Category Archives: Media

January 17, 2020 | Media, My articles, Opinion

Quebecor’s shifting arguments against Tou.tv

It will come as no surprise to you that Quebecor and Canada’s public broadcaster are not the best of friends. Quebecor’s controlling shareholder and CEO, Pierre Karl Péladeau, has complained about it many times in the past. (He also complains about La Presse, Bell, the Quebec Liberal Party, the Quebec government and others.)

This week, Quebec’s largest telecom and media company filed a complaint with the CRTC demanding that it order CBC/Radio-Canada to shut down its Tou.tv Extra streaming service. Not all of Tou.tv, just the $7/month premium version that charges for premium content.

I examine the application in this article for Cartt.ca subscribers. In short, Quebecor is arguing that:

As a public broadcaster, it’s improper for CBC/Radio-Canada to charge for access to content paid for by taxpayers, and goes against its mandate.
Since it licenses some content from other broadcasters (Télé-Québec, V, Canal Vie, TV5 and others), it is a de facto TV provider and should be licensed as such, including obligations to spend 5% of its revenue on Canadian programming funds.
Its deal with Telus giving Telus’s customers free access to Tou.tv Extra is an illegal undue preference and against the rules for digital media broadcasters.
CBC’s last licence renewal in 2013 included a note from the CRTC that said it does not charge for access to its streaming service (Tou.tv Extra launched in 2014), which Quebecor argues is a de facto condition of acceptance.

Quebecor lays it on pretty thick in the application, saying CBC/Radio-Canada is “short-circuiting the Canadian broadcasting system with taxpayer money” and “creating two-tier public television: enriched content, exclusives and offers first to the better off, and regular content and reruns to the masses.”

In a procedural letter, the CRTC says that issues related to CBC’s mandate should be dealt with in the CBC licence renewal proceeding, which is currently under way. Other issues of fairness can be dealt with in the context of an “undue preference” proceeding, which it will examine.

I could point out some of the obvious counter-arguments to Quebecor’s argument (Tou.tv Extra does not offer live streaming of cable channels, only some of their content on demand; there is no condition of licence requiring it to be free; it’s basically the same model as Quebecor’s own Club Illico; the deal offered to Telus was offered to others as well including Videotron, who choose not to take it; even if there is undue preference, it does not mean Tou.tv Extra needs to cease its operations), but what struck me today as I was doing some Google searching is a post I wrote 10 years ago just after Tou.tv first launched, when Péladeau complained about it then. Here’s a paragraph I excerpted from an open letter he wrote:

Furthermore, the CBC has launched the Tou.tv website without consulting the industry, a move that jeopardizes Canada’s broadcasting system by providing free, heavily subsidized television content on the Internet without concern for the revenue losses that may result, not only for the CBC but also for other stakeholders, including writers and directors.

So, in 2010 Péladeau argued that Tou.tv threatened the broadcasting system by not charging a fee.

And in 2020 Péladeau argues that Tou.tv Extra threatens the broadcasting system by charging a fee.

You have to give this to Péladeau: He’s got quite the ability to argue. It must be fun working in his regulatory affairs department.

January 8, 2020 | Media

Media News Digest: GCM coop goes ahead, CBC licence renewal, a bunch of people retire

It’s been a month and a half since the last one of these, and frankly it’s quite the load on my time. I’m going to have to explore ways of lowering the workload if I’m going to keep doing this. In the meantime, I’ve dropped the jobs section and may drop others that are less popular and/or have better sources elsewhere.

News about news

After more than 11 years and nearly 10 million visitors, we want to say thank you to everyone who has visited. You made the Newseum extraordinary. Thank you. Thank you and goodnight. pic.twitter.com/JnxUVpBnZG

