Monthly Archives: May 2017

May 31, 2017 | Media

Media News Digest: RTDNA and magazine awards, Blais responds to CRTC criticism, Mutsumi Takahashi profiled

News about news

RTDNA Canada announced the winners of its national and network awards. Of the 75 awards (a bit much, don’t you think?), CBC Montreal won two digital awards and a radio award, CBC Quebec won a radio award, and other local broadcasters were shut out.
The New York Times is axing the job of public editor, finding that its other methods of attracting feedback from readers are more effective.
The Denver Post is no longer employing a sports reporter after he made a tweet that was a bit too honest about his feelings after a Japanese man won the Indianapolis 500.

At the CRTC

Demande soumis au #CRTC pour autoriser la distribution de Canal+ International (France) au Canada. Voici la grille horaire. pic.twitter.com/3ntOqgQk3h

— Steve Faguy (@fagstein) May 29, 2017

An application has been filed to allow France’s Canal+ International to be distributed in Canada, including signature shows like Le Petit Journal. No word on what distributors might be interested. The last time Canal+ came here was with a deal with video website DailyMotion that eventually died.
Newcap says it has received CRTC approval to sell radio station CISL 650 AM Vancouver to Rogers, which will use it to launch a Sportsnet station there. No price is listed, and the CRTC has not yet posted the application or approval to its website.
The commission is advising those whose radio broadcast licences expire in 2018 to submit their renewals by the end of summer. That includes TTP Media’s CFNV 940 AM in Montreal, which still isn’t producing regular programming. The 600 AM station has exactly one month from today to launch.
Chairperson Jean-Pierre Blais wrote an open letter to those criticizing the commission’s recent television licence renewals, particularly the decision to eliminate a special licence condition for Corus’s Séries+ channel that requires a certain amount of spending on original French-language programming.

TV

The Ottawa Senators’ Game 7 against Pittsburgh became the most watched NHL broadcast of the year, with 4.29 million viewers in English. At the peak of the second overtime, there were 4.71 million watching in English and 1.2 million watching in French.
TSN and RDS have renewed their agreement as official broadcasters of Canada’s national soccer teams.
Bell Media has announced CTV’s U.S. acquisitions for 2017-18, which continue to show that sequels, reboots and spinoffs are a driving force behind television series.

Print

The National Magazine Awards were handed out Friday. The list of winners is here. The NMAs are being boycotted by major publishers like Rogers and TVA Publications, who have gravitated toward a new competitor, the Canadian Magazine Awards. But many freelancers for those publications submitted for awards anyway, and in some cases won.
Dave Bidini is starting a new newspaper in west-end Toronto called the West End Phoenix, supported largely by donations.
The Toronto Star has decided that, for mainly political reasons, it will begin using uppercase letters on the words “indigenous” and “black” (the latter when dealing with the people and culture, naturally). The Canadian Press, whose style guide is used by most publications in Canada, still uses lowercase letters in these contexts.
La Presse has lost a case against its union in arbitration, and will have to bring back 26 employees it laid off.

Online

Videotron, which has been ordered by the CRTC to cease offering its “Unlimited Music” plan because it discriminates based on types of data, has asked the commission to give it some leeway related to existing customers, at least until the end of their current contracts, because it doesn’t want to unilaterally take that bonus away from them. The CRTC has begun an expedited process to reach a decision on that well enough before the July 19 deadline that subscribers can be informed.

Other

Bell has renamed the MTS Centre, home of the Winnipeg Jets, as Bell MTS Place.

News about people

With Mutsumi Takahashi getting a lifetime achievement award from RTDNA Canada, Bill Brownstein profiles the normally very private CTV Montreal anchor for a story in the Gazette. Takahashi also got a special video from her former co-anchor Bill Haugland (who never gets up from the desk in that video so you know he ain’t wearing pants)
Mary-Jo Barr, who was once the news director at CBC Montreal, has a new job as Christine Mota’s replacement at the head of media relations at Concordia University.
Some staff changes at La Presse:
- Hugo Pilon-Larose moves from culture reporting to Quebec’s National Assembly
- Gabriel Béland is now a general assignment reporter
- Marie-Eve Morasse is covering education
Scott Oake, reporter for Hockey Night in Canada, speaks to the Winnipeg Free Press about his son Bruce and the institute being set up in his memory.
Catherine Verdon-Diamond had a bad experience at a restaurant and wrote about it on Facebook. Eater Montreal wrote it up, and mainly takes her side.
Sue Montgomery, former justice reporter for the Montreal Gazette, is considering another run at politics, this time for a borough mayor job with Projet Montréal. An announcement is scheduled for tomorrow. Montgomery will need to fight for the party’s nomination. She tried a run with the NDP in the 2015 federal election, but lost that nomination battle.
Brennan Neill is taking a job as afternoon assignment editor at CBC Montreal.
Scott Pelley is being pushed out of the anchor chair at CBS Evening News. He will continue with 60 Minutes.
CNN has dropped Kathy Griffin from their annual New Year’s Eve show after she was photographed with a fake severed Donald Trump head. (She apologized.)
Megyn Kelly is back on the air starting this Sunday, now with NBC.
Elliotte Friedman opens up about that time he screwed up calling a swimming race during the Rio Olympics.

