News about news

• VICE News explains how the RCMP is manipulating the news media to support its campaign to get more legal powers for online surveillance.
• Doc Mailloux bragged about the huge settlement he got from La Presse in a libel case. Now La Presse is threatening to sue for violating a gag order on that settlement.
• The Associated Press has clarified how it makes use of the term “alt-right”.
• The stories of Yellowknife reporter John MacFadden’s dealings with authorities are getting more numerous. CBC reports on a 2013 incident where he was manhandled by a member of the courthouse staff.

At the CRTC

• Aboriginal Voices Radio, the organization that ran radio stations in major cities that were to target indigenous Canadians in urban communities, has lost its case at the Federal Court of Appeal to have it reverse a CRTC decision revoking its licences for blatant violation of its conditions of licence. This clears the way for the commission to order the stations off the air and proceed with applications from other groups to launch new indigenous stations on those frequencies in those cities. The decision says the CRTC has received 12 applications from five groups for new stations in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto and Ottawa.
• The CRTC has approved two new ethnic radio stations in Vancouver/Surrey (one AM, one FM) and an FM retransmitter in Surrey of an existing Vancouver ethnic station.
• The commission has published an application by Sirius XM Canada Inc. for change of ownership. Sirius XM (U.S.), John Bitove (via Obelysk Media) and Slaight Communications remain the main shareholders, but the CBC’s stake would be bought out. The total cost of the transaction is $236.4 million.
• CHIN 1540 AM in Toronto has applied to convert its FM retransmitter at 91.9 FM into its own separate station, with 42 hours of simulcast programming but 84 hours of local programming.
• The CRTC has approved a minor relocation of the FM retransmitter for Montreal ethnic station CHOU (Radio Moyen-Orient) on 104.5 FM.
• The CRTC is giving itself an extra year (so until August 2018) to deal with licence renewals for several independent television services, including Super Channel, Family Channel, Évasion, Silver Screen Classics, Explora, Télémagino, Rewind, Wild TV, Playmen, NTV in St. John’s, CFTV-DT in Leamington, Ont., and some ethnic channels. This will bring their licences in line with other CBC and independent services so that new conditions of licence can be implemented for all of them at the same time.

The CBC

• The CBC board has approved a bid by the group Broccolini to build a new Maison Radio-Canada in Montreal. The new building, to be built by 2020, would sit at the René-Lévesque Blvd./Papineau Ave. corner of its current lot, across the street from the Bell Media radio and CTV/RDS buildings. The 43-year-old tower would be kept but repurposed, and remaining land (mostly the giant parking lot) developed into housing.
• The CBC has heard everyone say it should stop competing with private broadcasters, and says it’s willing to go ad-free. But only if it gets an extra $400 million or so from the government to compensate for revenue losses and fill in the extra programming. More details of the CBC’s proposals are posted here. TVA has already come out and called the proposal “bewildering”.
• The CBC has published its quarterly financial report (PDF). It shows increases in both revenues and expenses mainly related to broadcasting the 2016 Olympics. There was also a $1 million drop in revenue from subscriptions to specialty channels (CBC News, RDI, ARTV, Explora and Documentary).

TV

• Corus’s W Network has greenlit a new The Bachelor Canada, based on the success of The Bachelorette Canada. No mention is made of the previous The Bachelor Canada, which produced two unsuccessful relationships over two seasons on City TV.
• The Cooking Channel, which launches Dec. 12 (as a rebrand of W Movies), has announced programming highlights. The channel will be available on most providers.
• The first leg of the Montreal-Toronto MLS Eastern Conference final set a record as the most-watched MLS game in TSN history, almost doubling the previous record, which was the Montreal-Toronto playoff game last year.
• Videotron looks to finally add The Comedy Network and CTV News Channel in high definition (though only for subscribers with next-generation Illico boxes), according to illicotech.com. Others are MTV Canada, E!, Gusto, Nickelodeon Canada, Treehouse and Haiti HD. There are still some more it could upgrade, like TVO, BNN and MSNBC, but Comedy and CTV News, both owned by Bell Media, were probably the most in demand.

Radio

• A man has been arrested in connection with the arson at CPAM Radio Union (CJWI 1410 AM) in Montreal.

Print

• Rogers has let its staff — and the public — know what’s happening to its French consumer magazines. It’s keeping Châtelaine, though like its English counterpart it will go down to only six issues a year. L’actualité is in the midst of a sale process. And it couldn’t find a buyer for LouLou, so that magazine is shutting down in both languages. About 60 employees will lose their jobs, though some of those could be rehired if L’actualité is sold. Rogers is meeting with staff at English magazines today (including Maclean’s) to detail staff cuts on that side.
• The National Post is reducing unsigned editorials to once a week. Several staff are leaving the paper as part of larger Postmedia cuts. They include Damon van der Linde, the Financial Post reporter based in Montreal.
• Sean Craig points out how Postmedia’s parliamentary bureau has about 1/10 the staff it had at the turn of the millennium. (And that’s not including the former Sun Media staff now part of Postmedia.)
• With serious cuts at Postmedia bringing down morale, people were not amused at news that executives got hundreds of thousands of dollars of retention bonuses. Two unions representing Postmedia employees said they should give those bonuses back.

Movies

• This critique of movie accents is really good and worth watching.