— Freedom Forum (@1stForAll) December 31, 2019

A court has approved the plan to convert Groupe Capitales Médias into a group of workers’ cooperatives. The arrangement has not pleased GCM’s retirees, who have said they will appeal the decision and have gone so far as protesting former owner Power Corp. demanding that they make good on the underfunded pension plan. The six newspapers have formed their boards of directors (Le Droit, Le Nouvelliste, Le Quotidien, Le Soleil, La Tribune, La Voix de l’Est) and begun appointing general managers — Gilles Carignan at Le Soleil, Éric Brousseau at Le Droit. Claude Gagnon, the previous president, has retired.
Cabinet mandate letters for the new federal government have been published, including that of new Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault. Among the promises he’s being asked to carry out:
- New legislation requiring online platforms remove “illegal content, including hate speech, within 24 hours or face significant penalties”
- Modernize the Broadcasting Act and Telecommunications Act to make internet access more affordable and require streaming platforms to offer and contribute to Canadian content
- “Strengthen the regional mandate of CBC/Radio-Canada to broadcast more local news and require CBC/Radio-Canada to open up its digital platform.”
- More funding for Telefilm Canada
- Implement new online rights, including: “data portability; the ability to withdraw, remove and erase basic personal data from a platform; the knowledge of how personal data is being used, including with a national advertising registry and the ability to withdraw consent for the sharing or sale of data; the ability to review and challenge the amount of personal data that a company or government has collected; proactive data security requirements; the ability to be informed when personal data is breached with appropriate compensation; and the ability to be free from online discrimination including bias and harassment.”
- Review the Copyright Act
- “Support local journalism and develop business models that facilitate private giving and philanthropic support for professional journalism and local news.”
- Guilbeault also says the government will impose GST on foreign platforms like Netflix.
The Canadian government has launched its newspaper bailout. This includes the release of the form to fill out to be considered a qualified Canadian journalism organization.
Meanwhile, News Media Canada has released the list of recipients for its Local News Initiative. They include my employer, the Montreal Gazette.
Canadaland has a story about the publisher of the Globe and Mail lobbying the Canadian government for direct funding.
Radio-Canada is clamping down on excessive use of the term “exclusive” in news reporting, except in very narrow circumstances — notably when getting interviews with important figures who are difficult to access. Investigations will be labelled as such (“enquête”) when they’re the result of significant investigative journalism work.
A media placement agency presents some potentially self-serving data from a Via Rail experiment showing that advertising in Canadian-owned media gives more return than foreign digital giants like Facebook and Google.
Alberta’s Canadian Energy Centre, a so-called “war room” set up by Premier Jason Kenney to counter negative news about Alberta oil, has drawn the ire of the Canadian Association of Journalists because the people writing stories for its website have been identifying themselves as journalists in talking to sources.
As part of its CRTC licence renewal (see below), CBC commissioned an analysis comparing CBC News Network and CTV News Channel. For the most part they were similar, but this remark struck me: “CBC relied more extensively on its local journalists (the majority reporting from the field) for reporting and commenting on events while CTV relied more heavily on third-party speakers and experts, as well as US-based reporters.” And “CBC journalists filed or provided commentary on almost 49% of the network’s international coverage, compared to 24% for CTV.” In other words, CBC NN tends to rely on its network of journalists more, particularly for international stories. That sounds about right based on my anecdotal observation of the two channels.
The Winnipeg Blue Bombers got mad at TSN reporter Darrin Bauming and pulled him from his job during the Grey Cup, according to the Free Press.
CBC Manitoba and the Winnipeg Free Press appear to have entered into a content sharing agreement, with each website excerpting from and linking to stories on the other. Here are a few examples of Free Press stories at CBC and CBC stories at the Free Press.
The new movie Richard Jewell, about a man whose reputation was destroyed by the media, is being criticized for falsely portraying a (now deceased) reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as having traded sex for information. It is hardly the first movie to portray female journalists having sex with sources or subjects, even though this is virtually unheard of in practice.
A legal battle between radio host Pierre Mailloux and La Presse journalist Rima Elkouri has been settled out of court. The battle stems from a previous legal case that was also settled out of court, but Mailloux blabbed about its contents, prompting lawsuits both ways that have now been withdrawn.
The Grande guignolée des médias fundraiser has raised $3.6 million for various local charities.
Staff of the National Observer online news outlet have filed to unionize.
Daniel Leblanc of the Globe and Mail took some Quebec media to task for allowing sources within the Quebec Liberal Party to say behind the cloak of anonymity that Dominique Anglade should not be leader of the party because of her race. He explains his reasoning here, and notes that the Globe and Mail’s investigative reporting has improved since the paper restricted the use of anonymous sources.
The Globe and Mail looks at Thunder Bay and northern Ontario after a year of stories it produced from a bureau it set up there, with profiles of 10 people who are making a difference.
The New York Times takes a couple of peeks behind the curtain, discussing how it decides what goes on the front page, and what technology its reporters use.

Continue reading →

December 19, 2019 | TV

CRTC rules Bell TV unfairly packaged TVA Sports

So Quebecor was right all along.

Kinda.

In a decision published on Thursday, the CRTC ruled that Bell TV unduly showed preference to its related channel RDS to the detriment of competitor TVA Sports by choosing to put the former in its most popular package in Quebec, but not the latter.

It gives Bell until Feb. 5 to tell the commission how it will rectify the situation. The two obvious options are to either add TVA Sports to the package, or take RDS out of it.

