News about news
- Newsday can no longer vouch for a reporter’s reporting after realizing that more than 100 sources he quoted can’t be found to confirm they exist. Newsday isn’t saying they’re fictitious, but it looks really bad for the journalist.
- Just a reminder that the White House is still no longer conducting on-camera press briefings (autoplay video warning).
At the CRTC
- The federal government has finally announced who will be the new chairperson of the commission, as well as the new vice-chair for broadcasting, a seat vacant since 2015. (There are still vacancies at the commission, notably the Ontario seat that’s still being contested by Raj Shoan):
- Chair: Ian Scott, a former executive at Telesat Canada and Telus and a former CRTC staff member (starts Sept. 5, five-year term)
- Vice-chair broadcasting: Caroline Simard, a lawyer for the Canadian government and formerly of the International Telecommunication Union (starts Sept. 11, five-year term)
- Vice-chair telecom (interim): Christianne Laizner, a lawyer in the CRTC’s legal department
- The commission was embarrassed a bit when a decision related to production funds had incorrect dates on it. In the English version of the decision, the date was July 17, 2017 in the introduction and July 17, 2019 in the body. Turns out both were wrong, and it’s actually July 17, 2018. The decision was edited to correct the errors without issuing any correction notice.
- The CRTC has approved the acquisition of Tillsonburg Broadcasting Company, and its two FM stations in the Ontario town, by Rogers, for about $4 million.
TV
Meet the Thirteenth Doctor #DoctorWho #Doctor13 pic.twitter.com/txHGz9tJEe
— Doctor Who (@bbcdoctorwho) July 16, 2017
- The new Doctor is a lady. British tabloids celebrated by reminding everyone she once showed her boobs to a camera.
- Primetime Emmy Award nominations were announced. The full list is here. There were a few Canadian connections, including Samantha Bee, The Handmaid’s Tale and director Jean-Marc Vallée.
- CBC will be showing Canadian movies on Saturday nights until the end of September, and each one will be preceded by a half-hour show interviewing the filmmakers.
- CBC has extended its rights deal with the Calgary Stampede for two more years.
Radio
- Bell Media radio stations have become unavailable in the popular streaming app TuneIn, with app users on mobile getting messages that the stations are no longer available. Bell Media tells me “the removal of Bell Media Radio stations from the TuneIn app was not initiated by Bell Media,” so it’s unclear why this happened. TuneIn is the leading app for radio station streaming, but Bell has its own iHeartRadio app. Just about every other Canadian radio station owner joined forces to launch RadioPlayer.
- La Presse talks to radio hosts who do summer replacement shows, a thing that’s much more prevalent in Quebec than in English Canada (which just has vacation replacements).
- Ted Bird has launched a YouTube channel for his Revisionist History segments, illustrated. The first episode goes up Thursday.
- An 11th-hour (actually 12th-hour) deal has averted a strike at NPR.
Music
- Universal Music Canada shot itself in the foot by releasing a best-of-Canadian-music compilation for Canada 150 that didn’t include a single French song.
- The Polaris Music Prize short list has been announced. And once again not a single francophone album is on it.
the people who'll miss #startouch are meeting in the App Store reviews for its replacement pic.twitter.com/mhQmzSYCUd
— 12:36 ? (@1236) July 18, 2017
- The Toronto Star’s new app was published this week, and former Star Touch users who downloaded it were not impressed, putting out negative reviews on the App Store. Most of those reviews related to the crosswords, Sudoku and other puzzles, which once again reminds journalists what readers really care about.
- The Montreal Gazette has yet another new editorial cartoonist, Oleg Dergachov, as Aislin prepares to cut his schedule down to one cartoon a week next year. The paper is also moving Celine Cooper’s column from Mondays to Tuesdays.
- The Nova Scotia government has launched an industrial commission to try to break the logjam at the Halifax Chronicle Herald, whose workers have been on strike for a year and a half now.
- The Chicago Sun-Times has been bought by local investors, preventing a purchase from its direct competitor Chicago Tribune.
- Sports Illustrated is considering publishing fewer print issues.