Online

• The Internet Archive, the folks behind the WayBack machine, want to mirror their library in Canada now that Donald Trump has been elected president of the United States.
• Média Boutique, which works on a business model started at Voir in which businesses buy ads through gift cards that media then sell to consumers at discounted rates, is growing its client base. It has signed with V and RNC Media.
• The Globe and Mail is moving to peer moderation of website comments in a bid to keep them civil. Peer moderation can be useful in reducing spam and hateful comments, but it also risks imposing the bias of the majority and encouraging group-think.
• Huffington Post Canada has effectively shut down its B.C. bureau.
• Narcity, the group behind MTL Blog and its spinoffs, has opened a new one in Boston.
• Netflix is making some of its content available for offline download.

After 23 years, I'm saying farewell Nov. 30 to my second family. What a privilege it has been to work @OttawaCitizen. pic.twitter.com/gwOmHVrEr7

— Janet Wilson (@JanetDWilson) November 29, 2016

News about people

• Tom Clark, host of Global’s The West Block, is leaving journalism Jan. 1. The press release seems careful not to call it a retirement, and Clark says there will be an announcement about his future in January.
• Pierre-Elliott Levasseur has been named the new president of La Presse. Guy Crevier remains publisher, but will take a step back from day-to-day management. François Pouliot examines the state of La Presse amid this transition.
• Susan Schwartz has ended her lifestyle column in the Montreal Gazette with a final goodbye. She’s still with the paper, writing news and features. There’s no formal list of columns cut by the paper, but Doug Camilli, The Watchers, Applause, Monday Calendar and Tip Sheet are among those that will no longer appear.
• J-Source is compiling a list of people at the Globe and Mail who took buyouts.
• Hugo Meunier has left La Presse to become head of digital content at the Journal de Montréal. This reverses a trend of pre-lockout JdeM staff eventually finding jobs at La Presse.
• Maureen Holloway, a former Montreal radio host who still contributes to CHOM FM in the morning, has left Corus’s Q107 to join Rogers’s CHFI-FM. Unusual for someone quitting for a competitor, she was permitted to say goodbye to her listeners on Q107.
• Dave Rogers, a former Ottawa Citizen reporter, was found dead with his wife. Their son has been charged with murder.
• More news about specific people cut at Postmedia should come this week as the deadline for responses to buyout applications passes. Some Citizen staff like Ian MacLeod, Janet Wilson and Jason Fekete announced their departures already on Twitter.
• Jane Lytvynenko, formerly of Canadaland, will now join the ranks of BuzzFeed.

Good reads

• BuzzFeed on how single moms in Britain have found a business model selling their stories about making money out of the social safety net.

Obituaries

• Robert Gibbens, journalist including a contributor to the Montreal Gazette’s business section and Financial Post up until the age of 89. No formal obituary, but a nice tribute from his granddaughter, Tina Gibbens-Tenneriello.

Jobs

• Communications officer, CBC Montreal (deadline: Dec. 4)
• Journalist (temporary), 98.5 FM (deadline: Dec. 9)
• Bourse AJIQ-Rogers (deadline: Feb. 13)

Upcoming events

• Dec. 3: CTV Montreal/TSN 690 charity hockey game in Dorval
• Dec. 11: CBC Montreal Christmas Sing-In

FPJQ

• The Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec held its conference this weekend and elected its board (all positions but those of regular administrators were acclaimed):
  • President: Stéphane Giroux (CTV Montreal)
  • Vice-president: Jean-Thomas Léveillé (La Presse)
  • Secretary-treasurer: Valérie Gaudreau (Le Soleil)
  • Administrators:
    • Michaël Nguyen (Journal de Montréal)
    • Naël Shiab (L’actualité)
    • Azeb Wolde-Giorghis (Radio-Canada)
    • Pierre St-Arnaud (Presse Canadienne)
  • Administrator from regions outside Montreal: Simon Dominé (Le Courant in Mont-Laurier)
• There were also journalists appointed to the Quebec Press Council.
• The FPJQ conference also included many discussions about issues facing the journalism industry. The best one-liners can be found by searching through the hashtag on Twitter.
• The FPJQ’s Judith Jasmin (journalism) and Antoine Désilets (photojournalism) awards were also given out.

News about news

• Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has published a post explaining the measures his company will take to combat fake news. The task is a delicate one, both because fake news is hard to identify in a way everyone will agree with, and because Facebook doesn’t want to put itself in a position of having to censor the Internet.
• La Presse has suspended columnist Suzanne Colpron after discovering her stories had repeatedly plagiarized quotes from other publications, including Le Devoir. The suspension is indefinite, and surprisingly not permanent. La Clique du Plateau notes that one of Colpron’s recent columns denounced Melania Trump for plagiarizing Michelle Obama in her speech at the Republican National Convention.
• CBC remains a punching bag at Canadian Heritage committee hearings. Here’s the Globe and Mail. This week at the CRTC, TVA and V piled on, and today Maxime Bernier, candidate for the Conservative leadership, pledged to reduce the CBC’s budget. They all seem to agree on one point: The CBC should not have government subsidies to compete with private broadcasters and news outlets. CBC’s Hubert Lacroix finally had enough and wrote an open letter to the committee defending its existence.
• Donald Trump met with the New York Times, after the meeting was originally called off over a difference about what was on and off the record. The transcript is here.
• Access to information requests are often used by journalists to get things like emails between government officials that were never meant to be public. Some have even used the law to get access to emails that talk about how a government agency will respond to a journalist’s request. But Winnipeg police made use of the law for an inventive purpose: Looking into a journalist. The journalist had inquired about a police officer accused of drug trafficking, and the police queried the justice department for records about communications with the journalist. Needless to say, the media is very concerned about this.

