News about news
- Mike De Souza, a former Postmedia reporter now working for the National Observer, where he broke a story about members of the National Energy Board meeting secretly with Jean Charest while he was a lobbyist, is lashing out at a Financial Post opinion piece that questions the Observer’s connections to the Tides Foundation. De Souza lays it on thick, calling it “one of the most irresponsible attacks I’ve ever seen in over 15 years of journalism” and writing a very long, passionate piece defending himself. The Observer has gone so far as to ask the National Newsmedia Council to investigate “deceptive, defamatory and misleading” information, but doesn’t point out any facts it got wrong. (De Souza was also on a recent episode of Canadaland to talk about his work and the Observer.)
- Mike Ward has been given permission to appeal the human rights tribunal ruling against him in the Jérémy Gabriel case.
- The International New York Times is now the New York Times International Edition. So yeah.
At the CRTC
- CHOC-FM 104.9 in St-Rémi, south of Montreal, has gotten approval for a power increase and transmitter relocation. It will go from a 250 watt non-directional signal to a 1,714 watt directional one, with a higher antenna.
- CJMD-FM, the community radio station in Lévis, has been approved for a power increase from 110 to 509 watts, to allow it to cover the city more completely.
TV
- TSN was supposed to present a game between the Montreal Alouettes and Edmonton Eskimos on Monday in which the quarterbacks and head coaches on both teams had live microphones on them. But the Edmonton QB and coach reneged at the last minute. They could face discipline from the league. More from the Edmonton Journal and Montreal Gazette.
- In addition to putting Ron MacLean back in the big chair, Hockey Night in Canada is bringing back After Hours, the late post-game show hosted by Scott Oake.
- People got pretty angry online about the lack of availability of National League Division Series games on Sportsnet. Unfortunately, it’s not Sportsnet’s fault. The NLDS games that air on MLB Network are exclusive to that channel on both sides of the border. And if your provider is among the many in Canada that doesn’t carry MLB Network, I’m afraid it’s tough luck for you.
- An interesting opportunity coming on Friday night, when the Oilers play the Flames. Sportsnet has the game nationally, but is producing it regionally for each team, and will separate broadcasts with separate play-by-play announcers on separate channels: Flames on Sportsnet One, and Oilers on Sportsnet 360. The other all-Canadian national broadcasts this week won’t be doing that.
- The Disappearance, a new series being developed for CTV and Super Écran, has begun filming in Montreal, and announced its cast, which includes local stars Micheline Lanctôt and Kevin Parent.
- John Doyle wants to know why The Bachelorette Canada is eligible for tax credits. Meanwhile, the federal government has relaxed rules governing access to those same tax credits after outcry over the cancellation of Bazzo.TV.
- Another FHRITP incident, this time to a Radio-Canada journalist in Quebec City. It didn’t take them long to be identified and have a chat with their employer. What happened out of that, the employer won’t say.
- New TV provider VMedia is seeking donations to help its legal fight with Bell over online streaming of Bell’s channels.
- Brendan Kelly chats with Matt Holubowski, the former contestant of La Voix who is doing the rounds promoting a new album. He talks about participating in the singing competition, and what I found interesting is that producers of the show actually contacted him first asking him to audition. And at first he declined, until his (francophone) friends encouraged him to go for it.
- The Toronto Blue Jays’ latest playoff run has unsurprisingly led to great ratings for Sportsnet. Sunday’s ALDS-clinching Game 3 had 4.73 million viewers on average, making it the third-most viewed broadcast in Sportsnet’s history, behind two Blue Jays playoff games from last year. And that number doesn’t include viewers watching in French on TVA Sports. The wild-card game against the Baltimore Orioles had 4.02 million, which had been #5 on that list before the ALDS.
- Le Devoir reports on staff at Radio-Canada’s La Facture being upset with a recent ombudsman report against the show.
Radio
- Corus’s news-talk radio stations are the first in Canada to be made available on Apple Music.
- TSN 690 is being more creative with its Instagram account, posting more videos and behind-the-scenes shots.
Online/other
- Sportsnet has a new ad (that you’ve probably seen 100 times if you watch Jays games) selling Sportsnet Now as a legal alternative to unreliable pirated streams. It’s interesting that this ad acknowledges the existence of such methods, which suggests they’ve become very popular.
- TSN’s Bob McKenzie has a podcast.
News about people
- Métro has added Maïtée Labrecque-Saganash as a weekly columnist.
- Robyn Flynn is the new producer on the Aaron Rand Show on CJAD.
- By now we all know who Ken Pagan is, right?
- Peter Cheney is retiring from the Globe and Mail, among 24 editorial staff taking buyouts
- Guillaume St-Hilaire has been hired as a digital copy editor at Le Devoir.
- Global News journalist (and former Gazette colleague) Monique Muise got married over the weekend to Trudeau photographer Adam Scotti. I’m heartbroken that I can no longer call her “MoMu”. Not that I actually did that.
- CBC’s Sonali Karnick also got married.
Good reads
- Radheyan Simonpillai in NOW about the gender gap in Canadian film creation, and taking particular aim at Telefilm Canada for how it doles out the cash.
- Monique Dumont at the FPJQ on the recent report on the status of access to information in Quebec.
- The New York Times has a good graphic about when Republican Party leaders dropped their support for Donald Trump. This is one of those things that is very useful as a reference and tells a story visually very well. People in journalism should consider doing more reporting in this style where appropriate.
i caught an MLB Network game on RDS.
Rogers seems to be to blame for MLB Network not being available anywhere else in the country except for on Rogers. They sponsored them to come here and no doubt got a deal on the subscription rate which must be ridiculously high even for Bell not to carry it. Looking forward to maybe next season and the Jays having to play a game on MLB Network and then we will see the uproar.
That’s unlikely. MLB Network isn’t owned by Rogers, and except for being on its cable system there isn’t actually that strong a relationship between the two. There’s no direct interest in Rogers boosting subscriptions for MLB Network.