Like most TV providers, Bell offers discretionary channels on an à la carte basis, but most people have them as part of larger packages. With Bell, these larger packages are organized in tiers: Good, Better and Best in English, and Bon, Meilleur and Mieux in French. The data show that the lowest-end package of that group is by far the more popular. In Quebec, about 90% of subscribers with one of these packages has the “Bon” package, which has RDS but not TVA Sports.

Bell had argued that its contract with Quebecor only required TVA Sports to have similar packaging to RDS2, and that even that clause doesn’t apply anymore. Quebecor, meanwhile, argued that TVA Sports has greatly transformed since it launched in 2011, and is now on par with RDS, particularly since it picked up the national rights to NHL games.

The CRTC sided with Quebecor, and said “Bell deprived TVA Sports of a significant number of subscribers and several millions of dollars per year of subscription and advertising revenues, resulting in a significant loss of income.”

Quebecor’s back-of-the-envelope calculations suggested that if Bell TV treated TVA Sports the same as RDS (including paying the same per-subscriber rate), TVA Sports would not be in deficit. The rate isn’t part of this decision, but rather was decided as part of final offer arbitration in a separate case (Quebecor is mad about that one too, since the CRTC sided with Bell).

This apparent unfairness was the major reason Quebecor decided in April to cut the TVA Sports feed from Bell, until ordered by the court to re-establish it.

We’ll see what Bell does to rectify the situation. Quebecor would obviously prefer more subscribers to TVA Sports, but Bell could choose to take RDS out of the “Bon” package instead, especially if it can get away with grandfathering those who already have it.

Bell complaint dismissed

In a separate decision also released Thursday, the CRTC also sided with Quebecor in a case over packaging of Super Écran on Videotron. The decision, in response to a Bell complaint, found that Videotron did treat Super Écran differently from Quebecor’s own Club Illico when it removed Super Écran from the “Premium” group of channels, but that there was insufficient evidence that Super Écran suffered financially because of it.

Videotron’s pick-your-own-package model, which is the main way they’re selling TV services these days, invites customers to choose a certain number of channels. Separate from that are “Premium” services that cost more. Most Videotron packages allow one or two “Premium” selections from a list of services, that used to include Super Écran and The Movie Network (now Crave), plus Super Channel, the over-the-top service Club Illico, and a package that includes FX, AMC and U.S. super stations.

Videotron removed Super Écran and Crave from the “Premium” offer after Bell increased its per-subscriber fee. It argued it was just too expensive to continue to be a throw-in like that. Instead, you have to search under “other specialties” to find them among the ethnic channels and pay an extra $17 (Super Écran) or $20 (Crave/HBO) a month.

The decision seems to suggest the issue could be revisited if Bell can prove there was significant financial impact on Super Écran as a result of this change.

December 19, 2019 | TV

Supreme Court overturns CRTC order banning ad substitution during Super Bowl

After three years of Canadian cable TV subscribers having access to American ads during the Super Bowl, we’ll be going back to the previous system after all.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the CRTC exceeded its authority when it issued an order that required cable and satellite TV companies to not substitute U.S. feeds with Canadian ones during the Super Bowl, in response to demands from Canadians to be able to watch the U.S. Super Bowl ads.

The 7-2 decision explicitly leaves open the possibility that the CRTC could use its authority under other sections of the Broadcasting Act to possibly reach the same result. The most obvious way would be under article 4(3) of the Simultaneous Substitution Regulations, which state that the CRTC can declare a condition whereby simultaneous substitution would not be in the public interest, and prohibit it accordingly.

But that won’t happen before the next Super Bowl less than two months away.

Specifically, the court found that article 9(1)h of the Broadcasting Act, the same article that allows the CRTC to require TV distributors to include certain channels in their basic packages and collect fees from every subscriber for them, “does not empower the CRTC to impose terms and conditions on the distribution of programming services generally,” and since the order the CRTC issued in 2016 does not require these companies to distribute the Super Bowl, its wording is invalid.

The article states that the CRTC may “require any licensee who is authorized to carry on a distribution undertaking to carry, on such terms and conditions as the Commission deems appropriate, programming services specified by the Commission.”

The majority found that this wording can’t be stretched to give the CRTC a bunch of powers it doesn’t say it has. The CRTC can order providers to carry certain channels, but that’s not what the Super Bowl order does.

This is notably the third time that an order issued under article 9(1)h has been rejected for this reason. Previous orders invalidated the CRTC’s “value for signal” regime that would have required providers pay for local TV stations, and a requirement for TV providers to abide by the Wholesale Code.