At the CRTC

• The commission is currently holding a hearing in Laval into TV licence renewals for French-language private broadcasting groups — TVA, V, Bell Media and Corus. I’m covering the hearing for Cartt.ca, and subscribers can find the recap of Tuesday’s session here. All four companies are calling for flexibility and resisting new rules related to local news and spending on Canadian content. But TVA and V are not seeking to reduce the amount of local programming they do outside Montreal. A transcript of the hearing is here, all 63,477 words of it. And La Presse’s Vincent Brousseau-Pouliot also gives his highlights.
• The CRTC gave one-year licence renewals to major cable companies after reviewing how they’re handling their obligations to provide pick-and-pay channels (even though they only come into effect fully next week). The decision establishes “best practices” to not screw over customers, but doesn’t establish any new conditions of licence. It won’t regulate set-top box prices (which aren’t included in the $25/month skinny basic), or the price of individual channels (which are high enough to make it more expensive than buying packages) or prohibit IPTV providers from requiring Internet service be purchased first to get TV, but it suggests that providers who don’t follow these “best practices” might have conditions imposed on them next year. The one-year licence renewal isn’t punishment, but rather because many other issues related to their licences haven’t been explored yet, including community television programming, which has several outstanding complaints for major providers.

TV

• Videotron has launched its new TV packaging strategy online in advance of next week’s implementation of the new CRTC pick-and-pay regulations (though Videotron was already largely compliant and had been for years). The focus is still on custom packages, with sports channels being available at a higher tier. Most channels cost $5 à la carte, while TSN 1-5, Sportsnet regional channels, RDS 1/2 and TVA Sports 1/2 cost $15 each, the same as premium channels like TMN/HBO. In most cases it’s easier to take a pick-your-own package than build one à la carte, but there isn’t a very good option for people who want a lot of the cheaper channels.
• The Montreal Gazette’s Brendan Kelly has a story about 21 Thunder, a soccer-themed drama series for CBC that was shot in Montreal.
• Speaking of English TV series being shot in Montreal, Bill Brioux notes for Canadian Press that this seems to be an upward trend, despite 19-2 winding down and Quantico moving production to New York.
• VMedia, a new TV distribution company based in Ontario, has lost a court case against Bell Media after it launched a new service that distributed television signals over the Internet to Roku devices. VMedia interpreted its system as being part of its licensed distribution service, while Bell argued successfully that it was actually an online over-the-top service that requires Bell’s permission to rebroadcast CTV and CTV Two. The judge said ultimately it should be the CRTC resolving this issue. Allowing licensed distributors to offer channels over-the-top would allow them to compete nationwide without setting up expensive wired networks or leasing space from cable and phone companies.
• VRAK has cancelled its year-end sketch show Meilleur avant le 31, bon pareil le 1er, but it won’t get out of year-end specials entirely. It announced its new comedic news analysis show ALT will have a year-in-review special on New Year’s Eve.
• TVA is working on a dance reality show and Julie Snyder is appearing more often on Radio-Canada shows these days.
• Le clan, a Radio-Canada drama series about a man living in rural Quebec under a witness protection program, that the network buried on Saturday nights during its first season, has been picked up for a U.S. pilot in English. Maybe this, along with its popularity here, will convince the broadcaster that the show is more than just a way of fulfilling its obligations to have some dramatic television produced outside of Montreal.
• 30 vies, the English version of 19-2 and CBC’s Interrupt This Program were all nominated for the International Emmy Awards. They all came back emptyhanded.
• Sphère Média Plus, which developed 19-2 and Nouvelle adresse into English-language Canadian versions, wants to do the same with its latest hit, L’imposteur, which just wrapped up its first season on TVA. Bell Media is attached to the project.
• Canadiens behind-the-scenes docu-infomercial 24CH is back for a fifth season on Canal D, RDS, CTV Montreal and TSN. The first episode aired in French last Saturday and will air in English tonight at midnight on TSN5 and Saturday at 1:30pm on CTV Montreal. French episodes air Saturdays 6pm on Canal D and 6:30pm on RDS.
• Vice has launched Viceland in France. In Quebec, V told the CRTC on Tuesday that Vice shows will begin airing on V and MusiquePlus in February. A Quebec Viceland channel is also planned some time in 2017.

RIP CIAJ-FM Prince Rupert https://t.co/sEjwjxFcsQ #CRTC pic.twitter.com/RV5n9uUuou

— Steve Faguy (@fagstein) November 17, 2016

Radio

• CFNV 940 AM had a deadline of Monday, Nov. 21, to launch. It’s broadcasting music with recorded messages asking people to report reception/interference issues, which suggests it’s still in the on-air testing phase. I’ve asked the CRTC for clarification on its status. In the meantime, it has a Twitter account, which notes in a reply that regular programming should begin at the beginning of 2017. Still no website, or even really a brand beyond its frequency. And a video posted last month and then deleted, in which partner Nicolas Tétrault shows off the transmitter site, has been reposted to YouTube.
• A Winnipeg Free Press profile of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network notes that it plans a U.S. expansion, but also that it has made a proposal to re-establish a network of urban indigenous radio stations that was once Aboriginal Voices Radio. AVR lost its licences for stations in Toronto, Ottawa, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver last year after the CRTC decided its repeated violations of licence conditions were too much. It has called for new applications for those frequencies, with indigenous stations given priority, but that process is on hold while AVR appeals the CRTC’s decision.
• Bell Media has re-assembled a 24-station network that will broadcast the Grey Cup on Sunday. It includes TSN Radio stations, naturally, but also many others. It’s much heavier out west than east, with only two stations east of Ottawa: Montreal’s TSN 690 and Halifax’s News 95.7.

