “We’re looking forward to seeing the new system in action.”

Fast, efficient service is the top priority of any transit agency, and it’s nice to see this one is finding a way to deal with all-too-common incidents that cause serious inconveniences for others.

After months of talking about it, Parti Québécois MNA and leadership candidate Pierre Karl Péladeau has put in place the blind trust he has promised to rid him of any conflicts of interest that may come up because of his ownership of Quebecor. And he has appointed Quebec TV star and producer Julie Snyder as its trustee.

“Julie knows the Quebec media industry very well, and we have a great working relationship,” Péladeau explained to the media. “She understands my commitment to keep these assets in Quebec hands and I have no doubt she will be a great manager of my assets.”

Snyder and Péladeau have a history together: He once made a cameo on her game show Le Banquier.

While Snyder has a lot of experience in the media, she’s not a banker. She said she would leave the jobs of managing a large corporation to the people already in place, and she would focus on managing “the media side” including TVA and the Journal de Montréal. And while she will sit on the editorial board of each, she said she has complete confidence in the editorial teams and no one should expect to see major changes now that she’s in charge.

Péladeau is not legally obligated to put his assets in a blind trust unless he becomes a member of cabinet, but he promised to do so anyway if he becomes leader of the opposition.

With the acquisition of Sun Media approved, my employer Postmedia has already announced plans for expansion of the dead-tree newspaper chain, and is hiring staff to create a Montreal edition of the Toronto/Ottawa/Calgary/Winnipeg/Edmonton Sun.

The tabloid would complement rather than compete against the Montreal Gazette, much like the Sun tabloids and Postmedia broadsheets complement each other. The Gazette would continue to have award-winning serious journalism, while the Sun would have the Sun staples that readers in other major cities have had for years: right-wing columnists, lots of sports, and the Sunshine Girl.

Postmedia says the new paper should launch some time in the fall.

Former Montreal mayor Gérald Tremblay is joining the ranks of former politicians who become media personalities.

It was just announced on air that Tremblay will be the new host of Radio-Canada’s Montreal morning radio show C’est pas trop tôt, starting this fall. Tremblay replaces Marie-France Bazzo, who left the show over a disagreement with management.

Tremblay hasn’t been seen much since he stepped down as mayor on Nov. 5, 2012. But in an interview he expressed an interest in returning to public life.

“I hope to dig deep into the issues and expose the truth about the important problems of our society,” he said. “I’m going to ask the tough questions, and I won’t let anything get by me.”

Other Quebec politicians who jumped into the broadcasting game include former ADQ leader Mario Dumont and former Liberal cabinet minister Nathalie Normandeau.