Could Canadiens games be moving to TSN?

UPDATE (May 30): Pat Hickey confirms the deal with his sources.

UPDATE (June 13): The move has been officially announced.

We still have a ton of hockey games on our network, between … we have regional coverage of the Senators and the Leafs and the Jets and I think there’s another one on the way this year.

James Duthie may be regretting letting that one slip. Duthie, the TSN television host, said this during an appearance on the Sports Illustrated media podcast last week with Richard Deitsch, after being asked how the $5.2-billion Sportsnet-NHL deal has affected his network.

He didn’t elaborate on what “another one” means, but the process of elimination makes it pretty clear: Every Canadian team but one has English-language television rights locked up until at least 2020. The remaining team is the Montreal Canadiens.

In the months after the blockbuster deal for national NHL rights was announced in 2013, TSN and RDS scrambled to lock up whatever regional rights they could from individual Canadian teams. RDS paid a rumoured $1 million a game to buy rights to the Canadiens in French until 2026 (the same year the Sportsnet/TVA Sports/NHL deal expires), and Bell Media secured English and French TV and radio rights to the Ottawa Senators, also until 2026.

Before the 2014-15 season, Sportsnet announced a three-year deal for regional TV rights to Canadiens games. That deal expires this summer.

Sportsnet’s regional coverage of Canadiens games gets an average audience of 168,000, according to figures Sportsnet gave me a few months ago.

Previously signed contracts with the Jets (TSN), Flames (Sportsnet), Oilers (Sportsnet) and Canucks (Sportsnet) continue until at least 2020. Here’s how it breaks down per team:

Team	English TV	French TV	English radio	French radio
(National)	Sportsnet (2026)	TVA Sports (2026)	N/A	N/A
Vancouver Canucks	Sportsnet Pacific (2023)	None	Sportsnet 650 (2022)	None
Edmonton Oilers	Sportsnet West (2020)	None	Corus/CHED (2020)	None
Calgary Flames	Sportsnet West (2020)	None	Sportsnet 960 (2020)	None
Winnipeg Jets	TSN3 (2021)	None	TSN 1290 (2021)	None
Toronto Maple Leafs	TSN4	None	TSN 1050	None
Toronto Maple Leafs	Sportsnet Ontario	None	Sportsnet 590	None
Ottawa Senators	TSN5 (2026)	RDS (2026)	TSN 1200 (2026)	Unique FM (via Bell)
Montreal Canadiens	Sportsnet East (2017)	RDS (2026)	TSN 690	Cogeco (2019)

I don’t have end dates for the Maple Leafs regional rights contracts, but because team owner Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment is controlled in equal parts by Bell and Rogers, it has split its rights to Leafs and Raptors and Toronto FC* games down the middle, and there’s no reason to believe that situation would change any time soon. When the current MLSE was formed, there was also a 10-year extension to Leafs rights that should go until at least 2021.

With all the other teams locked up, the Canadiens would be the obvious choice here. The only other possibilities would be buying out an existing Sportsnet contract (which is extremely unlikely) or getting Canadian regional rights to the Detroit Red Wings or Buffalo Sabres, whose 50-mile zones extend into this country. (Bell TV already has the latter and distributes Sabres games in Niagara Falls, though it doesn’t produce its own broadcasts.)

It’s unclear if this is a done deal or if TSN is just really confident it can secure the rights to Canadiens games (its majority owner Bell is a minority owner of the team).

Asked about Duthie’s comment, TSN’s official response was very brief: “We have no comment (on this) at this time.”

I’ve asked Sportsnet and the Canadiens for comment, but haven’t heard back from either yet.

Logistical issues

If TSN does secure Canadiens rights, it wouldn’t be the first time. Before the 2014 deal with Sportsnet, which ensured that all 82 games would be broadcast in English for the first time, TSN carried a selection of Canadiens regional games on a special channel (that was available to Bell subscribers but not Videotron ones). Since then, TSN scrapped team-specific channels and put its regional games on one of its five TSN feeds.

With TSN already carrying Ottawa Senators regional games, this would present a scheduling problem, since the two teams’ regions are identical. They could share TSN5, but there would need to be an overflow channel for times when both teams are playing (much like Sportsnet uses temporary Sportsnet One channels when Flames and Oilers games conflict). TSN could just create a TSN6, or a temporary channel, or some other deal.

Another thing to consider is that such a deal would drastically reduce the number of nationally broadcast Canadiens games. Because Sportsnet was both the regional and national rights holder, it could upgrade regional games to national ones, and last season broadcast 44 of 82 regular-season games nationally. If the Canadiens sell regional rights to TSN, Sportsnet could be left with as few as 22 games (mostly Saturday nights), and all the ones carried on TSN would be blacked out west of Ottawa.

