Category Archives: Media

June 1, 2017 | Media

La Presse to stop printing entirely in December

La Presse has announced the next step in its transition from a print publication to a digital one focused mainly on the tablet: It is ending its weekly Saturday print edition at the end of the year. The final issue will be Dec. 30.

La Presse president Pierre-Elliott Levasseur writes in a note published Thursday that the publication now gets 90 per cent of its advertising revenues from digital sources.

The end of the print edition, which comes only two years after it ceased publishing a print edition Mondays to Fridays, will affect 49 regular and temporary jobs, Levasseur writes. A buyout offer will be given to employees.

La Presse’s focus on the tablet has been curious to some, especially since tablet sales have slowed in recent years. But as Levasseur pointed out in a recent interview with InfoPresse, tablet penetration is still increasing.

Nevertheless, La Presse is working on a new mobile app to make the smartphone experience more engaging. No word on when such an app would be released.

The (former) newspaper famously spent $40 million on its tablet app, much of that going to research. It had hoped to recoup some of that cost with sales of its platform. But its only customer so far, the Toronto Star, isn’t having as much success with its tablet app (Levasseur suggests it’s because of the Star’s business model, which avoid cannibalizing one platform in favour of another). Levasseur tells InfoPresse that they have not been very proactive in getting other papers signed on to the platform.

May 31, 2017 | Media

Media News Digest: RTDNA and magazine awards, Blais responds to CRTC criticism, Mutsumi Takahashi profiled

News about news

RTDNA Canada announced the winners of its national and network awards. Of the 75 awards (a bit much, don’t you think?), CBC Montreal won two digital awards and a radio award, CBC Quebec won a radio award, and other local broadcasters were shut out.
The New York Times is axing the job of public editor, finding that its other methods of attracting feedback from readers are more effective.
The Denver Post is no longer employing a sports reporter after he made a tweet that was a bit too honest about his feelings after a Japanese man won the Indianapolis 500.

At the CRTC

Demande soumis au #CRTC pour autoriser la distribution de Canal+ International (France) au Canada. Voici la grille horaire. pic.twitter.com/3ntOqgQk3h

— Steve Faguy (@fagstein) May 29, 2017

An application has been filed to allow France’s Canal+ International to be distributed in Canada, including signature shows like Le Petit Journal. No word on what distributors might be interested. The last time Canal+ came here was with a deal with video website DailyMotion that eventually died.
Newcap says it has received CRTC approval to sell radio station CISL 650 AM Vancouver to Rogers, which will use it to launch a Sportsnet station there. No price is listed, and the CRTC has not yet posted the application or approval to its website.
The commission is advising those whose radio broadcast licences expire in 2018 to submit their renewals by the end of summer. That includes TTP Media’s CFNV 940 AM in Montreal, which still isn’t producing regular programming. The 600 AM station has exactly one month from today to launch.
Chairperson Jean-Pierre Blais wrote an open letter to those criticizing the commission’s recent television licence renewals, particularly the decision to eliminate a special licence condition for Corus’s Séries+ channel that requires a certain amount of spending on original French-language programming.

TV

The Ottawa Senators’ Game 7 against Pittsburgh became the most watched NHL broadcast of the year, with 4.29 million viewers in English. At the peak of the second overtime, there were 4.71 million watching in English and 1.2 million watching in French.
TSN and RDS have renewed their agreement as official broadcasters of Canada’s national soccer teams.
Bell Media has announced CTV’s U.S. acquisitions for 2017-18, which continue to show that sequels, reboots and spinoffs are a driving force behind television series.

Print

The National Magazine Awards were handed out Friday. The list of winners is here. The NMAs are being boycotted by major publishers like Rogers and TVA Publications, who have gravitated toward a new competitor, the Canadian Magazine Awards. But many freelancers for those publications submitted for awards anyway, and in some cases won.
Dave Bidini is starting a new newspaper in west-end Toronto called the West End Phoenix, supported largely by donations.
The Toronto Star has decided that, for mainly political reasons, it will begin using uppercase letters on the words “indigenous” and “black” (the latter when dealing with the people and culture, naturally). The Canadian Press, whose style guide is used by most publications in Canada, still uses lowercase letters in these contexts.
La Presse has lost a case against its union in arbitration, and will have to bring back 26 employees it laid off.

Online

Videotron, which has been ordered by the CRTC to cease offering its “Unlimited Music” plan because it discriminates based on types of data, has asked the commission to give it some leeway related to existing customers, at least until the end of their current contracts, because it doesn’t want to unilaterally take that bonus away from them. The CRTC has begun an expedited process to reach a decision on that well enough before the July 19 deadline that subscribers can be informed.

Other

Bell has renamed the MTS Centre, home of the Winnipeg Jets, as Bell MTS Place.