Print

• The Montreal Gazette made several minor changes on Monday, moving local business, arts and life stories into the A section so that the Financial Post section can be the same throughout the chain. The (still local) editorial page moves to the back of the National Post section, and starting next week the space for sports statistics will be reduced. And a change to the font used in the Sudoku puzzle has been reverted. Unannounced are some cuts to freelance content. They include the Monday Calendar, which I had compiled every week (except those without a Monday paper) since it started in 2008, and gossip columnist Doug Camilli. His last column was Friday.
• Alexandre Taillefer, the entrepreneur who launched Téo Taxi and bought Voir, says he’s in discussions about buying Rogers’s French-language magazines including L’actualité. That doesn’t mean it’ll happen, or that he’s the only potential buyer, but it’s an encouraging prospect.
• Canadaland criticized a Globe and Mail story about a diamond mine that resulted from a journalist being given a free trip. This was disclosed in the story, but its failure to speak to critics of the mine caused it to lack balance and caused problems, the public editor agreed.
• The Regina Leader-Post is closing its mailroom facilities, outsourcing inserts to Saskatoon.
• Charlie Hebdo is launching a German version.

Movies

• The Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montréal has publicly apologized for screening the film Of the North at last year’s festival. The documentary, which is a collection of video the (white) creator found on YouTube, was condemned by indigenous groups of being racist, presenting a caricatured vision of what life is like in the arctic.

Online/other

• The CBC podcast Someone Knows Something, aka Canadian Serial, is back for a second season.
• Gilbert Rozon has apologized after an ad for Montreal’s 375th anniversary showed only white Quebec artists. Rozon is rightfully accepting the blame, but it’s as much an indication of the whiteness of the artistic community (particularly its biggest stars) as it is the cluelessness of the organizing committee.
• Wind Mobile, now owned by Shaw, has been renamed as Freedom Mobile. The Globe and Mail suggests they didn’t just go with Shaw Mobile mainly because they need to improve the network before attaching that brand to it.

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News about people

• Andray Domise, a columnist for Maclean’s and former co-host of the Canadaland Commons podcast, has been charged with domestic violence. He says he was actually the one being abused in the relationship.
• Geoffré Samson, a journalist with Charlevoix radio station CIHO-FM, got into trouble with his boss when he complained during the FPJQ conference about the local MNA getting mad if he didn’t follow the spin of her press releases. She immediately took charge and arranged for the station to apologize. The journalist says he was misinterpreted.
• The New York Times profiles Dylan Ratigan, who left a hosting job at MSNBC and is now using technology to try to change the world.
• Glenn Beck, a former Fox News blowhard, has undergone a transformation and is now a major Donald Trump critic. The New York Times interviews him.
• James Mirtle has left the Globe and Mail to be editor-in-chief of The Athletic, a sports news start-up. He joins fellow former newspaper columnist Sean Fitz-Gerald.

Good reads

• The New York Times on how a single tweet based on an incorrect assumption led to partisan news coverage and eventually a tweet by Donald Trump.
• A fake news writer speaks to the Washington Post about how right-wing people don’t fact-check his stories and he feels bad that Donald Trump, who he hates, has ended up in the White House because of people like him and conspiracy theories and false information like what he peddles that people eat up.

Obituaries

• Israel Switzer, Canadian cable TV pioneer

Jobs

• National Observer investigative reporter in Ontario (deadline: Nov. 30)
• Communications officer, CBC Montreal (deadline: Dec. 4)
• Journalist (temporary), 98.5 FM (deadline: Dec. 9)
• Bourse AJIQ-Rogers (deadline: Feb. 13)

Upcoming events

• Nov. 22-24: CRTC hearing on French-language TV licence renewals in Laval
• Dec. 11: CBC Montreal Christmas Sing-In

News about news

• A Ryerson University research project looked at local news coverage in eight communities. Unfortunately that’s far too small a sample size to come to any real conclusions.
• The federal heritage parliamentary committee continues hearing complaints from people about the CBC. The Globe and Mail was the latest one.
• The Quebec government is giving a new commission of inquiry into the protection of journalists’ sources until 2018 to file its report.
• There are plenty of stories about journalists and minorities being the targets of online verbal abuse. This one from a Washington Post fact-checker is interesting, if only because the subject started asking questions of her abusers and found many of them backed down quickly when they realized they were shouting at a real person.
• Blacklock’s Reporter, the paywalled news service covering the federal government, has lost a court case against the people they’re reporting on after they found out that one of the publication’s articles was shared among staff at the Finance Department who didn’t subscribe to the publication. The judge found the sharing over email clearly fell under the fair dealing protection.
• A bizarre situation in Alberta where a judge refrained in a court decision from naming the man he had convicted of Internet luring of an 11-year-old. He did so because he apparently wanted to protect the man from vigilantes who might seek alternative justice. But while the victim’s name is subject to a publication ban, the offender’s is not (none was requested), so CBC is naming him anyway.