Then there are other issues like on-air talent (John Bartlett would probably be out of a job if Sportsnet lost Canadiens games, but that’s no guarantee TSN would want him back).

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Nothing is confirmed yet with either network and probably won’t be until an announcement is made.

Technically, the Canadiens’ English-language radio rights could also be up for grabs, but since Bell owns the only two English talk stations in the city, it’s highly unlikely they’ll leave TSN 690.

(Hat tip to Derek Climan for spotting Duthie’s remark.)

* CORRECTION: As a commenter points out below, TSN now has full rights to Toronto FC games.

May 28, 2017 | My articles, Radio

The power struggle tearing Radio Centre-Ville apart

A protest outside Radio Centre-Ville’s office on March 29.

Montreal’s only community ethnic radio station is in crisis. It started as a financial one, without a major source of revenue to pay expenses. But since last fall it has turned into a legal one as well, with two stubborn sides fighting it out. And each side is willing to financially bankroll their legal battle, even though that money would be put to far better use rescuing the station directly, because they’re convinced that their victory is the only way they can truly save the station.

And neither side is willing to negotiate or compromise.

The issue has been getting some media attention, with articles in Métro and Le Devoir. I wrote about it as well for the Montreal Gazette. Here, I’ll lay out the issues in more detail, based on interviews with both sides.

Continue reading →

May 26, 2017 | Radio

Radio ratings: Radio-Canada and FM93 tie for top in Quebec City

There are a couple of stories that can come out of the Quebec City page of the latest Numeris radio diary report released Thursday: One, that CHOI Radio X is no longer the powerhouse it once was (in large part because other stations in the market have copied its populist talk format), and two, that despite the “radio poubelle” reputation of the city’s stations, Radio-Canada’s ICI Première station is doing quite well.

Here’s how it breaks down (numbers are for 12+ listeners, 5am-1am for the whole week, Feb. 27 to April 23, 2017):

Callsign	Frequency	Brand	Owner	Listening share	Central market reach
CJMF-FM	93.3	FM93	Cogeco Media	15.7%	183,100
CBV-FM	106.3	ICI Première	CBC	15.6%	154,600
CHOI-FM	98.1	Radio X	RNC Media	12.7%	140,700
CITF-FM	107.5	Rouge	Bell Media	10.1%	132,400
CHIK-FM	98.9	Énergie	Bell Media	8.0%	132,500
CJEC-FM	91.9	WKND	Leclerc	7.9%	111,100
CFEL-FM	102.1	BLVD	Leclerc	6.9%	120,500
CFOM-FM	102.9	M	Cogeco Media	6.8%	121,700
CJSQ-FM	92.7	Radio Classique	Radio Classique	5.1%	51,900
CHXX-FM	100.9	Pop	RNC Media	2.8%	44,500
CBVX-FM	95.3	ICI Musique	CBC	2.3%	41,400
CBVE-FM	104.7	Radio One	CBC	0.5%	10,100

As you can see, ICI Première is in a statistical tie with FM93 in terms of audience in all age groups (among advertiser-friendly demographics it’s another matter). Radio X is in third place, followed by the two Bell Media stations, and the two Leclerc Communication stations behind that.

CHXX’s change from rock-based Radio X2 to pop-based Pop has resulted in a drop in market share, but the company is optimistic it can rebound.

Le Journal de Québec breaks down the ratings for specific shows in various time slots. Le Soleil gets reaction from Radio X, which notes it does well among 25-54s, though some of their on-air personalities aren’t so diplomatic, taking shots at the competition.

Le Journal also notes that a host at Énergie wants Gilles Parent of FM93 to give him his house as promised, and Parent in turn took a swipe at BLVD’s Nathalie Normandeau. Other on-air statements are compiled here.

Here are what Quebec’s other markets look like. (Montreal is a metered market, and its next quarterly report is June 7.)

Sherbrooke

Callsign	Frequency	Brand	Owner	Listening share	Central market reach
CIMO-FM	106.9	Énergie	Bell Media	21.1%	70,900
CITE-FM-1/2	102.7/94.5	Rouge FM	Bell Media	20.3%	61,000
CBF-FM-10	101.1	ICI Première	CBC	13.0%	42,600
CKOY-FM	107.7	107,7fm	Cogeco	10.6%	33,200
CFGE-FM	93.7	Rythme FM	Cogeco	8.2%	26,100
CBFX-FM-2	90.7	ICI Musique	CBC	4.3%	12,700

Bell owns the Sherbrooke market pretty well, with the top two stations representing more than 40% listening share. Cogeco’s two stations combined have half that. La Tribune notes there’s a decrease in overall listening over last year.