News about people

With Mutsumi Takahashi getting a lifetime achievement award from RTDNA Canada, Bill Brownstein profiles the normally very private CTV Montreal anchor for a story in the Gazette. Takahashi also got a special video from her former co-anchor Bill Haugland (who never gets up from the desk in that video so you know he ain’t wearing pants)
Mary-Jo Barr, who was once the news director at CBC Montreal, has a new job as Christine Mota’s replacement at the head of media relations at Concordia University.
Some staff changes at La Presse:
- Hugo Pilon-Larose moves from culture reporting to Quebec’s National Assembly
- Gabriel Béland is now a general assignment reporter
- Marie-Eve Morasse is covering education
Scott Oake, reporter for Hockey Night in Canada, speaks to the Winnipeg Free Press about his son Bruce and the institute being set up in his memory.
Catherine Verdon-Diamond had a bad experience at a restaurant and wrote about it on Facebook. Eater Montreal wrote it up, and mainly takes her side.
Sue Montgomery, former justice reporter for the Montreal Gazette, is considering another run at politics, this time for a borough mayor job with Projet Montréal. An announcement is scheduled for tomorrow. Montgomery will need to fight for the party’s nomination. She tried a run with the NDP in the 2015 federal election, but lost that nomination battle.
Brennan Neill is taking a job as afternoon assignment editor at CBC Montreal.
Scott Pelley is being pushed out of the anchor chair at CBS Evening News. He will continue with 60 Minutes.
CNN has dropped Kathy Griffin from their annual New Year’s Eve show after she was photographed with a fake severed Donald Trump head. (She apologized.)
Megyn Kelly is back on the air starting this Sunday, now with NBC.
Elliotte Friedman opens up about that time he screwed up calling a swimming race during the Rio Olympics.

Could Canadiens games be moving to TSN?

UPDATE (May 30): Pat Hickey confirms the deal with his sources.

UPDATE (June 13): The move has been officially announced.

We still have a ton of hockey games on our network, between … we have regional coverage of the Senators and the Leafs and the Jets and I think there’s another one on the way this year.

James Duthie may be regretting letting that one slip. Duthie, the TSN television host, said this during an appearance on the Sports Illustrated media podcast last week with Richard Deitsch, after being asked how the $5.2-billion Sportsnet-NHL deal has affected his network.

He didn’t elaborate on what “another one” means, but the process of elimination makes it pretty clear: Every Canadian team but one has English-language television rights locked up until at least 2020. The remaining team is the Montreal Canadiens.

In the months after the blockbuster deal for national NHL rights was announced in 2013, TSN and RDS scrambled to lock up whatever regional rights they could from individual Canadian teams. RDS paid a rumoured $1 million a game to buy rights to the Canadiens in French until 2026 (the same year the Sportsnet/TVA Sports/NHL deal expires), and Bell Media secured English and French TV and radio rights to the Ottawa Senators, also until 2026.

Before the 2014-15 season, Sportsnet announced a three-year deal for regional TV rights to Canadiens games. That deal expires this summer.

Sportsnet’s regional coverage of Canadiens games gets an average audience of 168,000, according to figures Sportsnet gave me a few months ago.

Previously signed contracts with the Jets (TSN), Flames (Sportsnet), Oilers (Sportsnet) and Canucks (Sportsnet) continue until at least 2020. Here’s how it breaks down per team:

Team	English TV	French TV	English radio	French radio
(National)	Sportsnet (2026)	TVA Sports (2026)	N/A	N/A
Vancouver Canucks	Sportsnet Pacific (2023)	None	Sportsnet 650 (2022)	None
Edmonton Oilers	Sportsnet West (2020)	None	Corus/CHED (2020)	None
Calgary Flames	Sportsnet West (2020)	None	Sportsnet 960 (2020)	None
Winnipeg Jets	TSN3 (2021)	None	TSN 1290 (2021)	None
Toronto Maple Leafs	TSN4	None	TSN 1050	None
Toronto Maple Leafs	Sportsnet Ontario	None	Sportsnet 590	None
Ottawa Senators	TSN5 (2026)	RDS (2026)	TSN 1200 (2026)	Unique FM (via Bell)
Montreal Canadiens	Sportsnet East (2017)	RDS (2026)	TSN 690	Cogeco (2019)

I don’t have end dates for the Maple Leafs regional rights contracts, but because team owner Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment is controlled in equal parts by Bell and Rogers, it has split its rights to Leafs and Raptors and Toronto FC* games down the middle, and there’s no reason to believe that situation would change any time soon. When the current MLSE was formed, there was also a 10-year extension to Leafs rights that should go until at least 2021.