The court did not make decisions on other arguments, such as whether the CRTC has the power to regulate individual programs, or whether the CRTC’s order conflicts with the Copyright Act.

The two dissenting judges found that Bell and the NFL had not met their burden to prove that the CRTC decision was unreasonable, and generally deferred to the CRTC and its expertise in interpreting the section of the Broadcasting Act it was citing. It also found the CRTC’s decision was not invalidated by the Copyright Act.

The decision probably only accelerates a process that was coming anyway, as the Canadian government had already agreed as part of negotiations on a new trade agreement with the U.S. and Mexico to overturn the CRTC’s order.

And, of course, there are still other ways to watch the U.S. Super Bowl ads.

December 17, 2019 | Radio

Radio Centre-Ville lawsuit ends with dissidents dropping case at trial

The legal battle between Radio Centre-Ville (CINQ-FM 102.3) and a group of dissidents over control of the community station is over. But the emotional repercussions of the bitter three-year dispute will likely continue for some time to come.

The case was finally heard on Monday before judge Marc St-Pierre at Quebec Superior Court. But after hearing from only two witnesses, the plaintiff, representing the dissidents, proposed abandoning the lawsuit, which was quickly accepted. (Both sides pay their own legal costs.)

The dispute started in the fall of 2016, with a proposal by station management that, to control a financial crisis that risked pushing the station into bankruptcy and losing its building on St-Laurent Blvd., it begin selling airtime to independent producers. That proposal may or may not have been rejected at a general assembly of members in September 2016, depending which side you talk to.

Two other general assemblies followed, one in December 2016 and one in January 2017, to elect members to the station’s board of directors, and each side says the other one was illegal. Since then, the two have continued to battle for control, each with its own board — General Manager Wanex Lalanne and his allies remained in control of the station itself, while the dissident group was the one listed on Quebec’s business registry, and had control of the station’s Facebook page. The dissident group also often got its messages broadcast on the station, as well as through other media like CKUT.

Radio Centre-Ville General Manager Wanex Lalanne addresses listeners during an on-air press conference on Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2019.

To say the battle has been acrimonious would be an understatement. During a press conference broadcast live on-air on Tuesday, Lalanne and his supporters talked about defamatory statements made against him, and Lalanne did not discount the possibility of a civil lawsuit for defamation. (The threat of such a countersuit may have been a factor in the dissidents deciding to drop their case.) Lalanne said he would take some time to recover from this ordeal before taking such decisions, and it’s up to the station’s board of directors as far as the next steps on behalf of the organization.

Continue reading →

December 11, 2019 | Radio

TTP Media’s 600 and 940 stations go off the air

Damage to the transmitter caused by a wind storm caused TTP Media’s two Montreal radio stations to go off the air, and the need to order parts means it will be early in the new year before they’re transmitting again, co-owner Nicolas Tétrault tells me.

CFNV 940 AM and CFQR 600 AM have been on the air since 2016 and 2017, respectively, each taking five years to get on the air after getting their licences from the CRTC.

For nearly a decade, Montrealers unsatisfied with commercial talk radio stations have been eagerly anticipating what was promised. But that eagerness has faded as year after year brings no news about programming (except for a deal CFNV reached with the similarly-named CNV to provide mainly music programming).

Tétrault says talk programming is coming soon, and they are very proactive on setting it up. Talk programs on CFQR, the English station, could start as early as February, he told me.

Considering past promises of launching soon, it’s best not to hold your breath waiting for it.

UPDATE (Feb. 19): CFQR 600 AM is back on the air.

December 4, 2019 | Radio

Fall radio ratings: Could The Beat surpass CJAD?

Numeris released its quarterly ratings report for metered markets on Wednesday, and for Montreal the only surprising thing is how much The Beat continues to dominate over Virgin Radio. With a 21.5% share, it has more than twice the average listeners than Virgin Radio at 9.4%. And not only it it the fourth straight quarter that The Beat has been more than twice Virgin’s share, it’s the third straight where Virgin has fallen behind CHOM for third place among English music stations.

The 21.5% share is The Beat’s highest since it launched in 2011, and less than four points below perennial leader CJAD 800. Could we see a future where The Beat isn’t just the most popular music station and the most popular among that advertiser-friendly 25-54 audience, but among all ages and formats as well?

The book is more bad news for Virgin Radio, which tried to turn things around by letting go of program director Mark Bergman (he’s now at The Beat) and morning hosts Freeway Frank and Natasha Gargiulo and stealing Vinny Barrucco back from The Beat to lead its new morning show. The Beat’s morning show, headed by Vinny’s former co-host Nikki Balch, is still ahead. It’s still early — this is the first full book with Barrucco hosting the morning show with Shannon King — but they have a lot of ground to cover, and Virgin has lost a lot of ground that it has to make up.