Trois-Rivières

Callsign	Frequency	Brand	Owner	Listening share	Central market reach
CIGB-FM	102.3	Énergie	Bell	16.4%	45,100
CHEY-FM	94.7	Rouge FM	Bell	13.8%	29,400
CJEB-FM	100.1	Rythme FM	Cogeco	12.8%	25,300
CBF-FM-8	96.5	ICI Première	CBC	11.1%	20,600
CKOB-FM	106.9	106,9fm	Cogeco	9.2	16,800
CKBN-FM	90.5	FM 90,5	Community	6.5%	10,100
CBFX-FM-1	104.3	ICI Musique	CBC	3.8%	8,100

Bell also tops in Trois-Rivières, though the lead is not as large.

Saguenay

Callsign	Frequency	Brand	Owner	Listening share	Central market reach
CKYK-FM	95.7	Radio X	RNC Media	21.2%	43,800
CFIX-FM	96.9	Rouge FM	Bell	20.1%	50,300
CJAB-FM	94.5	Énergie	Bell	17.3%	49,100
CBJ-FM	93.7	ICI Première	CBC	10.2%	22,700
CILM-FM	98.3	Rythme FM	Attraction	8.1%	18,800
CBJX-FM	100.9	ICI Musique	CBC	5.0%	7,000

Radio X regains the lead in the heartland, after being in third a year ago. The Bell stations are also doing well there.

Ottawa-Gatineau (francophone)

Callsign	Frequency	Brand	Owner	Listening share	Central market reach
CIMF-FM	94.9	Rouge FM	Bell	16.5	79,200
CBOF-FM	90.7	ICI Première	CBC	13.1%	70,000
CKTF-FM	104.1	Énergie	Bell	11.7%	77,000
CKOF-FM	104.7	104,7fm	Cogeco	10.0%	51,400
CIHT-FM	89.9	Hot 89.9	Newcap	5.9%	53,400
CFTX-FM	96.5	Pop 96,5	RNC Media	4.3%	27,300
CHLX-FM	97.1	Wow 97,1	RNC Media	4.2%	26,100
CBOX-FM	102.5	ICI Musique	CBC	3.8%	22,200

Little change here over last year: Bell also has the two top private stations for francophone listeners in the national capital, while RNC Media’s new single-syllable music stations are more than a point behind the anglophone music station. (I’ve left out the remaining anglo stations.) Nevertheless, Le Droit notes that CFTX-FM’s change from Capitale Rock to Pop has meant a huge increase in ratings, from a 0.5% market share in September.

May 24, 2017 | Media

Media News Digest: Anger at CRTC, new series at CBC, Heather B joins The Beat

News about news

A gang trial in B.C. heard testimony about a plot to kill a journalist (which was called off because it would have attracted too much police attention). The testimony was covered by the journalist in question.
A judge in Alberta has found CBC not guilty of contempt of court after deciding that allowing stories published before a publication ban to still be accessed does not violate that publication ban. The easy availability of archive material is one of many issues that complicate publication bans in the age of the Internet.
Vice Canada is trying to get the Supreme Court to weigh in on the idea of journalist source protection by appealing a case involving journalist Ben Makush, which it has lost at lower levels.
Radio-Canada has launched a journalist training centre in Regina.
Projet J, the francophone equivalent to J-Source, is shutting down for lack of funding.

Continue reading →

May 17, 2017 | Media

Media News Digest: CBC and Le Devoir archives digitized, Als stay on TSN 690, Journal de Chambly sold

News about news

Quebec Liberal minister Rita de Santis has apologized after holding a press conference for anglophone media only. A Presse Canadienne reporter had to pretend to be writing for The Canadian Press in order to get in. The issue was the redrawing of Quebec’s electoral districts, which became a scandal in the anglophone community because it merged Mount Royal with neighbouring Outremont.
A freelance journalist working for Global News and a Global cameraman were arrested in Hamilton for obstructing an investigation into a collision that killed a 10-year-old girl. It’s unclear how the journalists may have been obstructing the police, but Global News is seeking answers. Hamilton Police says it is reviewing the incident.
CBC has announced a project for mass digitization of more than 1 million media assets (physical audio and video recordings) in French and English. The move is being done now in part because of the upcoming move of the Maison Radio-Canada in Montreal. Le Devoir speaks to the broadcaster about the project.

At the CRTC

The commission issued its licence renewal decisions on Monday for the big private TV broadcasters — TVA, V, Bell Media, Rogers Media and Corus. The headline is that OMNI will get what it wants: nationwide mandatory distribution at $0.12 per subscriber. But only for three years, as the CRTC offers the chance for others to offer something better. I’ll have more highlights from the decisions in another post.