At the CRTC

• Days before a hearing on TV licence renewals, a temporary fill-in CRTC commissioner has been named: civil servant Judith LaRocque. She has a six-month term, enough to serve as a francophone commissioner studying the renewals of TVA and V.
• CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais gave a keynote speech to the Canadian chapter of the International Institute of Communications today. The speech goes over the past four years of the commission’s work (what a coincidence, that happens to be the amount of time he’s been there) and is mainly self-congratulatory. He also criticizes Canada’s television creative community for overstating the effect of a reduction in Canadian content requirements, he criticizes the “news media” for “spilled ink and exhaled air”, he criticizes online media for not having the training to replace traditional media reporters, he criticizes Shomi for pulling the plug too early and being lazy, and he criticizes “naysayers” in general for making “false and misleading statements.”

TV

• An interesting featurette from Mohawk Girls on how the series incorporates the Mohawk language into its show.
• Corus has launched History Vault, a subscription video-on-demand service of History’s archival collection, for $5.50 a month.

Radio

• Last week the deadline passed for the launch of the TTP Media station at 600 AM in Montreal. The commission confirmed to me that an application for an extension to that deadline has been filed, but no decision has been reached yet. The last extension said it would be the final one, but the CRTC said the same two years ago about 940 and gave another extension anyway. They have until Nov. 21 to inform the commission that they are ready to launch the 940 station, which has been doing some on-air testing.
• There was an on-air occupation by staff of Radio Centre-Ville (CINQ-FM 102.3) on the weekend. Contributors to the community-run ethnic radio station are complaining about management decisions to rent out airtime to stem a financial crisis. They’ve called for a special general assembly so they can discuss and vote on what to do about the situation.
• West Island Gazette columnist Victor Schukov writes that the West Island needs its own radio station. He dismissed The Jewel 106.7 in Hudson (with comments that pissed off staff at that station), and noted that CFOX, the former West Island AM radio station, shut down because it wouldn’t work financially. Setting aside the lack of available FM frequencies, there doesn’t seem to be much of a case that West Islanders are not properly served by CJAD or other stations that broadcast from downtown.

No Gazette employee I worked with was ever finer than office manager June Thompson who leaves the newspaper today after 38 years. pic.twitter.com/q8bVcXuBcb

— Terry Mosher (@TerryMosher1) November 11, 2016

Print

• Friday was the last day for two managers at the Montreal Gazette whose jobs are being eliminated as part of the latest major staff cut at Postmedia: Photo editor Marcos Townsend and newsroom administrator June Thompson. The latter, who has been holding the newsroom together for decades, got a special drawing from the local cartoonist.
• There’s been a major reorganization of newsroom management jobs at the Toronto Star. This memo gives the details.
• The New York Observer has ended its print edition.

Online

• Radio-Canada has launched a new website for francophone aboriginals and started an internship program. Here’s a note from its new editor-in-chief.
• Urbania is the latest partner that will get some content tacked on to La Presse+ for free.
• The CBC issued a press release defending its legal threats against podcast app developers who use ads to get revenue from those apps. Because the apps can be used to download CBC podcasts, it’s considered a commercial use of those podcasts, and the CBC says they need permission. The broadcaster is interpreting someone downloading a podcast using a podcast app as the podcast developer making “use” of CBC content.
• AMC Networks has bought a minority stake in Funny or Die, which will likely mean the website working more closely with TV channel IFC.
• Google has decided to make fake news sites ineligible for its Google AdSense platform, and Facebook is working to cut down on people being fooled by false news, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg writing a note to users.

Movies

• The CBC has launched a new fund to assist underrepresented Candian filmmakers creating fictional works. “Eligible projects will be judged solely on creative merit.”

News about people

• Sean Fitz-Gerald has a new job at a Toronto-based sports journalism startup.
• Mike Bullard is in more legal trouble related to how he’s allegedly treating his ex-girlfriend.

Obituaries

• Gwen Ifill, PBS news anchor
• Janet Wright, actress (Corner Gas)
• Cella Irvine, digital media manager and former About.com leader

Jobs

• California bureau, Globe and Mail
• Communications officer, CBC Montreal
• Journalist (temporary), 98.5 FM (deadline: Dec. 9)
• Bourse AJIQ-Rogers (deadline: Feb. 13)

Upcoming events

• Nov. 18-20: FPJQ conference in Mont-Saint-Sauveur
• Nov. 22-24: CRTC hearing on French-language TV licence renewals in Laval
• Dec. 11: CBC Montreal Christmas Sing-In

And a bunch of other stuff that has nothing to do with what happened in the midwest U.S. yesterday.