TSN 690 is at the bottom of the anglo commercial radio pack, but it had its best share since 2017. CBC Radio One, meanwhile, which had good numbers from 2017 until this spring, has fallen back below 7% in market share.

On the francophone side, the top line hasn’t changed much, except for a rebound for CHMP-FM 98.5 (which always tends to dip in the summer with replacement hosts and less news), and a drop for CKOI 96.9.

Bragging rights

November 23, 2019 | Media

Media News Digest: GCM heads toward coop, WCAX catches fire, CBC North backtracks on merging newscasts

News about news

Every newspaper prepares in advance for the potential outcomes of an election. Here are some of the front-page headlines we wrote but didn’t need. #elxn43 pic.twitter.com/ZLxSiLj3PN

— Derek DeCloet (@decloet) October 22, 2019

A plan to have employees take over Groupe Capitales Médias and run its six newspapers (Le Soleil, Le Droit, Le Nouvelliste, Le Quotidien, La Voix de l’Est, La Tribune) as a cooperative is continuing. The trustee’s plan has been approved by the court, and now the group needs to secure enough financing to make it a reality. Meanwhile, Le Devoir says it declined to make an offer after realizing it could not export its business model to Le Soleil and make money with it. And retirees who will face cuts to their benefits after the pension plan is shut down are accusing the government of abandoning them. And aid from the Quebec government might force Ottawa’s Le Droit to move to Gatineau.
A lawsuit by the Subway sandwich chain against CBC’s Marketplace was dismissed under anti-SLAPP law. The defamation suit alleged that CBC recklessly suggested the chicken used in Subway’s chicken sandwiches was less than 50% chicken. CBC says it used a lab for analysis and there is nothing wrong with its story.
A study by journalism professors at Ryerson University has shown that newspaper columnists have not become diverse at the same rate as the Canadian population.
A collaboration between 10 universities and nine journalism organizations has produced a national report about lead in drinking water. The project, which was coordinated by Concordia University’s new Institute for Investigative Journalism, was proposed by Robert Cribb of the Toronto Star.
The Winnipeg Free Press has pulled the plug on its cannabis-centred publication The Leaf News.
Postmedia meanwhile, has added a new topic-based website called healthing.ca, with health stories from its publications. It promises “a source of verified healthcare information for consumers, caregivers and practitioners.” Some of that content comes from Ebix Inc., designed for an American audience, or comes from health-related organizations. It follows other topic-based websites like The Growth Op (marijuana) and Driving.ca (cars).
The office of the Turtle Island News in Six Nations of the Grand River near Hamilton, Ont., was set on fire, in what its editor calls “an attack on free speech.” It’s still unclear why the fire was set or by whom.
Le point d’impact in Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines stopped buying stories from freelancer Monic Provost after she wrote a story critical of the mayor. The editor admitted he didn’t want to get into a fight with the city.
BuzzFeed News and the Toronto Star have published an investigation into the man behind the Buffalo Chronicle, a website that publishes apparently made-up news about Canadian politics.
An Ontario court has struck down the provincial government’s “Student choice initiative”, which allows university students to easily opt out of paying fees to student groups including university newspapers.
CBC’s Q got a bit ridiculed after it posted a story about the ADISQ gala and translated the names of albums and even some artists into English. It has since untranslated the names.
The Google News Initiative has given money to four Canadian news agencies to help them with projects — a data journalism desk at The Canadian Press, an audio news exchange marketplace by Earbank Inc., a “platform for social interaction” (whatever that is) by Village Media, and “a digital-only product that combines quality local news with a community hub” at Torstar.
Montreal hyperlocal news site RueMasson.com has shut down.
News website The Logic has raised $1.8 million in seed funding, some of which is from Postmedia, with whom it has a content partnership.
Two police officers who arrested MNA Guy Ouellette and undertook investigations related to leaks as part of Project Mâchurer have asked Quebecor to not publish the book PLQ Inc. about them that they claim contains falsehoods.
A New York Times feature story by Catherine Porter has drawn harsh criticism for being “trauma porn” and presenting a distorted and stereotypical picture of what life is like for the Inuit people in the north of Canada. The Times has stood by the story, but except for a Twitter thread, Porter herself hasn’t really addressed the criticisms.
Vice writes about the New York Times’s habit of failing to link to stories they match. In reality, this goes far beyond the Times, and is a habit of many large news organizations, who see acknowledging that another outlet had a story first as a weakness. And as Vice notes, large news organizations are large and different journalists have different habits when it comes to this.

