Monthly Archives: December 2018

| Media

Journalists of Tomorrow … or not: Safia Ahmad

Every year, I speak to winners of Concordia’s journalism school awards as they’re presented at the Montreal Gazette offices. Today, one of the 2016 winners of the Philip Fisher bursary, Safia Ahmad.

Not everyone who graduates from journalism school goes into what you would normally think of as journalism. In fact, I would guess that a majority don’t. Some decide that journalism isn’t for them and pursue something entirely different, others struggle to find jobs (not everyone from my graduating class could be a national journalist at the CBC, not that I’m jealous or anything Catherine), but a lot of people find that their skills and passion are more suited to a job that is like journalism, but not quite.

There are a lot of what I would call journalism-adjacent jobs out there. Arguably, as a copy editor, I’m in one myself. And just because you’re not hounding prime ministers with questions doesn’t mean you’re not doing something valuable in the media ecosystem.

Safia Ahmad, after being honoured with a journalism award in 2016, became a summer reporting intern at the Montreal Gazette the next year, writing many stories that I and my colleagues edited.

But she’s since decided that it’s not for her, as she lays out below. Now, the 25-year-old born-and-bred Montrealer works in communications, notably as media relations manager for Les Canadiennes of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League, where I’ve run into her at games.

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| Radio

Elias Makos to replace Leslie Roberts on CJAD 800

Elias Makos in 2013, before entering television puberty.

Elias Makos, who announced last week he was suddenly leaving Citytv’s Breakfast Television Montreal, has been hired at CJAD to host the 9am to noon show, replacing Leslie Roberts, who leaves at the end of this week.

The news was announced on CJAD’s newscast on Monday, via Bell Media press release, and with a post on CJAD’s website.

The not-very-creatively-named Elias Makos Show will feature “breaking news, debate, interviews, and discussion with listeners,” with a goal to not reinvent the wheel, Makos tells the Gazette’s Bill Brownstein.

In addition to CJAD hosting duties, Makos will be an online media analyst for CTV Montreal, returning to a role he had previously held on a freelance basis before joining BT.

Makos starts in his new roles on Dec. 31.

Update: A confidential source close to Elias Makos, whom I’ll name Malias Ekos, informs me that Mr. Makos doesn’t look like the picture above anymore. My source managed to acquire this image of Makos as he appears currently.

Elias Makos in 2018.

| Media

Journalists of Tomorrow: Josie Fomé

Every year, I speak to winners of Concordia’s journalism school awards as they’re presented at the Montreal Gazette offices. Today, the 2017 winner of the Susan Carson award, Josephine (Josie) Fomé.

Josie Fomé

I could write this long introduction about Josie Fomé and her history, but fortunately she’s already done that for a first-person photo essay on Concordia’s website.

In short, Fomé, 24, was born in Cameroon and grew up in Columbia, S.C. She studied at Dawson College and then did an undergraduate degree in Communication Studies with a minor in Human Relations.

“My very first job was as a cashier at my neighbourhood’s mom and pop grocery store, where I got paid waayy below minimum wage but also learned skills that still benefit me to this day,” she says. “After that, various work experiences have included camp counsellor, helpline phone operator, set up and take down of gyms at school, events assistant with Concordia’s Alumni department, receptionist, mail clerk, internship coordinator, etc. I’ve done so many temp jobs, some of my friends like to call me ‘Josie the temp.'”

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| Media

Media News Digest: Vice loses in Supreme Court, DeMelt replaces Schwartz at CTV, Makos leaves City

News about news

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| Media

Journalists of Tomorrow: Stéphane Grasso

Every year, I speak to winners of Concordia’s journalism school awards as they’re presented at the Montreal Gazette offices. Today, one of the 2016 winners of the Philip Fisher bursary, Stéphane Grasso.

Stéphane Grasso in 2016.

Stéphane Grasso is an artist. His specialty is in film production, thanks to his education at Concordia’s Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema that started 15 years ago.

As he explains below, he produced documentaries for non-profits like World Vision, and that work led to a desire to focus on underrepresented people, so he decided to study journalism.