News about news

• A contempt of court charge against Andew Douglas of Halifax’s Frank magazine has been dropped. Douglas had been accused of violating a publication ban, but argued the information had been gathered independently and didn’t come from the court.
• People are angry that Global BC ran video of a teen being killed. They’ve started a petition demanding resignations, because that’s always the proper remedy to a disagreement. CBC News published an editor’s note on why it chose not to publish the video.
• The Canadian Press is looking to update its stylebook to take into account changing vocabulary related to marginalized communities. Or, for you red-state folks, to make it more politically correct.
• CTV reporter Stéphane Giroux will be the new president of the FPJQ, Quebec’s journalist association. No other candidate submitted before the deadline. The other executive positions were also elected by acclamation, but there are 10 candidates for the four administrator positions available.
• Rolling Stone magazine and reporter Sabrina Erdely have been ordered to pay $3 million after losing a defamation lawsuit over the since debunked story of a rape on a university campus.

At the CRTC

• The commission has released what it calls a policy about blocking of nuisance phone calls. It addresses the main points of the policy (What is a nuisance call? Do you block or just redirect? Do you implement network-wide or allow subscribers to choose?), but mainly kicks the can down the road hoping for more solutions from the industry. One thing it is concretely moving toward, however, is blocking of calls with blatantly illegitimate caller IDs (000-0000, your number, or a local number when it’s a long-distance call).
• The CBC has filed an “as-built” application with the CRTC for CBMT-DT Montreal (CBC Television) so that the commission’s records match what is actually being used. The location, height and signal range are identical, but the transmitter power is actually 363,000 watts ERP instead of 436,340W.

Well, we knew this day would come. The old #CornerGas station set has to finally come down. But, GOOD NEWS… >> https://t.co/dmDiNvjICT pic.twitter.com/NfPK2nCsPn

— Brent Butt (@BrentButt) November 4, 2016

TV

• The Corner Gas set in Rouleau, Sask., was torn down, having deteriorated beyond the point of being safe.
• TVA has decided not to renew Le Banquier, the game show based on Deal or No Deal. This cuts TVA’s last ties with Julie Snyder, who was once the biggest name at the network.
• A documentary on PK Subban produced by PK fan Louis Morissette will air on RDS and Canal D in French on Nov. 16, and on HBO Canada on Nov. 18.
• CHCH Television in Hamilton, Ont., has sold its historic home as it downsizes.
• Former Canadien Francis Bouillon hosts a new reality series on Z.
• Bell TV now has an app for Apple TV allowing subscribers to use an Apple TV box as a second set-top box. It gives access to most but not all channels, and doesn’t have all features.

Radio

• Montreal’s 91.9 Sports (CKLX-FM) has signed a five-year deal to broadcast games of the Laval Rocket American Hockey League team, starting next season when they move from St. John’s. This is the Canadiens’ farm team, though interest in its games won’t be nearly as much as those of the Canadiens themselves. Cogeco recently announced that its rights to Canadiens games on 98.5 FM and other stations has been extended to 2023.
• The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council forced CHOI-FM in Quebec City to acknowledge on air that it failed to provide accurate information during a broadcast of André Arthur’s show in February, during which he accused an animal shelter of mistreating animals, and despite the shelter showing it didn’t, repeated that accusation four days later.
• Radio-Canada has updated its ICI Première app, which now gives users access to the Première Plus platform of on-demand content.
• South Asian Broadcasting has agreed to buy Toronto’s CIRV-FM. The deal requires CRTC approval.
• The CRTC has received applications for new radio stations in several markets, and the first step is a public consultation where it asks for opinions on whether the market can sustain another station (and whether there’s other interest in a new application). This week it published notices for:
  • Brampton, Ont. (two ethnic stations at 1190 AM)
  • St. John’s, N.L. (commercial station at 98.3 FM)
  • Ottawa-Gatineau (ethnic station at 1630 AM)

Print

• Rogers has begun selling off the magazines it put for sale. Marketing will go to Brunico Communications, owner of Strategy Magazine, Media in Canada and others. Canadian Grocer, Pharmacy Practice+, Profession Santé and The Medical Post go to American company EnsembleIQ. No word yet on the French consumer magazines.
• The Wall Street Journal is cutting dozens of jobs.
• Le Devoir wants to shut down a company whose purpose was to allow people to invest in the newspaper in the 1990s. The company owes about as much to Le Devoir as it’s worth, so those investors won’t see any money.
• The Halifax Chronicle Herald, whose staff has been on strike for almost a year now, has published another open letter from its CEO. The union (which didn’t appreciate that) is arguing the company is refusing to negotiate.
• Fort McMurray Today is no longer a daily newspaper. It’s dropping from six editions a week to two.
• Postmedia has given employees until Friday to apply for its buyout offer.
• Members of the Ottawa Citizen’s union have a clause in their contract that protects them from layoffs so long as the paper uses freelancers. So the paper is going to stop using freelancers.
• For the Chicago Cubs, a World Series championship comes once in 108 years. The Chicago Tribune is profiting from the occasion with merchandising.

Online

• CBC has launched its controversial opinion page. At the same time, it announced that Neil MacDonald, whose analyses has riled many that don’t agree with him, is being reassigned to the opinion section and will opine full-time, which means no more reporting for him. The new project will require changes to the CBC’s journalistic standards and practices.
• CBC has also begun threatening legal action against developers of podcast apps supported by advertising. Why? Because you can download CBC podcasts with them and then the ads in the app constitute commercial use. Cory Doctorow is not amused, and neither is Michael Geist, unsurprisingly.
• Bell says CraveTV has passed the million subscriber mark. Usual grains of salt to be applied because many people get Crave bundled as part of TV packages so don’t pay full price for it.