Continue reading →

November 19, 2019 | Media, Opinion

The end of the free daily newspaper in (English) Canada

About 20 years after it first became a thing, the free daily commuter newspaper will cease to exist in English Canada.

Torstar announced on Tuesday that it will cease production of its StarMetro dailies (formerly Metro) in the five cities it currently operates — Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto and Halifax. The result will be more than 120 layoffs, according to Unifor, which is using the news to demand additional government help for print media.

The closure means Canada is left with only two free daily print newspapers, both of which are in Montreal: Métro and 24 Heures. Both were once part of nationwide chains but got split up from them.

Metro operated newspapers in:

London
Regina
Saskatoon
Ottawa
Winnipeg
Vancouver
Edmonton
Calgary
Toronto
Halifax

24 Hours operated in:

Gatineau
Calgary
Edmonton
Ottawa
Vancouver
Toronto

There were also independent efforts, particularly in Toronto:

FYI Toronto and GTA Today, free papers launched by the Toronto Sun and Toronto Star, respectively, when the craze began in 2000.
Dose, the Canwest free daily that lasted just over a year in five cities
t.o.night, which tried to make an afternoon free daily a thing

Now they’re all dead.

So what about Montreal?

Montreal’s remaining free dailies have unique circumstances, but they aren’t immune from the same economic forces — a reduction in advertising revenue, an increase in expenses, as well as less attention from readers who can now spend their morning commutes checking Facebook on their phones.

Métro, formerly a Transcontinental paper, was sold along with Montreal and Quebec City community papers to Métro Média, a company owned by Michael Raffoul, an entrepreneur who owns a print media distribution company.

24 Heures, owned by Quebecor, is a de facto sister publication to the Journal de Montréal. It no longer has its own website, and its stories live on the Journal de Montréal’s site. It saves money by using stories from the Journal and TVA.

Neither newspaper has any guarantee of surviving in the long term. Quebecor could shut down 24H at any time, and few people would notice (it disappeared for a week this summer and nobody raised an eyebrow). Metro, meanwhile, is part of a larger group of newspapers that is increasingly codependent, and a shutdown there might be devastating for what’s left of the on-island community newspapers (though many of them are little more than advertising vehicles these days).

I wouldn’t be surprised if someone tries something new in Toronto. It’s a city of millions and just seems a bit odd that it wouldn’t have at least one free news daily. But maybe it’s time to acknowledge that this method of getting news hasn’t kept up with technological progress.

Which isn’t all bad. It’ll mean fewer discarded newspapers clogging up subway systems.

November 14, 2019 | Radio

Rick Moffat, Eramelinda Boquer among latest Bell Media cuts

Wednesday was another bad day at Bell Media, as the company made another round of cuts across the country for vague reasons that probably amount to wanting to cut expenses to increase profits.

The company refused to provide “specific numbers” or names but confirmed there were “departures” at “some Bell Media stations.”

“Our industry is changing fast, with growing international competition and new viewing and listening options impacting audiences and advertising across the Canadian media sector. We’re feeling the effects of rapid industry change in many parts of our business, including local radio. To ensure we remain competitive, we’re managing the impact on our bottom line while also investing in content and platforms,” the statement reads.

In Montreal, CJAD’s Eramelinda Boquer and TSN 690’s Rick Moffat were among the cuts, sources at Bell Media told me. There was also a job lost in the CTV Montreal mailroom.

Elsewhere, the biggest loss is CTV Winnipeg news anchor Gord Leclerc. Traces of him were quickly removed from CTV Winnipeg’s website and he wrote a message of thanks to his viewers.

Also gone are:

Mark Brennae, afternoon host on Victoria’s CFAX 1070
Julie Corlett and Dave Illman, morning hosts on 91.9 Bob FM in Lindsay, Ont.
Larry Fedoruk, afternoon host on CKTB 610 in St. Catharines, Ont.
Mark Morris, who co-hosted the morning show on Winnipeg’s 99.9 Bob FM
Manny Paiva, news director at CTV Windsor and AM800 CKLW
Rob Snow, midday host on Ottawa’s CFRA
Traffic schedulers in Ontario

In possibly unrelated news, Énergie 98.9 in Quebec City, a Bell Media station, fired morning host Stéphan Dupont, and co-hosts Raynald Cloutier and Pierre Blais, on Friday. The firing comes after a controversial interview with RDS analyst Marc Denis, but people at the station say the two events are unrelated. Dupont’s contract was set to end Jan. 1.