TV

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy9sKeCE8V0

I have not looked forward to a new TV series as much as I have this one. It’s like if Galaxy Quest was turned into a TV show.
Bell has announced Alt TV, which is basically Bell Fibe TV only without a set-top box and far fewer features at a slightly reduced price. Available only to Fibe Internet customers in Quebec and Ontario for the moment.
The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council found that TSN should have done a better job preventing swear words captured during a CFL game from being broadcast on air, during the day without any viewer advisory. The decision notes the difficulty of censoring live broadcasts, but “the language could and should have been anticipated, there appears to have been no attempt to discourage such language, and there were not consistent acknowledgments and repudiations of the language by hosts or other announcers.”
ABC is bringing back Roseanne for eight episodes. On one hand, TV could use a show like Roseanne, with good comedy about working-class life. On the other hand, it’s yet another 90s nostalgia play.
Mohawk Girls is shooting its final season in Kahnawake and looking for extras from the community.
The Handmaid’s Tale, the Hulu adaptation of the Margaret Atwood novel, has become Bravo’s most popular series ever.
The U.S. rights to the Canadian drama Cardinal have been sold to Hulu.
Conan O’Brien has extended his deal with TBS another four years through 2022. He’s also expanding his show’s brand to include other media like podcasting.
Beth Mowins will be calling a National Football League game on ESPN on Sept. 11. This is noteworthy because Mowins is a woman, and women calling games in professional sports is incredibly rare for some reason.

Radio

TSN 690 has renewed its broadcasting rights agreement with the Montreal Alouettes for a “multi-year” deal (apparently three years). Negotiations were probably helped by the fact that there isn’t a competitor to Bell Media at the moment that would broadcast Alouettes games.
Montreal writer Ian Howarth has a book coming out about the golden years of Montreal music radio: CFOX, CKGM and CFCF in the 1960s and 70s. Bill Brownstein writes about it in the Gazette. The book includes many interviews with personalities from those days who are surprisingly still around. (I got an advance copy so I could write a short quote for the back cover.) It launches Thursday evening.
CBC has launched its station in London, Ont., and announced its broadcast team. The station has a local morning show and will be the home station of the regional afternoon show.
Newcap Radio is buying NL Broadcasting, owner of three radio stations in Kamloops, B.C.
CFGL-FM 105.7 in Montreal is now broadcasting in HD Radio. So far it’s just the station’s regular signal on an HD channel. Presumably owner Cogeco will simulcast CKAC 730 AM on a subchannel in the near future.

Print

Transcontinental has sold its first newspaper as part of a process announced last month. The Journal de Chambly has been sold for an undisclosed price to Les Versants du Mont-Bruno Inc., which owns Les Versants, Le Journal de Saint-Bruno and Le Journal de Saint-Basile. The sale takes effect immediately. TC has also added a page to its website where it will keep a list of its newspaper sales.
Le Devoir lost $300,000 in 2016, but is pretty optimistic about the future. Nevertheless, it’s passing the hat looking for donations.
Meanwhile, Le Devoir announced its entire newspaper collection until 2009 has been digitized, available free on the BANQ website.
Workers at the Winnipeg Free Press have agreed to an eight per cent pay cut if the paper doesn’t make enough of a profit. In exchange, the paper has agreed not to lay anyone off until 2019.
Jonathan Kay has resigned as editor-in-chief of The Walrus. He explains here.
Postmedia has added former Ontario finance minister Janet Ecker to its board.
The Chicago Sun-Times ran a front-page ad announcing it’s for sale. The ad is required (though not on the front page) in order to push through a takeover from rival Chicago Tribune.

Online

Apple and Amazon have buried the hatchet, allowing Apple TV devices to stream Amazon content in exchange for Amazon allowing Apple TV devices to be sold.

News about people

François Bugingo, the freelance journalist who disappeared from public life after a La Presse investigation showed he made up several stories, will give his first interview since then, June 2 on Télé-Québec’s new talk show Y’a du monde à la messe.

Good reads

A statistical analysis of the repetitiveness of song lyrics based on how much they compress using the Lempel-Ziv algorithm.

Jobs

General assignment reporter at Yukon News (deadline: May 19)
La Presse diversity bursaries and internships (deadline: June 9)

Upcoming events

May 20: Canadaland in Montreal

May 10, 2017 | Media

Media News Digest: National Newspaper Awards, Shoan fired again, Le Devoir archives online

News about news

It was election day in British Columbia yesterday, and not only did the results come far too late for eastern Canadian newspapers or late-night newscasts to include, but the results were so close that we still don’t know for sure what the resulting government will look like. CTV eventually called a minority government at 1:30am (10:30pm PT), and The Canadian Press did as well once all the polls reported. But if the B.C. Liberals hold their 43 seats and a recount goes in its favour in Courtenay-Comox, where the NDP won by nine votes, Premier Christy Clark would just barely get her majority in the legislature. Either way, B.C. politics will get very interesting over the coming weeks.
The National Newspaper Awards were given out on the weekend. The Globe and Mail was the big winner, taking half the categories. The Toronto Star won two awards, and no other newspaper took more than one.
The RCMP is looking at generalizing a policy that would offer journalists more protections in criminal investigations.

