News about news

Top minimum reporter weekly salaries for unions affiliated with CWA in Canada and U.S. pic.twitter.com/iAz0NEdrNa

— Steve Faguy (@fagstein) August 5, 2017

• Radio-Canada’s Valerie-Micaela Bain managed to secure an apology from a man who snuck up to her and kissed her on the cheek during a live TV report from Osheaga. The reaction to the incident and media coverage of it prompted a lot of debate online about how severe such an action is, and whether it would be the same if gender roles were reversed. Comedian Louis T tried to put that argument to rest with an experiment.

At the CRTC

• Besides formalizing previously approved changes to regulations about discretionary channels and television and television distribution (the latter including allowing vertically integrated companies to divert money from community channels to local TV stations), and asking for comments about adding dispute resolution measures to video-on-demand services, the commission has been pretty quiet this week.
• The other group that was left empty-handed in the urban Indigenous radio station proceeding is also appealing the result. VMS Media argues that CRTC commissioner Linda Vennard, who sat on the panel for the proceeding, was in a conflict of interest because she accepted gifts from an ethnic broadcaster that the commission argued would be negatively affected by VMS’s proposal for a hybrid ethnic-Indigenous format. Vennard had already been found in a conflict for those gifts in an unrelated proceeding.

TV and video

.@BBCSimonMcCoy providing all the enthusiasm this story about surfing dogs deserves. pic.twitter.com/FsG8TOj5iF

— Chris Gray (@ChrisGSGray) August 7, 2017

• Quebec is about to get a new French-language horror film channel. Frissons TV launches Sept. 1 on Videotron (channel 799 in HD). I’ll have more on this in the coming days.
• Z has picked up the French rights to the CBS All Access show Star Trek Discovery, and will be airing it at the same time that Space airs the English version in Canada.
• Speaking of CBS All Access, the streaming service is expanding to Canada in 2018. It’s unclear how that affects the rights to series like Star Trek Discovery and The Good Fight (which is broadcast by Corus’s W Network here).
• Ottawa has announced rules related to the sale of 600 MHz spectrum that’s being taken from the over-the-air television UHF band. They include set-asides that will benefit Videotron, Shaw and anyone else who’s not the Big Three. The rules also state that affected television stations won’t be required to change channels until whoever buys a licence for the spectrum in question is ready to build its infrastructure and start using it.
• Groupe TVA released financial results last week, and though we don’t have complete details, it says that ad revenue for the three months ending June 30 was up 77.6% year-over-year at TVA Sports and subscription revenues were up 21.7%. This period covers the entire NHL playoffs, which had some Canadian content (and in particular a team from Montreal). TVA Sports is still losing money, but 30% less money than before. The group also announced an expansion to its MELS studio space with a new building and 60,000-square-foot soundstage, to open in summer 2018.
• DAZN, the streaming service that made a splash in Canada by acquiring rights to NFL Sunday Ticket and NFL RedZone, has gotten streaming rights to a bunch of other sports (mainly European soccer) through an agreement with beIN Sports. Rights acquired also include some tennis events and Russia’s KHL hockey.
• For those of you who liked CTV’s Saving Hope, which had its series finale last week, CTV has posted a version of the last episode with audio commentary from actor Michael Shanks and executive producer Adam Pettle on its website.
• David Letterman is coming back to showbusiness with an interview series for Netflix.

Radio

• Rouge FM has announced (or, perhaps, just re-announced) its lineup of mainly personalities moved over from Énergie, including Dominic Arpin and Mélanie Maynard in the morning and Éric Salvail and his billion contributors in the afternoon. They start Aug. 14. The network of stations has also adopted a new logo, with a fat lowercase “rouge” and smaller uppercase “FM” in superscript, replacing the older semi-cursive logo.
• In a story that sounds very 2005, CHOI-FM in Quebec City has gotten a decision issued against it by the Quebec Press Council for commentary by host Jeff Fillion.

Print

After 5 years, I'm retiring my Quebonics column at @CultMTL. Last one in the current issue, out now. It was fun, thanks to all who helped!

— Malcolm Fraser (@worldprovider) August 5, 2017

• Cult MTL is celebrating its fifth birthday this week. And it’s holding a party on Saturday for people interested in celebrating.
• Employees at the Halifax Chronicle Herald, who have been on strike for 18 months, look like they could be heading back to work finally, with news of a deal in principle with the union. The deal must be ratified by employees before the strike ends.

Online

• A German man decided to take hateful tweets that Twitter refused to delete and spraypaint them (in chalk) in front of their office building in Hamburg.

Other

• Looks like an out-of-court settlement is in the works for Billy Two Rivers’ lawsuit against Van Morrison for using his picture on an album cover without consent.
• A Université de Montréal study suggests playing action-based video games could be bad for your brain. I’m skeptical, especially because of the low number of samples (100 people). But my gut feeling doesn’t trump science.

News about people

• Catherine Lafrance, formerly of Radio-Canada in Ontario, has been named the new general manager of the Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec. She begins Sept. 1, replacing Caroline Locher, who takes over the top job at the Quebec Press Council.
• Sue Montgomery, former justice reporter for the Montreal Gazette, has been nominated by Projet Montréal as the party’s candidate for the Côte-des-Neiges-Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough mayor job in the coming municipal election. She previously tried and failed to secure an NDP nomination in the 2015 federal election.
• Michael Kane, the Business News Network anchor who you’ve probably seen in snippets on CTV News, got into some hot water after noting the presence of Muslim women at a Victoria’s Secret store. He tried engaging with his critics at first, saying he was just a reporter, but eventually shut down his Twitter account.
• TSN’s Dave Naylor had to eat crow after publishing a one-source story (from a source he said he trusted) about an injury suffered by Toronto Argonauts quarterback Ricky Ray. He later learned that source was incorrect.
• Fox News can’t seem to get off the sexual harassment train. Eric Bolling is the latest personality to get caught up in it after allegations he sent dick pics to at least two colleagues.
• CBC National Assembly correspondent Ryan Hicks is leaving to go to law school at McGill.
• Alain de Repentigny, arts journalist at La Presse, is retiring.
• Gazette columnist Jack Todd has a new novel coming out.
• Peppermint Patti stopped by the CHOM studio to say hi to her old buddy Terry DiMonte on Wednesday.

Good reads

• The New York Times on how the New York transit authority is trying out being honest with people about the real reason for subway delays (i.e. suicide). It won’t get people to their destination faster, but it will cut down on people whining about delays as if a guy jumping in front of a train is about transit managers’ incompetence.

Jobs

• CEO, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (deadline: Aug. 15)