@seanrcampbell @TSN690 Ready to go with My play by play man for tonight. pic.twitter.com/u3Drx9LRIX

— Sergio Momesso (@SergioMomesso36) November 9, 2016

News about people

• TSN 690’s Sean Campbell got his first taste of Canadiens play-by-play filling in for Dan Robertson during Tuesday’s Canadiens game.
• Sam Zniber, former program director at 92.5 The Beat, has been hired as “Vice President and Strategic Consultant” at Radio Intelligence, a consulting firm.
• Mutsumi Takahashi marked 30 years as anchor at CTV Montreal.
• Erin Davis is retiring as morning host at Toronto’s CHFI 98.1.
• Lauren Pelley is the latest Toronto Star journalist to announce her departure on Twitter. She joins Sean Fitz-Gerald and others.
• Jennifer Tryon, who used to be based in Montreal, has left Global News. She has her crafting work to keep her busy.
• Jessica A. Dionne has been promoted to assistant promotions manager at Bell Media radio stations in Montreal. She works under Linda Fraraccio, just like she did when they were both at The Beat.

Jobs

• News editor, Canadaland
• California bureau, Globe and Mail
• Communications officer, CBC Montreal

Upcoming events

• Nov. 10: “L’Affaire Lagacé: A Free Press in the Surveillance State”, panel discussion at McGill
• Nov. 18-20: FPJQ conference in Mont-Saint-Sauveur
• Nov. 22-24: CRTC hearing on French-language TV licence renewals in Laval
• Dec. 11: CBC Montreal Christmas Sing-In

Because apparently things happened in the media universe this week that didn’t involve Patrick Lagacé…

News about news

• In case you haven’t seen Lagacé’s face everywhere, the New York Times can summarize the story for you.
• The Boston Globe is trying something new: Getting a consortium of non-profit interests to financially support them maintaining a classical music critic. The paper says it will pay close attention to any conflicts, but if this becomes a trend, future media outlets may not be as scrutinizing.
• Radio-Canada has a story about a freelance photographer on the South Shore working for the local newspaper but also the city government it covers. The paper knew about the arrangement and is OK with it because he’s a freelancer. He says he has the ability to switch hats — even when covering the same event for both parties — and he’s a photographer, not a reporter. Expect this kind of thing to become more common as news media reduce their workforce and rely more on poorly paid freelancers who need other jobs to pay the bills.
• The Rebel will get to go to that climate conference as journalists after all.

At the CRTC

• Groupe V Média, which owns V, MusiquePlus and Max (formerly Musimax) has filed a complaint against Bell Canada over the latter’s decision to repackage those two specialty channels. Bell has three packages, Good, Better and Best (Bon, Mieux and Meilleur in Quebec) and is moving them from the Good/Bon ($35/month) to Best/Meilleur ($98/month) in addition to having them available à la carte as the CRTC requires. V looked at the numbers and concluded that this would cost them a lot of subscribers. The exact numbers are redacted, but apparently the vast majority of Bell subscribers who have one of these three packages (many others are on grandfathered packages) have the lowest level. And not like slightly more than half, more like about 95%. This could cost them hundreds of thousands of subscribers. The CRTC has ordered Bell to keep MP and Max in their lowest-tier package until this is resolved. (You can download the complaint letter here. The CRTC has expedited the process and the deadline to comment is tonight at 8pm ET.)
• The commission is holding off on imposing accuracy rules for closed captioning after broadcasters formed a working group that will propose an alternative method. They have two years to do so.
• The CRTC has set new standard conditions of licence for TV services. Among the changes, pay TV channels like The Movie Network, Super Channel and Family can now broadcast ads, there is no limit on the broadcast of music videos (since MuchMusic, MusiquePlus et al no longer have genre protection), and pay-per-view and video-on-demand services no longer have to give 100% of revenues from distribution of Canadian feature films to their creators. Other changes could come as a result of a hearing later this month looking at licence renewals for the major broadcasters and a review of local and community programming.
• The commission has released a working document in advance of the hearing on big companies’ TV licence renewals, which outlines some key issues to be discussed. Besides the usual discussions of Canadian programming expenditure requirements, issues include:
  • OMNI’s application for mandatory distribution
  • Bell’s proposal to shut down 40 rebroadcasting transmitters
  • Corus’s requests for exceptions to local programming quotas (though most of those requests have been dropped)
  • Local programming requirements for TVA and V stations in Quebec
  • A proposal by the CRTC to simplify the process of TV stations changing frequency as a result of the upcoming reallocation of 600 MHz to mobile. The new process would require approval of technical changes by Industry Canada but not by the CRTC so that “tight” deadlines could be met.
• Bell has won the right to appeal the CRTC decision on Super Bowl simultaneous substitution, but the court has turned down a request to suspend the decision until the outcome of the case. This means that Super Bowl LI will likely be available with American ads on Fox.