At the CRTC

The Raj Shoan drama continues. After winning a legal challenge to the government’s decision to fire him based on a report that he successfully challenged in court, Shoan was summarily fired again in what can only be described as an obvious case of bad faith. Naturally, he plans to take the matter to court again.
Flooding in the Ottawa River has forced government offices in Gatineau to close, and that includes the CRTC. As a result, major decisions expected this week on TV licence renewals for the big media companies, and the request by Rogers to make OMNI into a mandatory pay TV service, will be pushed to next week.
The CRTC has approved a change to APTN’s licence that allows the network’s HD feed a little more scheduling freedom compared to the three SD feeds (East, West and North). They will have the same programs, but be able to schedule them differently.
A university professor created a pretty useful guide for beginners on how to participate in CRTC proceedings.

TV

The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council was deadlocked on whether this TV ad for CHUM-FM in Toronto violated its codes. Half thought it was unacceptably dehumanizing, while the other half thought it was okay because it was a woman doing it to a man. Because ties go to the defence, there is no sanction.
A major deal in the U.S. with Sinclair Broadcast Group buying Tribune Media for $3.9 billion, creating a major player in local television stations. Tribune’s stations include Chicago’s WGN, L.A.’s KTLA and New York’s WPIX, while Sinclair has more than 150 stations. Tribune’s print assets were previously spun off into the ridiculously-named Tronc.
ABC is reviving American Idol (already?)
Israel shut down its public broadcaster with very little notice. The plan is to create a new one, which has critics wondering if the new one will be as independent of the political machine.
Groupe TVA released its quarterly financial report. It’s bad news overall, but some better numbers for TVA Sports, which saw its net loss cut by a third thanks to 16% more ad revenue. The Canadiens making the playoffs will help in the current quarter, which started April 1.
Hugo Dumas writes that the guerre des réseaux is heating up again, with shows on Radio-Canada and V having difficulty getting TVA personalities to appear.
La Voix ended its fifth season on Sunday. Brendan Kelly explains its appeal to anglophones. Similarly, the Ryerson Review of Journalism has a piece explaining Tout le monde en parle.
Télé-Québec’s Les Appendices won’t come back for a 10th season, but there will be two specials, including and end-of-year one.
Orphan Black returns for its final season on June 10.
The Amazing Race Canada returns July 4. Other summer CTV schedule announcements here.

Radio

FYI Music News speaks with Rob Farina about iHeartRadio Canada, which he insists is open for non-Bell stations to join, and future plans for the platform, including a pay version that allows saving songs.
Radio station CHIN in Toronto has gotten CRTC approval to transform its FM retransmitter into its own FM station with partially distinct programming.
Rogers is hiring for its new Sportsnet station in Vancouver.

Print

Le Devoir has digitized its entire archive up to 2009. The collection is available for free from the Bibliothèque et archives nationales du Québec.
Cult MTL released the results of its annual shameless popularity contest, the Best of Montreal readers’ poll. I’m listed #5 in Best Twitter. Evelyne Brochu is listed in the Hottest Woman (#1), Best-Dressed Montrealer (#1), Best Icon (#10), Best Twitter (#1), Best TV Personality (#3), Best Instagram (#1) and of course Best Actress (#1). The media results are here. Among them:
- Best Radio Station: CKUT, CHOM, CJLO, CBC, CISM
- Best Radio Host: Nick Schofield (CKUT), Terry DiMonte (CHOM), Mitch Melnick (TSN 690), Mike Finnerty (CBC), Paul Arcand (98.5)
- Best TV Station: CTV, CBC, RadCan, Télé-Québec, RDS
- Best Newscaster: Mutsumi Takahashi, Céline Galipeau, Pierre Bruneau, Paul Karwatsky, Debra Arbec
- Best Newspaper: Cult MTL, Montreal Gazette, Le Devoir, La Presse, Métro
- Best Website: Cult MTL, MTL Blog, Reddit Montreal, Urbania, YULorama
- Best Podcast: Mike Ward Sous Écoute, 3 Bières, Cadeau & Janco Wednesdays @ Lunch, Go Plug Yourself, La soirée est (encore) jeune
BlogTO checked out what the old Globe and Mail building looks like as it’s being demolished.
Bell Mobility has a new offer giving access to PressReader and most major newspapers for $10 a month.
Le Devoir gave awards to student journalists

Online

InfoPresse speaks with La Presse’s new president, who says that they’re working on a new smartphone app that might be more engaging than what they currently offer, which may (or may not) offer a La Presse+ like experience on smartphones.
Greg Brady and Caroline Cameron of Sportsnet have created a new podcast called Point Taken. It launches today.

Other

DHX Media (which owns Family Channel) is buying an 80% stake in the Peanuts brand, prompting at least one headline about Charlie Brown moving to Canada.
The Grammy Awards are moving to New York City thanks to a deal with the government there.