With all the other teams locked up, the Canadiens would be the obvious choice here. The only other possibilities would be buying out an existing Sportsnet contract (which is extremely unlikely) or getting Canadian regional rights to the Detroit Red Wings or Buffalo Sabres, whose 50-mile zones extend into this country. (Bell TV already has the latter and distributes Sabres games in Niagara Falls, though it doesn’t produce its own broadcasts.)

It’s unclear if this is a done deal or if TSN is just really confident it can secure the rights to Canadiens games (its majority owner Bell is a minority owner of the team).

Asked about Duthie’s comment, TSN’s official response was very brief: “We have no comment (on this) at this time.”

I’ve asked Sportsnet and the Canadiens for comment, but haven’t heard back from either yet.

Logistical issues

If TSN does secure Canadiens rights, it wouldn’t be the first time. Before the 2014 deal with Sportsnet, which ensured that all 82 games would be broadcast in English for the first time, TSN carried a selection of Canadiens regional games on a special channel (that was available to Bell subscribers but not Videotron ones). Since then, TSN scrapped team-specific channels and put its regional games on one of its five TSN feeds.

With TSN already carrying Ottawa Senators regional games, this would present a scheduling problem, since the two teams’ regions are identical. They could share TSN5, but there would need to be an overflow channel for times when both teams are playing (much like Sportsnet uses temporary Sportsnet One channels when Flames and Oilers games conflict). TSN could just create a TSN6, or a temporary channel, or some other deal.

Another thing to consider is that such a deal would drastically reduce the number of nationally broadcast Canadiens games. Because Sportsnet was both the regional and national rights holder, it could upgrade regional games to national ones, and last season broadcast 44 of 82 regular-season games nationally. If the Canadiens sell regional rights to TSN, Sportsnet could be left with as few as 22 games (mostly Saturday nights), and all the ones carried on TSN would be blacked out west of Ottawa.

Then there are other issues like on-air talent (John Bartlett would probably be out of a job if Sportsnet lost Canadiens games, but that’s no guarantee TSN would want him back).

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Nothing is confirmed yet with either network and probably won’t be until an announcement is made.

Technically, the Canadiens’ English-language radio rights could also be up for grabs, but since Bell owns the only two English talk stations in the city, it’s highly unlikely they’ll leave TSN 690.

(Hat tip to Derek Climan for spotting Duthie’s remark.)

* CORRECTION: As a commenter points out below, TSN now has full rights to Toronto FC games.

May 28, 2017 | My articles, Radio

The power struggle tearing Radio Centre-Ville apart

A protest outside Radio Centre-Ville’s office on March 29.

Montreal’s only community ethnic radio station is in crisis. It started as a financial one, without a major source of revenue to pay expenses. But since last fall it has turned into a legal one as well, with two stubborn sides fighting it out. And each side is willing to financially bankroll their legal battle, even though that money would be put to far better use rescuing the station directly, because they’re convinced that their victory is the only way they can truly save the station.

And neither side is willing to negotiate or compromise.

The issue has been getting some media attention, with articles in Métro and Le Devoir. I wrote about it as well for the Montreal Gazette. Here, I’ll lay out the issues in more detail, based on interviews with both sides.

Continue reading →

May 26, 2017 | Radio

Radio ratings: Radio-Canada and FM93 tie for top in Quebec City

There are a couple of stories that can come out of the Quebec City page of the latest Numeris radio diary report released Thursday: One, that CHOI Radio X is no longer the powerhouse it once was (in large part because other stations in the market have copied its populist talk format), and two, that despite the “radio poubelle” reputation of the city’s stations, Radio-Canada’s ICI Première station is doing quite well.

Here’s how it breaks down (numbers are for 12+ listeners, 5am-1am for the whole week, Feb. 27 to April 23, 2017):

Callsign	Frequency	Brand	Owner	Listening share	Central market reach
CJMF-FM	93.3	FM93	Cogeco Media	15.7%	183,100
CBV-FM	106.3	ICI Première	CBC	15.6%	154,600
CHOI-FM	98.1	Radio X	RNC Media	12.7%	140,700
CITF-FM	107.5	Rouge	Bell Media	10.1%	132,400
CHIK-FM	98.9	Énergie	Bell Media	8.0%	132,500
CJEC-FM	91.9	WKND	Leclerc	7.9%	111,100
CFEL-FM	102.1	BLVD	Leclerc	6.9%	120,500
CFOM-FM	102.9	M	Cogeco Media	6.8%	121,700
CJSQ-FM	92.7	Radio Classique	Radio Classique	5.1%	51,900
CHXX-FM	100.9	Pop	RNC Media	2.8%	44,500
CBVX-FM	95.3	ICI Musique	CBC	2.3%	41,400
CBVE-FM	104.7	Radio One	CBC	0.5%	10,100

As you can see, ICI Première is in a statistical tie with FM93 in terms of audience in all age groups (among advertiser-friendly demographics it’s another matter). Radio X is in third place, followed by the two Bell Media stations, and the two Leclerc Communication stations behind that.

