News about news

• A Canadian Journalism Foundation talk about the changing face of media, and how newsrooms are failing at diversity.
• Hamilton City Council continues to have issues with Joey Coleman, who has this weird thing about public meetings being accessible to the public.
• La Presse has a story talking to three women who cover sports. I find it interesting that two of them are anglophones — Amanda Stein and Jessica Rusnak. Because besides Chantal Machabée, how many can you name on the francophone side? Also covered: The nasty comments they get on social media, and the double standards they face in the dressing room (not by the players) and the differences in attitudes among anglophones and francophones.
• The Washington Post also talks to its female sports reporters covering the four major sports teams.
• Similarly, there is another report from La Presse on the hate women get on social media, which includes this very depressing column from Michèle Ouimet.

At the CRTC

• The four open CRTC commissioner positions, including chairperson, were supposed to have application deadlines on Monday, but they’ve been extended, again, until March 15.
• The commission has split the difference in resolving a carriage dispute between Bell TV and MusiquePlus/Musimax. MP/MM complained because Bell was taking the channels out of the first-tier “Good” package in Quebec and leaving them only in the highest-tier “Best” package. And for older subscribers still on theme packs, it would be removed from popular packages there too. The commission rejected Bell’s argument that a channel is considered available in a package even if to take that package a user has to switch packaging systems (and ditch their grandfathered rights). But for the three-tier system, is only requires that Musimax (now just Max) be in the middle-tier “Better” package, and Bell can go ahead and limit MusiquePlus to just the “Best” package.
• CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais wrote a letter in which he bizarrely says there’s no proof that a 40% drop in viewership of the Super Bowl in English Canada is because Canadians watched it on Fox. I get that you can’t know exactly how much of that drop is due to the CRTC’s simultaneous substitution decision, but to say there’s no direct link between the two is ludicrous.

TV

• The Canadian Screen Awards for non-fiction programming were handed out Tuesday night, in advance of the big gala Sunday night on CBC. The list of Tuesday’s nominees and winners — a total of 48 — is here. Winners by broadcaster:
  • CBC: 18
    • CBC TV: 16
    • Documentary Channel: 2
  • Bell Media: 18
    • CTV: 10
    • TSN: 4
    • HBO Canada: 3
    • Discovery Channel: 1
  • Corus: 7
    • Global: 3
    • History Television: 3
    • Food Network: 1
  • Rogers: 2
    • Sportsnet: 2
  • TVO: 3
• AMItv is producing a home improvement show for accessible living, out of Nova Scotia. It expects to air this summer.
• Some statistics showing that the decline in viewing of traditional television is slowing, for those who want to look on the bright side.
• Radio-Canada’s ombudsman criticized RDI for too often running video of people speaking English without translation. The public broadcaster notes that RDI has only one full-time translator, working 9 to 5.
• Jean-Luc Brassard is the latest to try to shame TV broadcasters (CBC/Radio-Canada notably) into broadcasting winter sports events live. Broadcasters say the rights to broadcast these events just cost too much.
• Groupe TVA published its fourth-quarter earnings. The top line is good news. For subsidiary TVA Sports, it’s mixed. Ad revenue is up 15% over the previous year, but for all of 2016 the channel lost more money than the year before, mainly because the Canadiens didn’t make the playoffs (TVA Sports has only 22 of 82 Habs games a season, but it has all playoff games.)

Radio

• Josée Verner, former Conservative cabinet minister and current failed-re-election-candidate-so-Harper-appointed-her-to-the-Senate person, has officially joined FM93 in Quebec City as a weekly columnist, replacing former politician Mario Dumont.
• Catherine Pogonat will take over as late morning host at ICI Musique, replacing the departing Rebecca Makonnen, as of May 15.
• Corus’s radio stations are being brought onto the GlobalNews.ca platform. Toronto’s AM640 is the latest after London’s AM980.
• The Vancouver Whitecaps have extended their radio rights deal with TSN Radio for three years.

Print

• Transcontinental’s media division lost almost 20% of revenue in the last quarter compared to the previous year. The company eliminated 20 jobs at its production hub in eastern Montreal, though some of those cuts are due to technological upgrades.
• Toronto Star unionized employees have approved a new collective agreement. It brings Star Touch employees into the fold.
• Family web magazine Planète F has started a print version, thanks to a government subsidy. They’re boosting that with some crowdfunding.
• Cult MTL is doing its annual Best of Montreal reader poll.

News about people

Excited to start a new adventure! I'm proud to announce I'll be joining the all-star team @CTVMontreal pic.twitter.com/bjtVVjetTd

— Kelly Greig (@KellyGreig) March 6, 2017

• CTV Montreal has poached Global Montreal’s morning news reporter Kelly Greig. Greig previously worked at City Montreal as a producer on its weekly sports show (with current Sean Coleman, who’s manning the sports anchor desk part-time at CTV), and before that worked at CBC Radio in Montreal.
• Senior management changes at CBC News: Brodie Fenlon will manage “daily news”, Jonathan Whitten to “depth and context” and someone yet to be named managing investigative reporting. Also, Steve Ladurantaye, former media reporter at the Globe and Mail turned media and government liaison at Twitter Canada, will be the new managing editor of The National as it reworks itself in preparation for a new anchor.
• John Boynton has been hired as the new CEO of Torstar.
• Chantal Desjardins has a new job in broadcasting, with PokerVision Media, a TV content provider that’s launching as a channel in the U.S. on April 1 and expects to come to Canada “later this year.”
• Marie-Michèle Sioui is the new Quebec parliamentary correspondent for Le Devoir.
• In addition to writing for iPolitics, Kady O’Malley is launching a new weekly politics column at Vice News.
• Mylène Crête is jumping from Radio-Canada to Presse Canadienne covering politics in Ottawa.
• Mike Cohen profiles TSN 690’s Mitch Gallo and Sean Campbell.
• CTV Montreal’s Annie DeMelt is filling in as news anchor on Your Morning this week. You can see her in action here, as of the four-minute mark.
• Paul Haysom moves to Vancouver to join Global News as morning anchor at Global BC and BC1.
• The president of Manitoba’s MTS, Jay Forbes, will leave the company when its sale to Bell closes.

Jobs

• Political reporter in Ottawa, National Post (deadline: March 10)
• Copy editor, Les Affaires (deadline: March 16)
• Tenure track professor in data journalism at Concordia University (deadline: March 24)
• Assistant general manager, FPJQ (deadline: April 2)
• Mandarin-speaking reporter in Vancouver, Globe and Mail

Upcoming events

• March 24-26: Radio-Canada hackathon
• May 20: Canadaland in Montreal