Thanks to those who provided tips on the losses. I’ll update this post as I hear about more.

Continue reading →

November 13, 2019 | Radio

Gregory Charles sells Radio Classique to Leclerc to be turned into pop music station

This post has been corrected.

Last year, when Quebec City’s Leclerc Communication agreed to buy two radio stations from RNC Media, fans of Montreal’s 91.9 Sports (CKLX-FM) were upset that the new owner planned to turn their sports-talk station into a popular music station with the same format as Quebec City’s WKND (coincidentally also at 91.9).

The transaction failed because the CRTC wouldn’t agree to Leclerc buying CHOI-FM in the provincial capital while holding on to WKND and Blvd 102.1.

Now, Leclerc is trying again, and this one will probably prompt even more upset listeners. It has agreed to purchase Radio Classique 99.5 from Gregory Charles, and will turn it into a WKND station instead.

The transaction does not include CJSQ-FM 92.7, Radio Classique’s sister station in Quebec City, which will remain in Charles’s hands, as will the radioclassique.ca website. Charles says in an interview with La Presse that he hopes to find a different buyer for that station to turn it into something else as well.

Shortly after the announcement, the CRTC published the associated application, which sets the purchase price at $3.88 million. That’s only 57% of the $6.78 million it was priced at when Charles bought it in 2015.

While there’s no Quebec City element that would cause competition concerns, CJPX is required by condition of licence to operate in a specialty format, and Leclerc is applying for a change in its licence to remove that requirement. The commission may or may not be crazy about replacing a specialty music station with a loyal audience with yet another pop station, as much as Leclerc promises its format is different.

In the meantime, it’s status quo at Radio Classique in Montreal, just as it was with 91.9 Sports.

Gregory Charles bought CJPX and CJSQ from founder Jean-Pierre Coallier in 2015. Charles admitted in the La Presse interview that he paid too much for the station at the time. But he also said he wasn’t looking to sell until Leclerc came to him with an offer.

Charles also seems to suggest that he thinks CJSQ can still be a success without its bigger brother, which would be quite a challenge, especially considering how much content is shared between the two stations. He says the Quebec City market is more stable, while most of the Montreal audience listens online.

For tangible benefits, Leclerc is proposing the usual 6% minimum, broken down in the standard way between music development funds, the Community Radio Fund of Canada and discretionary initiatives that haven’t been determined yet. The total comes out to $293,350 over seven years, but Leclerc is also proposing to take over $219,514 of the $340,121 remaining in tangible benefits from that 2015 transaction (the rest will stay with Charles and CJSQ).

The deal also includes $100,000 worth of advertising for Charles on CJPX in the two years after it closes.

Will the CRTC accept the transaction? It’s hard to tell, and will depend on the resistance it meets. Previous attempts to transform 91.9 Sports and TSN 690 failed not because of angry submissions by loyal fans, but because they were part of larger transactions that failed to go through.

The commission is also usually reluctant to replace a specialty station with a pop music station unless it can be demonstrated that the only alternative is the station shutting down.

With CJPX, that argument could be made. The application says the station has not made money since it was purchased (exact numbers are confidential) and “has no hope of recovery without a repositioning of the station.” Its already modest advertising revenues were $2 million in 2012-13 and $1.3 million in 2017-18.

Radio Classique CJPX-FM average minute audience 2015-17 (Source: Numeris)

And despite efforts by Charles, including bringing in celebrity hosts like Bernard Derome and Marc Hervieux, the station’s audience share has tumbled 20-30% in five years, depending how you count it. In 2017 it stopped subscribing to Numeris ratings.

If the commission can be convinced that there aren’t other options for the continued survival of a classical radio station in Montreal, or that a third player in the mainstream commercial music space is more important, then it would likely approve the transaction and licence change.

The application has been posted and the CRTC is accepting interventions until Dec. 19 (note that all information submitted, including contact information, becomes part of the public record). The application is being officially heard (though so far without the presence of the parties) at the same Feb. 12 hearing in Montreal when it is considering the proposed purchase of V by Bell Media.

See also: I summarize the application and provide more context in this story for Cartt.ca, available to its subscribers.

Correction: An earlier version of this post quoted La Presse as saying Gregory Charles wants to keep his Quebec City station. In fact, the story says he wants to sell that station as well.

November 3, 2019 | TV

How TV covered Canadian election night

I was busy on election night, but I set a couple of PVRs to record election night TV broadcasts so I could review them for you. It took a while to get through all the broadcasts from all the networks (and I was busy doing other things too) but here you go, almost two weeks later. How the various broadcasters fared.