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| Radio

Quebec City still isn’t ready for its first English-language commercial radio station, CRTC finds

Evanov Radio’s controversial plan to launch Quebec City’s first English-language commercial radio station will have to wait some more after being denied again by the CRTC.

In a decision released Thursday, the commission said the Quebec City radio market “cannot sustain an additional radio station at this time” and that the two applications for new stations — the other by Gilles Lapointe and Nelson Sergerie is for a French station — would be returned.

Evanov had previously tried a decade ago to convince the CRTC to move forward with an English music station in the provincial capital, but the commission denied its application in 2010, in a controversial decision that included a dissenting opinion.

The application is controversial because the other stations in the market argue that Quebec City’s English-language population is far too small to sustain a commercial radio station, so Evanov would instead target the francophone population. By being an English station, it would not be subject to the 65% French-language music rule, which would give it an unfair competitive advantage by allowing it to play more American and U.K. hit songs that are very popular among francophone audiences.

Evanov, who wants to launch a Jewel brand station in Quebec City, argues it wants to serve the anglophone community as well as the anglophone tourist market (though Quebec City already has an English tourist information station), and that it has experience in running radio stations in small markets.

The 2010 decision includes a detailed analysis of the anglophone market in Quebec City. But today’s decision only analyzes the market conditions overall, without commenting specifically on the appropriateness of an English radio station in Quebec.

The current applications for Quebec City actually date from 2016, but were put on hold when the CRTC ran low on French-speaking commissioners.

Under CRTC rules, it won’t consider new applications for Quebec City for the next two years. In December 2020, they can try again.

The news was better in neighbouring communities. In Sainte-Marie-de-Beauce, an application by Attraction Radio for a second music station there will go ahead. And in Portneuf, which is technically still the home of CHXX-FM (Pop 100.9), the commission will proceed with an application by Michel Lambert. Both raised concerns from the commercial broadcasters in Quebec City for fear that they might eventually target the Quebec City market. The Beauce application was also opposed by Groupe Radio Simard, which owns stations in Saint-Georges-de-Beauce.

The applications themselves haven’t yet been published, but should be soon. a public hearing is scheduled for Feb. 20 (to hear an application for Leclerc Communication to buy CHOI Radio X and 91,9 Sports from RNC Media), but these items will not require any oral presentations.

| My articles, Radio

How The Beat beat Virgin (and other trends of Montreal radio ratings)

Numeris released its quarterly metered radio ratings today. There aren’t a lot of surprises, because it’s mostly the same numbers as the last time, and the time before that, and the time before that.

So instead of just excitedly reposting the top-line numbers or fetching the various spins by the broadcasters that make everyone look like they had the best quarter, I thought I’d take a look at some historical data and see how the stations are trending over time.

I did this exercise for Canada’s five metered markets for Cartt.ca after the last ratings book. If you’re a subscriber you can read them there: Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary, Toronto and Montreal.

In this post, I’ll go into some more detail about the Montreal numbers, with charts!

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| Radio

CRTC decision clears way for Kanesatake station to launch rebuild plan

CKHQ-FM Kanesatake in 2014.

There was a sigh of relief in Kanesatake on Monday that relations between the federal government and the Mohawk reserve wouldn’t be strained over a radio frequency coordination issue.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission released a decision denying a licence application for a new Christian music radio station in Lachute. The application by LS Telecom proposed a 300-watt station at 101.7 MHz.

That same frequency is used by CKHQ-FM (Kanesatake United Voices Radio), a low-power (27W) community station serving the reserve about 25 kilometres away. And though the applicant’s engineers said (and the CRTC agreed) that the new station could co-exist with this existing one, because CKHQ is low-power it does not have a right to its frequency and could be forced to find a new one if a licensed station would receive interference. Because of Kanesatake’s proximity to Montreal, there aren’t other frequencies available that would be nearly as good, even for such a low-power station.