News about people

.@TorontoStar says I can't be a columnist and an activist at the same time, so I'm giving up my column. https://t.co/keGJlESd8L

— Negro Frolics (@DesmondCole) May 4, 2017

Desmond Cole decided to become a martyr for freedom of speech and is giving up his Toronto Star column after being told it’s generally not okay for newspaper columnists to engage in disruptive activism. The Star’s public editor agrees, which prompted accusations of the paper setting a double standard because of liberal racism.
Sean Craig, who covers media for the National/Financial Post, is leaving to join Global News
Iain MacIntyre’s goodbye column in the Vancouver Sun
Scott Mitchell, formerly of the Toronto Sun, has been hired by TSN to do baseball reporting
Rebecca Makonnen gets a profile in Le Devoir

Good reads

Pierre Trudel on how an access to information request was denied because the documents couldn’t fit on a USB key.
La Presse explores the Canadian podcast scene, talking with producers of Canadaland and Mike Ward sous écoute, among others
The New York Times on YouTube creators’ growing frustrations with declines in ad revenue after the company made changes to how it distributes ads.

Jobs

Digital Editor, Montreal Gazette (deadline: May 11)
Journalist at CJSO-FM in Sorel-Tracy (deadline: May 12)
General assignment reporter at Yukon News (deadline: May 19)
La Presse diversity bursaries and internships (deadline: June 9)

Upcoming events

May 20: Canadaland in Montreal

May 3, 2017 | Media

Media News Digest: Michener finalists, Shoan back at CRTC, mass resignations at K103

Happy World Press Freedom Day!

News about news

Nominees for the Michener Award were announced Monday. The award, for public service journalism, is probably the most prestigious in Canadian journalism because (1) only one is given out a year, and (2) it’s given out by the governor-general at a fancy ceremony. The finalists are:
- CBC/Radio-Canada and Toronto Star for the Panama Papers investigation
- The Globe and Mail for reporting on real estate practices in British Columbia
- The London Free Press for a two-year investigation into a man’s death
- The National Observer for investigations into the National Energy Board that resulted in a panel resigning after meeting with Jean Charest
- La Presse for reporting into video lottery terminals
- The Toronto Star for reporting on Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit
CBC Radio’s The Sunday Edition retracted a documentary it aired on Sunday about an ex-convict making good after they learned she downplayed her criminal past (and they didn’t double-check it)
The Journal de Montréal lost in court, failing to convince a judge to quash an order allowing police to seize a reporter’s laptop. They plan to appeal.
Journalists at the Boston Herald are pissed after a reporter was suspended for tweeting a scoop without management approval.
There’s some disagreement over whether Pierre Karl Péladeau’s visit to his company’s National Assembly bureau is to encourage them to be more aggressive against the government he used to oppose as PQ leader, or simply following a tradition of a boss personally meeting his employees. Regardless of spin, it’s clear that a former political party leader running a large news media company makes things awkward. Quebecor’s beefing up of its National Assembly bureau could be seen as a great investment, or a way for Péladeau to help the party he used to lead by increasing the number of embarrassing stories about the government. And the Liberals are not-so-subtly pushing that idea.

At the CRTC

He’s baaack! After he won a court challenge to the government’s decision to fire him as a CRTC commissioner (which was itself partly based on a report that was also overturned by a judge), Raj Shoan is once again listed on the CRTC website as the commissioner for Ontario. To say things will be awkward between him and chairperson Jean-Pierre Blais is an understatement, but presumably both will attempt to be professional about it. The judge’s decision wasn’t a complete victory for Shoan, and some of his actions (like meeting with groups that have business before the CRTC) are “troubling”, so another review could still find cause for his dismissal. Or maybe Blais just minimizes his involvement (the chairperson decides who sits on any panels, and Blais did not choose Shoan for anything important) until his term is up next year. (Assuming Blais is re-appointed — his own term ends sooner.)
CBC Quebec held its biannual public consultation on Tuesday. The video is here if you want to watch it.
The commission has approved the privatization of Sirius XM Canada. The biggest issue for the commission was determining whether the transaction, which would see the CBC sell its shares and three groups (including Sirius XM U.S.) have minority stakes in the company, is considered a change in effective control. The CRTC determined that yes, it is, which means a 6% tax on the value of the transaction to fund Canadian content development. That works out to $29 million, to be paid out over seven years.
CBC/Radio-Canada has asked the CRTC for permission to move its Radio One and ICI Première transmitters in Timmins, Ont., from a tower north of the city to its old TV tower much closer. It would be able to cover the same area better by using a higher antenna at lower power.
The commission said no to a proposal by Vista Radio to change the licence for CJLT-FM in Medicine Hat, Alta., so it could move from its Christian music programming to more mainstream indie/alternative music. The commission found that the change would have an undue financial impact on existing stations in the market.