Continue reading →

October 29, 2019 | TV

Bell lays out its plans for $20-million purchase of V network

Bell Media is proposing to bring V’s local news broadcasts in-house, but otherwise isn’t putting much substantive on the table to convince the CRTC it should be allowed to acquire the V network of television stations in Quebec for $20 million.

The CRTC published the application on Tuesday, setting a hearing date of Feb. 12 in Montreal to hear the application. Bell is proposing to buy the five V stations (CFAP-DT Quebec City, CFJP-DT Montreal, CFRS-DT Saguenay, CFKS-DT Sherbrooke and CFKM-DT Trois-Rivières), plus digital assets like Noovo.ca, but leave the specialty channels Elle Fictions (formerly MusiquePlus) and MAX (formerly Musimax) to a yet-to-be-named company owned by the current owners of V.

V’s affiliate stations in Gatineau, Abitibi, Rimouski and Rivière-du-Loup, owned by RNC Media and Télé Inter-Rives, are unaffected by the transaction, and Bell says it intends to renew its affiliation agreements with them when they expire in 2020.

In the brief included in the application, Bell and V say the conventional TV network is continuing to lose money, despite the ratings gains it has generated and the synergies from owning two specialty channels (which Bell had to sell off to get its acquisition of Astral Media approved in 2013). Groupe V Média says it has lost almost $7 million in the past two years.

“For a small independent broadcaster in the Quebec market, these losses cannot be supported and have begun to have an impact on its other services,” the application says.

Continue reading →

October 18, 2019 | Media

Media News Digest: Election stuff, CHCH’s new late-night vanity show, Mike Boone retires from Habs blogging

News about news

Ok wait I've got one more. In this file, Public Safety *redacted the sections of the act they were using to withhold the information.*

Like, I can't even know why I can't know the information. pic.twitter.com/n2kfUO3ZiH

— Justin Ling (Has Left) (@Justin_Ling) October 4, 2019

As if it’s not clear how much of a joke Canada’s access-to-information system has become, this example from Justin Ling of redacting the reason for a redaction, or this example from the Ottawa Citizen of CSIS refusing to confirm details about getting an award for transparency. Or this example from Ling about the government redacting details about its plans to reform access to information even after it had already released that information.
The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that Radio-Canada journalist Marie-Maude Denis does not have to reveal her sources in her investigation of former Liberal minister Marc-Yvan Côté. Instead it sent the case back to the lower courts to be reassessed.
Kahnawake’s newspapers and radio station issued a joint statement explaining why they did not name someone who was arrested before they were charged with a crime, even though many people know the identity of the accused.
A former Occupation Double candidate is suing three clickbait websites — Narcity, Hollywood PQ and Showbizz.net — for repeating allegations against him posted on another candidate’s Instagram without giving him a chance to respond to them first.
A Journal de Québec story about former NHL player Donald Brashear working at a Tim Hortons, and the matching stories at other media, led to accusations of “job shaming” from people who apparently think it’s shameful to work at a Tim Hortons. One of those matching stories included a photo of Georges Laraque, which gave Laraque a good laugh. The error was due to a bad caption on a Getty Images photo from 2009. Patrick Lagacé talks to Brashear’s employer to get context.
Frédéric Marcoux, a journalist at l’Express de Drummondville, has left his job after a dispute with his employer about his coverage of a Liberal candidate’s connections to a Colombian drug trafficker.
Saint-Lambert mayor Pierre Brodeur hired an external company to investigate leaks to the media. The investigation included looking through councillors’ work emails without their consent or knowledge.
Enquête’s Marie-Maude Denis explains in a radio interview how the Sûreté du Québec plays favourites with journalists, and rewards those she calls “good ponies” with access to ensure positive coverage.

Continue reading →

October 9, 2019 | TV

CRTC questions Bell TV’s community programming practices

Four years after the CRTC found Videotron failed to comply with its obligations related to community television programming, the commission is taking a very critical look at Bell Canada’s community TV services, with questions suggesting it is concerned Bell is inappropriately redirecting funding that was supposed to go to community TV in small Atlantic Canadian communities toward large productions out of Toronto and Montreal that are essentially spinoff shows of commercial productions that air on Bell Media TV channels.

In a notice of consultation posted last month, the commission published applications for licence renewal for Bell Fibe and Bell Aliant TV services in Atlantic Canada, Ontario and Quebec. The applications, which include 42 documents, shows repeated rounds of questions over two years about Bell’s community TV operations, which operate under the Bell TV1 brand (formerly Bell Local).

Continue reading →