At the CRTC
- A profile of one of the commission’s lawyers gives some insight into how it works on a legal level, and notes the CRTC shot down Bell after it asked for a meeting with commissioners following its Super Bowl decision.
TV
- The CRTC’s Super Bowl decision means the Oscars became the most-watched TV broadcast of 2017 so far. Though the fact that the peak viewing happened so early in the broadcast might be an indication that it goes on way too long.
- Anne-Marie Losique is bringing Hustler TV to Canada, in addition to the existing Vivid TV (formerly Vanessa) channels in French and English. The new channel launches March 21.
- Le Devoir has been reviewing each episode of CTV’s Cardinal, starring Karine Vanasse and directed by Daniel (Podz) Grou. The reviews focus more on the creation of the show or style choices by the director than on the plot or characters.
- Speaking of which, a day before the finale of its six-episode season, Bell Media has announced Cardinal’s renewal for seasons 2 and 3. The series has averaged 1.2 million viewers in Canada.
- HBO Canada is offering more free previews of its series, now letting online or on demand users watch the entire first season of Game of Thrones, Girls, Veep, Silicon Valley and Ballers. It’s also making an episode or two of new series available for free. Both are until March 31. The network has been scoring well, setting viewing records for John Oliver and Bill Maher, each breaking the 400,000 barrier.
- The Journal de Montréal looks at what impact La Voix can have on an artist’s career.
Radio
- Radioplayer Canada launched today. The app, similar to Bell’s iHeartRadio app, has almost every station that isn’t owned by Bell, including all Corus, Rogers and Cogeco radio stations. In Montreal, that includes Cogeco’s The Beat 92.5, 98.5fm, CKOI, Rythme FM and Radio Circulation, plus RNC Media’s 91,9 Sports. So far, at least, it looks like the player doesn’t have preroll ads, and it’s focused less on randomly switching between stations than iHeart. Already found a few bugs related to the location-based station search (it either doesn’t work, or it shows Saskatoon stations for Montreal, and it doesn’t show CBC stations), and neither the Google Play store nor the App Store list this app first when searching for “radioplayer”, which could lead to a lot of people downloading the wrong app.
- Quebec City’s BLVD 102,1, which has become the home of André Arthur and Nathalie Normandeau, has added Journal de Montréal columnist Sophie Durocher to its lineup, which means it’s now a talk radio station during the morning, day and afternoon weekdays. Between this station, Énergie (Stéphan Dupont, Stéphane Gendron, Jérôme Landry), FM93 (Doc Mailloux, Éric Duhaime) and the original CHOI Radio X (Dominic Maurais, Richard Martineau, Jeff Fillion) it’s a lot of opinionative talk during the day on the radio in that town.
- CKZU, a shortwave retransmitter of CBC Radio One in Vancouver, is being shut down by the public broadcaster, which argues it can’t justify buying a new transmitter considering the few people who listen on shortwave.
- The New York Times has a TV ad, which officially debuted on TV during the Oscars, but was online days before.
- Vividata, the company that measures readership of newspapers and magazines, published its third-quarter data. Little has changed from the second quarter. The Journal de Montréal is tops, but mainly because La Presse stopped publishing a print edition.
- Quebec newspapers are trying to resist a government bill that would remove a requirement for public notices from municipalities to be published in local newspapers. For many papers, this small-print doing-it-because-we-have-to advertising about new bylaws and zoning changes represents a significant source of income.
- Sherbrooke’s La Tribune has eliminated bureaus in Thetford Mines and Victoriaville, and will now cover major stories in central Quebec from Sherbrooke.
- Postmedia has a new revenue generation project, based on selling website solutions to auto dealers.
Online
Movies
- Quebecor announced the recipients of its fund’s cinema financing. They include a sequel to La Guerre des tuques 3D.