Online
1/2 Avec la station Acadie branchée, le réseau mobile est accessible dans 50 % du métro de #Montréal ? https://t.co/04VhCujU8S #stm #techno pic.twitter.com/FfdIOewttr
— STM (@stm_nouvelles) July 13, 2017
- Montreal’s metro system now has mobile connectivity in exactly half its stations. The eastern side of the orange line will be a focus for the latter half of 2017.
- NBC News has launched Snapchat’s first daily news show, Stay Tuned.
News about people
- The Westmount Independent talked to Beryl Wajsman, who told them that he has no plans to step down as editor of The Suburban even if he becomes mayor of Westmount, despite the very obvious conflict of interest.
- Host Rick Campanelli is leaving Global’s ET Canada after this summer. Also leaving the show is Montreal’s Natasha Gargiulo and west coast reporter Erin Cebula.
- Mike Cohen talks to Cora MacDonald, who got the City Montreal news reporter job and starts next month, even though the daily newscast won’t start until 2018.
- BuzzFeed writer Scaachi Koul has a TV deal out of her book.
- Forgot to add this last week: Radio host Mario F. Paquet has retired from Radio-Canada.
- Andree Lau is the new editor-in-chief of HuffPost Canada.
Good reads
- The Washington Post on a news desert, East Palo Alto, Calif., and how the lack of local media is causing issues to go underreported.
- Ryerson’s journalism school looks at the problem of small local newspapers being bought up by larger companies and the loss of local reporting that results.
Jobs
- Atlantic reporter, Globe and Mail (deadline: July 19)
- General manager, FPJQ (deadline: July 20)
- On-Air Host, CHOM 97.7 (deadline: July 28)
- CEO, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (deadline: Aug. 15)
Honestly, I’m pretty doubtful that Bell isn’t behind this removal from TuneIn as they’ve been trying to jam the useless IHeartRadio brand down everyone’s throat for over a year now. For Canada’s biggest media company, they really “thought small” and failed to execute on this project. The website GUI is EMBARRASSINGLY bad, sparse and lacking in even basic details… particularly on mobile devices (the CJAD play button that still does nothing after months of trying on multiple devices). I’m not surprised that Bell has completely mismanaged this media asset because its been a death by 1000 cuts, typical of most Canadian media outlets these days…
Why am I not even surprised that Beryl Wajsman doesn’t recognize the existence of a conflict of interest in him potentially being mayor of Westmount and editor of The Suburban.
I’m slow, but the July 12th edition of the Westmount Independent had a correction on page 6.
“Beryl Wajsman lives in Westmount and has lived here a total of 15 year, but in two stints starting in 1979”.
I can think of someone who’s lived in Westmount either all his life, 57 years, or all but the first year or so. And family always living there since the thirties. Riff-raff metis, even related to Louis Riel, though only through marriage and it’s not too direct.
And above the correction, there’s a letter, “Wajsman is out of touch”. The writer points out that the issues Wajsman specified really don’t have high priority in Westmount.
No letters this week, the Independent is on summer vacation, the next issue is August 8th.
Michael
The new CRTC chair is a corporatist shill. Just like a corporate US Democrat who is a puppet of Wall St. Expect nothing to improve.
Really annoyed that my favorite Bell Media radio stations are no longer able to stream via TuneIn.
I can’t stand the advertising on the iHeartRadio app…aren’t there enough ads on the radio already??
Also, I used to be able to record my favorite radio programs and listen to them at my convenience, but no longer. Not happy.
Yes me as well I don’t like I heart radio app I am looking for other app that might bell media stations
The new people are the CRTC are interesting. While some are worried about Scott being a total insider, you only have to look at the FCC under Wheeler to realize that sometimes insiders are not insiders any more for a reason.
My guess however is that we are back for 5 years of corporate run amok fun, as the CRTC prepares a huge rubber stamp for anything and everything the big companies bring to the table. Centralized programming? STAMP. Local stations becoming meaningless STAMP… I am betting that they are working hard to figure out a way to properly do this for radio as well…
Don’t CBC Radio nationally(English Canada) always have new Summer Replacement shows every year(that only air during the summer)?
Maybe when Wajsman becomes mayor of Westmount he can pay me the $50 he stiffed me as a writer for one of his publications.
Those 3 ET Canada departures are due to cutbacks or not? Will they be replaced? For example, will there be a new Montreal correspondent for ET Canada?