CHXX’s change from rock-based Radio X2 to pop-based Pop has resulted in a drop in market share, but the company is optimistic it can rebound.

Le Journal de Québec breaks down the ratings for specific shows in various time slots. Le Soleil gets reaction from Radio X, which notes it does well among 25-54s, though some of their on-air personalities aren’t so diplomatic, taking shots at the competition.

Le Journal also notes that a host at Énergie wants Gilles Parent of FM93 to give him his house as promised, and Parent in turn took a swipe at BLVD’s Nathalie Normandeau. Other on-air statements are compiled here.

Here are what Quebec’s other markets look like. (Montreal is a metered market, and its next quarterly report is June 7.)

Sherbrooke

Callsign	Frequency	Brand	Owner	Listening share	Central market reach
CIMO-FM	106.9	Énergie	Bell Media	21.1%	70,900
CITE-FM-1/2	102.7/94.5	Rouge FM	Bell Media	20.3%	61,000
CBF-FM-10	101.1	ICI Première	CBC	13.0%	42,600
CKOY-FM	107.7	107,7fm	Cogeco	10.6%	33,200
CFGE-FM	93.7	Rythme FM	Cogeco	8.2%	26,100
CBFX-FM-2	90.7	ICI Musique	CBC	4.3%	12,700

Bell owns the Sherbrooke market pretty well, with the top two stations representing more than 40% listening share. Cogeco’s two stations combined have half that. La Tribune notes there’s a decrease in overall listening over last year.

Trois-Rivières

Callsign	Frequency	Brand	Owner	Listening share	Central market reach
CIGB-FM	102.3	Énergie	Bell	16.4%	45,100
CHEY-FM	94.7	Rouge FM	Bell	13.8%	29,400
CJEB-FM	100.1	Rythme FM	Cogeco	12.8%	25,300
CBF-FM-8	96.5	ICI Première	CBC	11.1%	20,600
CKOB-FM	106.9	106,9fm	Cogeco	9.2	16,800
CKBN-FM	90.5	FM 90,5	Community	6.5%	10,100
CBFX-FM-1	104.3	ICI Musique	CBC	3.8%	8,100

Bell also tops in Trois-Rivières, though the lead is not as large.

Saguenay

Callsign	Frequency	Brand	Owner	Listening share	Central market reach
CKYK-FM	95.7	Radio X	RNC Media	21.2%	43,800
CFIX-FM	96.9	Rouge FM	Bell	20.1%	50,300
CJAB-FM	94.5	Énergie	Bell	17.3%	49,100
CBJ-FM	93.7	ICI Première	CBC	10.2%	22,700
CILM-FM	98.3	Rythme FM	Attraction	8.1%	18,800
CBJX-FM	100.9	ICI Musique	CBC	5.0%	7,000

Radio X regains the lead in the heartland, after being in third a year ago. The Bell stations are also doing well there.

Ottawa-Gatineau (francophone)

Callsign	Frequency	Brand	Owner	Listening share	Central market reach
CIMF-FM	94.9	Rouge FM	Bell	16.5	79,200
CBOF-FM	90.7	ICI Première	CBC	13.1%	70,000
CKTF-FM	104.1	Énergie	Bell	11.7%	77,000
CKOF-FM	104.7	104,7fm	Cogeco	10.0%	51,400
CIHT-FM	89.9	Hot 89.9	Newcap	5.9%	53,400
CFTX-FM	96.5	Pop 96,5	RNC Media	4.3%	27,300
CHLX-FM	97.1	Wow 97,1	RNC Media	4.2%	26,100
CBOX-FM	102.5	ICI Musique	CBC	3.8%	22,200

Little change here over last year: Bell also has the two top private stations for francophone listeners in the national capital, while RNC Media’s new single-syllable music stations are more than a point behind the anglophone music station. (I’ve left out the remaining anglo stations.) Nevertheless, Le Droit notes that CFTX-FM’s change from Capitale Rock to Pop has meant a huge increase in ratings, from a 0.5% market share in September.

May 24, 2017 | Media

Media News Digest: Anger at CRTC, new series at CBC, Heather B joins The Beat

News about news

A gang trial in B.C. heard testimony about a plot to kill a journalist (which was called off because it would have attracted too much police attention). The testimony was covered by the journalist in question.
A judge in Alberta has found CBC not guilty of contempt of court after deciding that allowing stories published before a publication ban to still be accessed does not violate that publication ban. The easy availability of archive material is one of many issues that complicate publication bans in the age of the Internet.
Vice Canada is trying to get the Supreme Court to weigh in on the idea of journalist source protection by appealing a case involving journalist Ben Makush, which it has lost at lower levels.
Radio-Canada has launched a journalist training centre in Regina.
Projet J, the francophone equivalent to J-Source, is shutting down for lack of funding.