News about people
- Jay Onrait and Dan O’Toole were let go from their jobs at Fox Sports 1, and
are now looking for work. Though sports networks aren’t exactly itching to spend a lot of money for people to host highlights shows, and this offer wasn’t too serious, TSN announced this morning through a TradeCentre joke that both are returning to their old jobs, hosting SportsCentre at midnight ET as of September. - Bell Media’s president Mary Ann Turcke is leaving for a job with the National Football League (the two companies have seen a lot of each other recently complaining about the CRTC). Former Universal Music executive Randy Lennox takes over as president.
- Twitter star Kady O’Malley didn’t stay unemployed for long. She has been hired, along with former Citizen coworker Kathryn May, by iPolitics.
- Judith Lussier has ended her column at Métro, citing a form of exhaustion faced with online trolls. That prompted stories by Radio-Canada and Le Devoir and comments by Steve Proulx, Voir’s Simon Jodoin and Cult MTL’s Peter Wheeland.
- Yannick Pinel, editor-in-chief of Métro, has been hired away by Radio-Canada. Le Devoir notes that there has been a series of departures from Métro to Radio-Canada in recent months.
- Mick Côté, the Montreal Gazette’s engagement editor, has been hired away by Presse Canadienne as head of digital news.
- Alexandre Robillard, Presse Canadienne reporter in Quebec City, has been hired away by the Journal de Montréal/Québec.
- Émilie Larivée-Tourangeau of the FPJQ has been hired away by Vice.
- Bruce Rainnie, host of CBC News: Compass in P.E.I., is leaving to take a job at the Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame.
- CBC’s Neil Macdonald quit Twitter, apparently frustrated at having to deal with trolls. Considering what happened to other journalists who did the same (Paul Wells, Andrew Coyne, etc.) he’ll probably be back eventually.
- If you missed Pete Marier, the former CHOM and Boom FM announcer will be back on the air next week, filling in on the afternoon show on The Jewel 106.7 in Hudson. He’s filling in for Tasso, who’s filling in for Ted Bird.
- Tuesday was a sad one in the Montreal Gazette newsroom. Layoffs of three photographers, three designers and Quebec City Bureau Chief Caroline Plante took effect, along with a couple of people in other departments. This completes job reductions first announced last year by Postmedia.
Good reads
- Former Ottawa Citizen editor Andrew Potter on the ethical problem of a journalist taking a job doing PR for a government he was just covering, in light of the departure of Postmedia columnist Michael Den Tandt.
- Policy Options magazine on what happens when a local newspaper (in this case, the Lindsay Post) shuts down.
- Harnarayan Singh of Hockey Night in Canada Punjabi on the genesis of that broadcast and how much of his own effort was necessary to start it and keep it going.
Obituaries
Jobs
- Journalist, 24 Heures (deadline: March 6)
- Fact-checking journalist, Métro (deadline: March 7)
- Copy editor, Les Affaires (deadline: March 16)
- Tenure track professor in data journalism at Concordia University (deadline: March 24)
Upcoming events
- Feb. 25: Day of action to protect press freedom
- March 24-26: Radio-Canada hackathon
- May 20: Canadaland in Montreal
About radio boulevard in Québec city i think that the hosts names you just dropped tells it all. There is a big big problem with the quality of hosts in la vielle capitale and i guess it suits well with the general climate now in america with the lies and hatred as told by the first wig of america. Unfortunately , even the tragic events in Quebec city won’t change a thing about the role off trash radio in promoting racism and violence.
Pierre Pascau passing away reminds us how the job of a radio host changed over the years. In his days he was considered as a real tough guy ,asking tough questions and seeking justice. In 2017 he looks like a choir boy if you compare with the trash being delivered daily on the airwaves…Sad news though because he was a real pro with an excellent level of language .
A comment on posts like this overall for your consideration. I understand the concept and what you are trying to do, but I think what is happening is that you are glossing over stories you might have hot a little deeper, and instead just making them a note in a long list of things. I notice these stories rarely get comments,which suggests a lack of engagement.
As an example, the Radioplayer item would possibly make for a good story, comparing it to the I Hate Radio app, and thinking about where this is taking radio in the short and longer term. As just an item in a list of 40 or 50 more things, it’s pretty lost in the mix.