TV

Global Montreal is pushing something it’s calling Greater Montreal Day on May 11, promoting acts of kindness. This is modelled after a similar thing that Global Toronto did.
The major vertically integrated companies have started redirecting money from community television channels in major cities to over-the-air local TV stations, now that the CRTC has given them the power to do so. Shaw TV will close in Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton to divert money to Corus’s Global TV stations, and Rogers is doing the same with Mississauga, Richmond Hill, Toronto, and Brampton, Ont., redirecting funds to City TV. Other Rogers TV stations will also see cuts.
The Writers Guild of America has reached a deal with studios to avert a writers’ strike that would have made TV and movies even more awful.
CTV has greenlit a new Canadian detective series called The Detail. The series will also air on the Ion network in the U.S., the over-the-air network known for mostly running reruns of shows from better networks.
Bell’s food channel Gusto has announced three new Canadian series.
City has announced a bunch of awful-sounding reality shows being added to its schedule this summer.
Global has also announced its summer lineup. Canadian drama Private Eyes returns May 25 for a second season.
The Handmaid’s Tale, the Hulu series based on the Margaret Atwood novel, has been renewed for a second season. The series airs on Bravo in Canada, which aired the first two episodes on Sunday.
Two kids walked onto the stage during a live broadcast of Radio-Canada’s Les Échangistes on Monday. We don’t know what they were trying to do other than get attention, but it doesn’t look like it was tied to the May Day protests happening at the same time. They were quickly shooed away.

Radio

There’s more drama at K103 in Kahnawake. Four of the five board members resigned on the same day last week, leaving only Lance Delisle in charge. The people resigning gave various reasons, which they did not elaborate on, but it’s clear that at least some of them are fed up of whatever conflicts are going on at the station. Unfortunately we don’t have details because the people involved aren’t talking.
An entry in the Industry Canada broadcasting database has appeared for CFGL-HD, which means that Montreal’s Rythme FM station expects to begin using HD Radio soon. Station owner Cogeco Media also owns CKAC 730 AM, so an FM HD rebroadcast of Radio Circulation seems likely. Other possible uses include a niche music channel or a spillover channel for 98.5FM’s sports coverage. Cogeco also indicated to the CRTC that a move of CKOI-FM to the Mount Royal antenna could allow it to broadcast in HD.
CKLW 800 AM in Windsor was knocked off the air by a fire at its transmitter site. It quickly took over the transmitter of sister station AM 580 so people could get news-talk programming.

Print

Major cuts have been announced at Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald and other papers at Fairfax Media.
Torstar has cut 110 jobs as it announces financial results that include a 19% drop in print ad revenue. Torstar owns the Toronto Star, Hamilton Spectator and Metroland community papers.
Metro papers in English Canada, also owned in part by Torstar, are cutting their size down. Their length will drop from 12.5 to 11.5 inches on Aug. 1.
The Eastern Door newspaper in Kahnawake won several awards, including best overall newspaper in the under-1500 circulation category, at the Canadian Community Newspaper Awards. It’s “bittersweet” because the Eastern Door is leaving the CCNA. The full list of CCNA winners is here.
The winners of the inaugural Canadian Magazine Grands Prix were announced.

Online

Employees at Vice Canada have ratified their first collective agreement.

News about people

Bit of exciting personal news: I'm joining the @mtlgazette as a business reporter. Starting on June 1.

— Jacob Serebrin (@jacobserebrin) May 1, 2017

Jacob Serebrin has been hired as the new business reporter at the Montreal Gazette, which has been without a business department of any kind since the departure of Paul Delean in December.
Jennifer Allen, who left CBC Montreal’s Daybreak to do the traffic job at Metro Morning in Toronto, gets a writeup on the CBC Toronto website.
Journalist Stephanie McBride has left The Gleaner (which was downgraded by Transcontinental to an insert of a French-language newspaper). It’s unclear what this means for the future of that paper.
CBC veteran Caroline Harvey has been named executive producer of The National. Still no word on who will host it, with less than two months until the departure of Peter Mansbridge.
La Presse publisher Guy Crevier was honoured in Toronto and La Presse is very proud.
Power Corporation president André Desmarais is taking a medical leave on advice of his doctor. Power Corp. owns La Presse.
Carrie Haber, CBC producer behind the new Monteapolis podcast and the Absolutely Quebec series, among other things, is also a musician, and her group Goldfish got a writeup in the Gazette.
Bernard Drainville is the new Jean Lapierre at 98.5 FM.
Ryan Seacrest is the new co-host of Live with Kelly

Good reads

BuzzFeed on the National Enquirer’s owner publishing Us Weekly and what that means

Jobs

Digital News Editor, National Post (deadline: May 5)
Ottawa correspondent for Journal de Québec (deadline: May 9)
Journalist at CJSO-FM in Sorel-Tracy (deadline: May 12)
General assignment reporter at Yukon News (deadline: May 19)
La Presse diversity bursaries and internships (deadline: June 9)

Upcoming events

May 20: Canadaland in Montreal

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