Continue reading →

May 17, 2017 | Media

Media News Digest: CBC and Le Devoir archives digitized, Als stay on TSN 690, Journal de Chambly sold

News about news

Quebec Liberal minister Rita de Santis has apologized after holding a press conference for anglophone media only. A Presse Canadienne reporter had to pretend to be writing for The Canadian Press in order to get in. The issue was the redrawing of Quebec’s electoral districts, which became a scandal in the anglophone community because it merged Mount Royal with neighbouring Outremont.
A freelance journalist working for Global News and a Global cameraman were arrested in Hamilton for obstructing an investigation into a collision that killed a 10-year-old girl. It’s unclear how the journalists may have been obstructing the police, but Global News is seeking answers. Hamilton Police says it is reviewing the incident.
CBC has announced a project for mass digitization of more than 1 million media assets (physical audio and video recordings) in French and English. The move is being done now in part because of the upcoming move of the Maison Radio-Canada in Montreal. Le Devoir speaks to the broadcaster about the project.

At the CRTC

The commission issued its licence renewal decisions on Monday for the big private TV broadcasters — TVA, V, Bell Media, Rogers Media and Corus. The headline is that OMNI will get what it wants: nationwide mandatory distribution at $0.12 per subscriber. But only for three years, as the CRTC offers the chance for others to offer something better. I’ll have more highlights from the decisions in another post.

TV

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy9sKeCE8V0

I have not looked forward to a new TV series as much as I have this one. It’s like if Galaxy Quest was turned into a TV show.
Bell has announced Alt TV, which is basically Bell Fibe TV only without a set-top box and far fewer features at a slightly reduced price. Available only to Fibe Internet customers in Quebec and Ontario for the moment.
The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council found that TSN should have done a better job preventing swear words captured during a CFL game from being broadcast on air, during the day without any viewer advisory. The decision notes the difficulty of censoring live broadcasts, but “the language could and should have been anticipated, there appears to have been no attempt to discourage such language, and there were not consistent acknowledgments and repudiations of the language by hosts or other announcers.”
ABC is bringing back Roseanne for eight episodes. On one hand, TV could use a show like Roseanne, with good comedy about working-class life. On the other hand, it’s yet another 90s nostalgia play.
Mohawk Girls is shooting its final season in Kahnawake and looking for extras from the community.
The Handmaid’s Tale, the Hulu adaptation of the Margaret Atwood novel, has become Bravo’s most popular series ever.
The U.S. rights to the Canadian drama Cardinal have been sold to Hulu.
Conan O’Brien has extended his deal with TBS another four years through 2022. He’s also expanding his show’s brand to include other media like podcasting.
Beth Mowins will be calling a National Football League game on ESPN on Sept. 11. This is noteworthy because Mowins is a woman, and women calling games in professional sports is incredibly rare for some reason.

Radio

TSN 690 has renewed its broadcasting rights agreement with the Montreal Alouettes for a “multi-year” deal (apparently three years). Negotiations were probably helped by the fact that there isn’t a competitor to Bell Media at the moment that would broadcast Alouettes games.
Montreal writer Ian Howarth has a book coming out about the golden years of Montreal music radio: CFOX, CKGM and CFCF in the 1960s and 70s. Bill Brownstein writes about it in the Gazette. The book includes many interviews with personalities from those days who are surprisingly still around. (I got an advance copy so I could write a short quote for the back cover.) It launches Thursday evening.
CBC has launched its station in London, Ont., and announced its broadcast team. The station has a local morning show and will be the home station of the regional afternoon show.
Newcap Radio is buying NL Broadcasting, owner of three radio stations in Kamloops, B.C.
CFGL-FM 105.7 in Montreal is now broadcasting in HD Radio. So far it’s just the station’s regular signal on an HD channel. Presumably owner Cogeco will simulcast CKAC 730 AM on a subchannel in the near future.

Print

Transcontinental has sold its first newspaper as part of a process announced last month. The Journal de Chambly has been sold for an undisclosed price to Les Versants du Mont-Bruno Inc., which owns Les Versants, Le Journal de Saint-Bruno and Le Journal de Saint-Basile. The sale takes effect immediately. TC has also added a page to its website where it will keep a list of its newspaper sales.
Le Devoir lost $300,000 in 2016, but is pretty optimistic about the future. Nevertheless, it’s passing the hat looking for donations.
Meanwhile, Le Devoir announced its entire newspaper collection until 2009 has been digitized, available free on the BANQ website.
Workers at the Winnipeg Free Press have agreed to an eight per cent pay cut if the paper doesn’t make enough of a profit. In exchange, the paper has agreed not to lay anyone off until 2019.
Jonathan Kay has resigned as editor-in-chief of The Walrus. He explains here.
Postmedia has added former Ontario finance minister Janet Ecker to its board.
The Chicago Sun-Times ran a front-page ad announcing it’s for sale. The ad is required (though not on the front page) in order to push through a takeover from rival Chicago Tribune.