TV

• Quebecor Media is cutting 220 jobs, including 125 at subsidiary TVA Group, representing about 8% of its workforce. There are few details, other than centralization of advertising sales and the shutdown of two small magazines.
• The New York Times did a profile on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, which plans to expand to the United States next year.
• Radio-Canada has a new strategy for broadcasting Quebec movies, with a weekly window on Tou.tv Extra (Sundays 8pm), ARTV (Sundays 9pm and Thursdays 10pm) and Radio-Canada Télé (Fridays 11pm) showing a movie of the week without commercials. It begins this Sunday with Henri, Henri.
• The final cuts at CBC/Radio-Canada out of those announced in 2014 will be final when production of the drama Auberge du chien noir ends and those involved laid off. It’s the last of these series that is produced in-house.
• Bell Media is producing a documentary on the Tragically Hip’s Man Machine Poem tour.
• Hulu has reached a major deal with Disney (ABC) and Fox to add live streaming of their channels to its service, taking it one step closer to being able to offer a skinny-cable-like over-the-top package.
• Northwest Cable News, a 24-hour regional news channel serving the U.S. Pacific Northwest, is shutting down, which will kill 20 jobs. This could be a bad omen for Global’s BC News 1, another regional news channel that’s still losing millions of dollars a year.

Today CBC celebrates its 80th birthday! From 1967, here's a short history of CBC Radio: https://t.co/PxRicbZ35F @cbcradio pic.twitter.com/Xdx0VDfimr

— CBC Archives (@cbc_archives) November 2, 2016

Radio

• Some updates since the news that TTP Media purchased the AM broadcasting transmitter in Kahnawake from Cogeco Media. Testing has begun for the 940 AM station, which was transmitting a high-pitched tone (likely to tune the antenna and confirm signal strength at short distances) during the day last week. Industry Canada confirms its status as “on-air testing” and lists a callsign: CFNV. The Kahnawake council also sent out a note confirming the testing at 940. Reception reports have been coming in from eastern Ontario and the northern U.S. Because 940 is a clear channel, its reach should be much farther when it begins testing at night. Still no public statement from the owners, or any news about studios, talent or a launch date. There’s also no news about 600 AM, which has a week until its next deadline to launch (expect a request for an extension).
• CKUT has launched a new show for and by the Inuit community that’s at least partly in Inuktitut.
• Charles Adler is coming back to radio, with a new radio show syndicated on Corus’s AM talk stations, including his former home base of CJOB Winnipeg. He’ll host a U.S. election special next week.

Print

• Business magazine Les Affaires is going from about weekly to about biweekly (42 to 28 issues a year). Les Affaires is owned by TC Media, which among other things plans to centralize page layout at the same place it does layout for all its community newspapers. No word yet on how many jobs will be cut.
• La Presse dug into Groupe TVA’s financial report, and found that its magazine division TVA Publications is not doing well.
• Incidentally, Monday was apparently the deadline to express interest in buying Rogers’s French magazines, according to TVA Nouvelles.
• As part of Quebecor’s triple-digit job cut, TVA Publications will be shutting down two magazines: Chez Soi (home decor, 10x a year, 410,000 average print readers) and Tellement Bon (recipes, 6x a year). TVA Publications has plenty of other magazines whose content overlaps.
• The Toronto Star released its financial results, and while the bottom line is good, just about all the details are bad. Star Touch, the La Presse-like tablet app, has about a third of the expected readers, but the Star is staying committed to it.
• An 18.5% drop in print advertising revenue and a 21.4% increase in digital ad revenue means a third of the New York Times’ ad revenue comes from digital.
• La Presse is cutting eight jobs in photo and video production.
• A major U.S. newspaper takeover, Gannett buying Tronc, looks like it won’t happen after all.

Online

• Goodbye Vine.
• CBC’s Heather Conway defends the broadcaster’s move to put more opinion online in a “get the facts” statement.
• Those “around the web” or “you might also like” or “promoted stories” ads that link to sometimes legitimate and sometimes really sketchy stories elsewhere on the web are getting so bad that publishers are rethinking whether to have them despite the revenue they bring in.
• Gawker has settled with Hulk Hogan, whose lawsuit against it ended up killing the website. Hogan gets $31 million plus a cut of the sale of Gawker to Univision.
• Concordia University journalism students are planning a live webcast news special covering the U.S. presidential election results on Tuesday.

Hey – look what just happened here! Congrats @robynlisaflynn #superstar pic.twitter.com/i6ht7V64CP

— Mitch Melnick (@HunterZThompson) November 1, 2016

News about people

• Michel Bissonnette has been hired to replace the retiring Louis Lalande as head of Radio-Canada. Bissonnette leaves production company Zone 3 (which produces a whole bunch of Quebec TV series, including Infoman, Les Francs-Tireurs, Code F. and Marina Orsini), where he was president. Richard Therrien summarizes his career.
• Robyn Flynn is the employee of the month at Bell Media Radio in Montreal
• Michel Boyer, a former Bell Media reporter in Montreal whose career took him out to Edmonton, is taking on a new job at CTV’s national bureau in Ottawa.
• Postmedia CEO Paul Godfrey has had his contract extended to 2020.
• Serena Thadani-Anthony, a former HR director at CBC, who took over on an interim basis after the Ghomeshi affair, is suing the corporation because she believes it conspired to fire her.

Good reads

• The Columbia Journalism Review on the power and risk of calling someone a liar in a news story.

Jobs

• Montreal Gazette reporting and editing summer internships (deadline Nov. 4)
• News editor, Canadaland

Upcoming events

• Nov. 18-20: FPJQ conference in Mont-Saint-Sauveur
• Dec. 11: CBC Christmas Sing-In

Obituaries

• Dave Broadfoot, comedian
• Jean Thivierge, Radio-Canada parliamentary correspondent