News about news
After I ignited a Twitter firestorm with my comments about @CassieCampbell and @hockeynight, here are some sober second thoughts. I appreciate everyone who kept me accountable: pic.twitter.com/FIk025wz6O
— Ken Campbell (@Ken_Campbell27) December 4, 2017
- The Hockey News’s Ken Campbell sparked a discussion among the hockey broadcasting media (even Sportsnet’s president got involved) when he criticized Sportsnet for having Cassie Campbell-Pascall working a Calgary Flames game when her husband is the assistant GM. He was quickly criticized for bringing this up now when it involves a woman but not when men have been in similar conflicts of interest. Campbell clarified that he should have called those out as well. Unfortunately there hasn’t been a good discussion over what line there should be when it comes to sports broadcasters.
- A CBC ombudsman review of Terry Milewski’s controversial interview with new NDP leader Jagmeet Singh found it was appropriate for Milewski to, at the end of their interview, repeatedly ask him about his stance on posters of Air India bombing mastermind Talwinder Parmar being displayed in Sikh temples and events in Canada. “Raising the question is a journalistically-defensible one. It was based on knowledge and expertise, and the programme staff judged it was relevant.”
- A report on how companies are exploiting the eagerness of established websites to get free content from contributors by paying those contributors to slip in mentions of their brands.
- ABC News is still cleaning up the mess caused when Brian Ross got a key detail wrong in a report about the investigation into Michael Flynn. Ross was suspended for the error.
At the CRTC
- The commission has published applications from the big English and French-language TV broadcasters related to a Canadian government order to the CRTC to review its recent licence renewals. Generally, they propose increasing slightly their quotas for programs of national interest, giving bigger CanCon credits for documentary and music programming, and lowering other CanCon quotas. They also are calling for licences that expire in 2020 rather than 2022, because of how fast the industry is changing.
TV
From its #CRTC licence renewal application, Évasion predicts it will lose 50-100,000 subscribers a year, and more than 20% of its revenue over next 5 years. pic.twitter.com/tZYrcnmU7k
— Steve Faguy (@fagstein) December 2, 2017
- La Presse asked some real police investigators what they think of the Radio-Canada cop series District 31.
- CBC Television has announced its winter premiere dates.
- CBC is now offering free livestreaming of its over-the-air stations online, and for those who want to sign up for the $5/month premium option, you get ad-free programming and CBC News Network live as well.
Radio
https://twitter.com/imjaywalker/status/937480045387550721
- CHOM is pulling the plug on Jay Walker’s Montreal Rocks show. PD Chris Bury tells Brendan Kelly that as part of a larger shakeup of the schedule (including ending Randy Renaud’s Black Cat Alley), he decided to make Sunday nights live.
- 106.7 The Jewel has added a weekly segment on Thursday mornings with Rhonda Massad of West Island Blog.
- Bell Media has updated its iHeartRadio app. Or, more accurately, replaced it with the U.S. version. The new app includes U.S. stations as well as those owned by Evanov Radio. Everyone else is still on RadioPlayer.
- ICI Première hosted a roundtable discussion about the future of francophone community radio in western Canada after an Alberta station shut down.
- Quebec has announced measures to help print media, with subsidies to help them with transition to digital and breaks on taxes they have to pay for recycling. It comes out to $36.4 million total.
- CBC London has a story about how the archives of closed Postmedia and Torstar newspapers in Ontario will be preserved. The short answer is there are no real plans for that at this point.
- The Montreal Gazette’s former printing plant in N.D.G. has been bought by a company that’s turning it into a data centre.
- This discussion paper from Communications Management argues that complaints about concentration of ownership of print media are off-base, because the market has shrunk so much that their power isn’t nearly what it once was. Besides, print media used to be even more concentrated than now.
- L.A. Times employees are trying to unionize.
Online
- The New York Times has tightened its paywall, going from 10 free articles a month to five.
- Canadaland has a story about Bell Canada pushing the idea of a blacklist of piracy websites that Internet providers would automatically block.
- Quebecor’s please-tax-Netflix campaign now includes a letter signed by more than a hundred important people in the industry, including Quebec artists and leaders at Cogeco, Bell Media, Evenko, V Media, Télé-Québec, Stingray and various festivals and arts organizations.
- A hilarious story about gaming TripAdvisor with fake restaurant reviews reminds us that you can’t always trust peer ratings.
Other
- La Presse investigates the fuzzy math used by the Canadiens to claim a game is sold out when in fact there are many tickets unsold.
- Rogers says it is looking at the idea of selling the Toronto Blue Jays and its stakes in Cogeco and Cogeco Communications as it focuses on its core business. The Globe also has an interview with CEO Joe Natale, who says the magazine segment has been challenging. I wouldn’t be surprised if those aren’t also on the block.
News about people
- Stephen LeDrew, a host and commentator on CP24, was suspended for appearing on Fox News apparently without permission from Bell Media. During that appearance he made fun of the ever-expanding LGBTQ+ acronym and called two-spirit people “confused.”
- Hubert Lacroix did another exit interview, this time with the Globe and Mail, during which he says he considered suing former French services boss Alain Saulnier for libel for stuff he wrote in his book Ici Était Radio-Canada.
- Bill Brownstein sits down with the New York Times’s new Montreal correspondent, Dan Bilefsky.
- Rhonda Brown has been promoted to station manager and news director at Global Halifax and Global NB.
- Journalist Jamie Mauracher is leaving CTV for Global Toronto in the new year.
- CBC Vancouver morning man Rick Cluff is retiring at the end of the month.
- CBC Saskatchewan morning woman Sheila Coles is also retiring.
- Toronto Sun photographer Michael Peake hangs up his camera.
- Gregg Zaun is really sorry about his behaviour.
Jobs
- Casual camera editor, APTN (deadline: Dec. 8)
- National online investigative journalist, Global News (deadline: Dec. 12)
- Reporter (12-month contract) in Toronto, Globe and Mail
- Associate editor, Reports & Rankings, Macleans
What can I say, Sunday nights is almost dead zone for radio, but to leave rock station decisions in the hands of news talk PD is a recipe for potential disaster..
These two shows were excellent fill-in type content for a Sunday..
If Bury needs bench strength, then why not add a live body on the all night gig. I like someone talking at 2 in the morning between tracks.
I alluded to this thinking when they let go of music director and assistant PD Picard.
Though stations by Evanov Radio where added to the new iheart radio app they didn’t work. Tried listening to Jewel 106.7 and it was silent. Though app stopped working so switched to Virgin Radio and it worked.
Further more I tried Evanov Radio stations in Toronto same issue. Not sure why Bell would list but not play.
What are your thoughs on the current south of the US Net Neutrality possibly coming to an end? How could this affect the Canadian media for anyone to access it in the US? I hope from my perspective that cooler heads prevail and net nutrality is sustained at it’s current level so to speak. Mark
They did right to kill net neutrality in my view.
Aaaand, so? Once the hollering and screeching halted, did we have an adult conversation about Campbell or not? That he neglected to bring up other people may have been an oversight but doesn’t negate his point.