Online

Apple and Amazon have buried the hatchet, allowing Apple TV devices to stream Amazon content in exchange for Amazon allowing Apple TV devices to be sold.

News about people

François Bugingo, the freelance journalist who disappeared from public life after a La Presse investigation showed he made up several stories, will give his first interview since then, June 2 on Télé-Québec’s new talk show Y’a du monde à la messe.

Good reads

A statistical analysis of the repetitiveness of song lyrics based on how much they compress using the Lempel-Ziv algorithm.

Jobs

General assignment reporter at Yukon News (deadline: May 19)
La Presse diversity bursaries and internships (deadline: June 9)

Upcoming events

May 20: Canadaland in Montreal

May 10, 2017 | Media

Media News Digest: National Newspaper Awards, Shoan fired again, Le Devoir archives online

News about news

It was election day in British Columbia yesterday, and not only did the results come far too late for eastern Canadian newspapers or late-night newscasts to include, but the results were so close that we still don’t know for sure what the resulting government will look like. CTV eventually called a minority government at 1:30am (10:30pm PT), and The Canadian Press did as well once all the polls reported. But if the B.C. Liberals hold their 43 seats and a recount goes in its favour in Courtenay-Comox, where the NDP won by nine votes, Premier Christy Clark would just barely get her majority in the legislature. Either way, B.C. politics will get very interesting over the coming weeks.
The National Newspaper Awards were given out on the weekend. The Globe and Mail was the big winner, taking half the categories. The Toronto Star won two awards, and no other newspaper took more than one.
The RCMP is looking at generalizing a policy that would offer journalists more protections in criminal investigations.

At the CRTC

The Raj Shoan drama continues. After winning a legal challenge to the government’s decision to fire him based on a report that he successfully challenged in court, Shoan was summarily fired again in what can only be described as an obvious case of bad faith. Naturally, he plans to take the matter to court again.
Flooding in the Ottawa River has forced government offices in Gatineau to close, and that includes the CRTC. As a result, major decisions expected this week on TV licence renewals for the big media companies, and the request by Rogers to make OMNI into a mandatory pay TV service, will be pushed to next week.
The CRTC has approved a change to APTN’s licence that allows the network’s HD feed a little more scheduling freedom compared to the three SD feeds (East, West and North). They will have the same programs, but be able to schedule them differently.
A university professor created a pretty useful guide for beginners on how to participate in CRTC proceedings.

TV

The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council was deadlocked on whether this TV ad for CHUM-FM in Toronto violated its codes. Half thought it was unacceptably dehumanizing, while the other half thought it was okay because it was a woman doing it to a man. Because ties go to the defence, there is no sanction.
A major deal in the U.S. with Sinclair Broadcast Group buying Tribune Media for $3.9 billion, creating a major player in local television stations. Tribune’s stations include Chicago’s WGN, L.A.’s KTLA and New York’s WPIX, while Sinclair has more than 150 stations. Tribune’s print assets were previously spun off into the ridiculously-named Tronc.
ABC is reviving American Idol (already?)
Israel shut down its public broadcaster with very little notice. The plan is to create a new one, which has critics wondering if the new one will be as independent of the political machine.
Groupe TVA released its quarterly financial report. It’s bad news overall, but some better numbers for TVA Sports, which saw its net loss cut by a third thanks to 16% more ad revenue. The Canadiens making the playoffs will help in the current quarter, which started April 1.
Hugo Dumas writes that the guerre des réseaux is heating up again, with shows on Radio-Canada and V having difficulty getting TVA personalities to appear.
La Voix ended its fifth season on Sunday. Brendan Kelly explains its appeal to anglophones. Similarly, the Ryerson Review of Journalism has a piece explaining Tout le monde en parle.
Télé-Québec’s Les Appendices won’t come back for a 10th season, but there will be two specials, including and end-of-year one.
Orphan Black returns for its final season on June 10.
The Amazing Race Canada returns July 4. Other summer CTV schedule announcements here.

Radio

FYI Music News speaks with Rob Farina about iHeartRadio Canada, which he insists is open for non-Bell stations to join, and future plans for the platform, including a pay version that allows saving songs.
Radio station CHIN in Toronto has gotten CRTC approval to transform its FM retransmitter into its own FM station with partially distinct programming.
Rogers is hiring for its new Sportsnet station in Vancouver.