The Lachute station would also have limited CKHQ’s ability to seek an increase in power (though the CRTC says it “would not affect the ability of CKHQ-FM to serve its principal market” and “would not prevent CKHQ-FM from expanding to a regular power station”).

The Lachute application was denied, not because of concerns about CKHQ, but because of issues with the application itself. The commission seemed to think it was a bad application in general, that LS Telecom “did not provide a quality application and did not demonstrate an understanding of the regulations and policies for commercial radio and religious broadcasting.” But it particularly showed concern with the complete lack of news programming proposed, even after the CRTC reminded them that such a thing is expected of commercial FM radio stations, religious or not.

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| Radio

Leslie Roberts leaving CJAD after two years

Leslie Roberts, who has been hosting the 9-to-noon show on CJAD 800 for two years, announced on Tuesday morning he will be stepping down from the job at the end of the month. His last show is Dec. 21.

Roberts told Andrew Carter he plans to do some travelling, and has accepted a position with travel website TravelToWellness.com, where he says he’s also been asked to launch a video channel, which he jokingly described as “Travel Travel 2.0” in reference to the former CFCF-12 show he contributed to back in the day.

He said his CJAD contract was expiring but he was asked to stay on a bit longer, and he is in talks with station management to continue to contribute in some capacity, perhaps as a regular panelist or analyst.

Roberts, whose father worked at CJAD, began his career in Montreal, mainly at CFCF, until he was hired first by Global Quebec then by Global Toronto, where he anchored its newscast for 14 years. Roberts resigned from the anchor chair at Global Toronto in 2015 after a Toronto Star investigation found that he owned a PR firm and his clients were appearing on his show without any disclosure.

He was brought in to CJAD in November 2016 to fill the hole left by Tommy Schnurmacher. At the same time, the station fired afternoon host Barry Morgan and upgraded Natasha Hall to his former slot.

UPDATE (Dec. 17): His replacement will be Elias Makos, hired away from Citytv’s Breakfast Television.

| TV

CRTC says no to demanding English programming from Télé-Québec

It was a nice try from the English Language Arts Network, but the CRTC didn’t bite. In renewing Télé-Québec’s broadcasting licence for a five-year term on Tuesday, the commission turned down ELAN’s request that Quebec’s public broadcaster devote 10% of its programming budget to English-language programming (proportional to the number of anglophones in the province).

The request made headlines when it was published earlier this year, and an angry motion from independent MNA Martine Ouellet.

ELAN pointed to Ontario’s creation of TFO, a francophone equivalent of TVO, as precedent for having bilingual public broadcasters. But the commission was unconvinced.

“The creation and operation of TFO in Ontario is a decision of the Government of Ontario,” the commission wrote. “Provinces have the opportunity to put in place educational television stations in both official languages for their citizens if they wish.”

Télé-Québec argued its programming was reflective of all Quebecers, including anglophone Quebecers, in the topics discussed if not the language it is discussed in.

ELAN also asked for “a policy and an action plan relating to Quebec’s diversity”, a 20% quota on programming reflecting minorities, and an advisory committee. The CRTC said the demands were “beyond the scope of this licence renewal process” and should be dealt with at a policy hearing.

Other interest groups also sought quotas or commitments from Télé-Québec. Producers wanted more spending on scripted programming, children’s programming and original French-language programming, a Quebec City group wanted a 10% quota on programming from Quebec City, and ADISQ wanted an expectation related to music.

The commission turned those down, but did add a purposely vague expectation related to regional programming: “The Commission expects the licensee to make use of independent producers from all of Quebec’s regions in such a way that producers from the regions outside the Montréal Census Metropolitan Area, as well as producers from the Montréal CMA, are proportionally contributing to the production of programs broadcast on CIVM-DT Montréal.”

It also allowed Télé-Québec to extend its target audience for youth programming to include teenagers ages 12-17.

Télé-Québec has 17 over-the-air transmitters across the province, but even though they mostly carry different callsigns, they are all formally licensed as retransmitters of the Montreal station, and the programming carried on all of them is identical.

Its new licence expires Aug. 31, 2024.