Print

Le Devoir has digitized its entire archive up to 2009. The collection is available for free from the Bibliothèque et archives nationales du Québec.
Cult MTL released the results of its annual shameless popularity contest, the Best of Montreal readers’ poll. I’m listed #5 in Best Twitter. Evelyne Brochu is listed in the Hottest Woman (#1), Best-Dressed Montrealer (#1), Best Icon (#10), Best Twitter (#1), Best TV Personality (#3), Best Instagram (#1) and of course Best Actress (#1). The media results are here. Among them:
- Best Radio Station: CKUT, CHOM, CJLO, CBC, CISM
- Best Radio Host: Nick Schofield (CKUT), Terry DiMonte (CHOM), Mitch Melnick (TSN 690), Mike Finnerty (CBC), Paul Arcand (98.5)
- Best TV Station: CTV, CBC, RadCan, Télé-Québec, RDS
- Best Newscaster: Mutsumi Takahashi, Céline Galipeau, Pierre Bruneau, Paul Karwatsky, Debra Arbec
- Best Newspaper: Cult MTL, Montreal Gazette, Le Devoir, La Presse, Métro
- Best Website: Cult MTL, MTL Blog, Reddit Montreal, Urbania, YULorama
- Best Podcast: Mike Ward Sous Écoute, 3 Bières, Cadeau & Janco Wednesdays @ Lunch, Go Plug Yourself, La soirée est (encore) jeune
BlogTO checked out what the old Globe and Mail building looks like as it’s being demolished.
Bell Mobility has a new offer giving access to PressReader and most major newspapers for $10 a month.
Le Devoir gave awards to student journalists

Online

InfoPresse speaks with La Presse’s new president, who says that they’re working on a new smartphone app that might be more engaging than what they currently offer, which may (or may not) offer a La Presse+ like experience on smartphones.
Greg Brady and Caroline Cameron of Sportsnet have created a new podcast called Point Taken. It launches today.

Other

DHX Media (which owns Family Channel) is buying an 80% stake in the Peanuts brand, prompting at least one headline about Charlie Brown moving to Canada.
The Grammy Awards are moving to New York City thanks to a deal with the government there.

News about people

.@TorontoStar says I can't be a columnist and an activist at the same time, so I'm giving up my column. https://t.co/keGJlESd8L

— Negro Frolics (@DesmondCole) May 4, 2017

Desmond Cole decided to become a martyr for freedom of speech and is giving up his Toronto Star column after being told it’s generally not okay for newspaper columnists to engage in disruptive activism. The Star’s public editor agrees, which prompted accusations of the paper setting a double standard because of liberal racism.
Sean Craig, who covers media for the National/Financial Post, is leaving to join Global News
Iain MacIntyre’s goodbye column in the Vancouver Sun
Scott Mitchell, formerly of the Toronto Sun, has been hired by TSN to do baseball reporting
Rebecca Makonnen gets a profile in Le Devoir

Good reads

Pierre Trudel on how an access to information request was denied because the documents couldn’t fit on a USB key.
La Presse explores the Canadian podcast scene, talking with producers of Canadaland and Mike Ward sous écoute, among others
The New York Times on YouTube creators’ growing frustrations with declines in ad revenue after the company made changes to how it distributes ads.

Jobs

Digital Editor, Montreal Gazette (deadline: May 11)
Journalist at CJSO-FM in Sorel-Tracy (deadline: May 12)
General assignment reporter at Yukon News (deadline: May 19)
La Presse diversity bursaries and internships (deadline: June 9)

Upcoming events

May 20: Canadaland in Montreal

May 3, 2017 | Media

Media News Digest: Michener finalists, Shoan back at CRTC, mass resignations at K103

Happy World Press Freedom Day!

News about news

Nominees for the Michener Award were announced Monday. The award, for public service journalism, is probably the most prestigious in Canadian journalism because (1) only one is given out a year, and (2) it’s given out by the governor-general at a fancy ceremony. The finalists are:
- CBC/Radio-Canada and Toronto Star for the Panama Papers investigation
- The Globe and Mail for reporting on real estate practices in British Columbia
- The London Free Press for a two-year investigation into a man’s death
- The National Observer for investigations into the National Energy Board that resulted in a panel resigning after meeting with Jean Charest
- La Presse for reporting into video lottery terminals
- The Toronto Star for reporting on Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit
CBC Radio’s The Sunday Edition retracted a documentary it aired on Sunday about an ex-convict making good after they learned she downplayed her criminal past (and they didn’t double-check it)
The Journal de Montréal lost in court, failing to convince a judge to quash an order allowing police to seize a reporter’s laptop. They plan to appeal.
Journalists at the Boston Herald are pissed after a reporter was suspended for tweeting a scoop without management approval.
There’s some disagreement over whether Pierre Karl Péladeau’s visit to his company’s National Assembly bureau is to encourage them to be more aggressive against the government he used to oppose as PQ leader, or simply following a tradition of a boss personally meeting his employees. Regardless of spin, it’s clear that a former political party leader running a large news media company makes things awkward. Quebecor’s beefing up of its National Assembly bureau could be seen as a great investment, or a way for Péladeau to help the party he used to lead by increasing the number of embarrassing stories about the government. And the Liberals are not-so-subtly pushing that idea.

At the CRTC

He’s baaack! After he won a court challenge to the government’s decision to fire him as a CRTC commissioner (which was itself partly based on a report that was also overturned by a judge), Raj Shoan is once again listed on the CRTC website as the commissioner for Ontario. To say things will be awkward between him and chairperson Jean-Pierre Blais is an understatement, but presumably both will attempt to be professional about it. The judge’s decision wasn’t a complete victory for Shoan, and some of his actions (like meeting with groups that have business before the CRTC) are “troubling”, so another review could still find cause for his dismissal. Or maybe Blais just minimizes his involvement (the chairperson decides who sits on any panels, and Blais did not choose Shoan for anything important) until his term is up next year. (Assuming Blais is re-appointed — his own term ends sooner.)
CBC Quebec held its biannual public consultation on Tuesday. The video is here if you want to watch it.
The commission has approved the privatization of Sirius XM Canada. The biggest issue for the commission was determining whether the transaction, which would see the CBC sell its shares and three groups (including Sirius XM U.S.) have minority stakes in the company, is considered a change in effective control. The CRTC determined that yes, it is, which means a 6% tax on the value of the transaction to fund Canadian content development. That works out to $29 million, to be paid out over seven years.
CBC/Radio-Canada has asked the CRTC for permission to move its Radio One and ICI Première transmitters in Timmins, Ont., from a tower north of the city to its old TV tower much closer. It would be able to cover the same area better by using a higher antenna at lower power.
The commission said no to a proposal by Vista Radio to change the licence for CJLT-FM in Medicine Hat, Alta., so it could move from its Christian music programming to more mainstream indie/alternative music. The commission found that the change would have an undue financial impact on existing stations in the market.

TV

Global Montreal is pushing something it’s calling Greater Montreal Day on May 11, promoting acts of kindness. This is modelled after a similar thing that Global Toronto did.
The major vertically integrated companies have started redirecting money from community television channels in major cities to over-the-air local TV stations, now that the CRTC has given them the power to do so. Shaw TV will close in Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton to divert money to Corus’s Global TV stations, and Rogers is doing the same with Mississauga, Richmond Hill, Toronto, and Brampton, Ont., redirecting funds to City TV. Other Rogers TV stations will also see cuts.
The Writers Guild of America has reached a deal with studios to avert a writers’ strike that would have made TV and movies even more awful.
CTV has greenlit a new Canadian detective series called The Detail. The series will also air on the Ion network in the U.S., the over-the-air network known for mostly running reruns of shows from better networks.
Bell’s food channel Gusto has announced three new Canadian series.
City has announced a bunch of awful-sounding reality shows being added to its schedule this summer.
Global has also announced its summer lineup. Canadian drama Private Eyes returns May 25 for a second season.
The Handmaid’s Tale, the Hulu series based on the Margaret Atwood novel, has been renewed for a second season. The series airs on Bravo in Canada, which aired the first two episodes on Sunday.
Two kids walked onto the stage during a live broadcast of Radio-Canada’s Les Échangistes on Monday. We don’t know what they were trying to do other than get attention, but it doesn’t look like it was tied to the May Day protests happening at the same time. They were quickly shooed away.

Radio

There’s more drama at K103 in Kahnawake. Four of the five board members resigned on the same day last week, leaving only Lance Delisle in charge. The people resigning gave various reasons, which they did not elaborate on, but it’s clear that at least some of them are fed up of whatever conflicts are going on at the station. Unfortunately we don’t have details because the people involved aren’t talking.
An entry in the Industry Canada broadcasting database has appeared for CFGL-HD, which means that Montreal’s Rythme FM station expects to begin using HD Radio soon. Station owner Cogeco Media also owns CKAC 730 AM, so an FM HD rebroadcast of Radio Circulation seems likely. Other possible uses include a niche music channel or a spillover channel for 98.5FM’s sports coverage. Cogeco also indicated to the CRTC that a move of CKOI-FM to the Mount Royal antenna could allow it to broadcast in HD.
CKLW 800 AM in Windsor was knocked off the air by a fire at its transmitter site. It quickly took over the transmitter of sister station AM 580 so people could get news-talk programming.

Print

Major cuts have been announced at Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald and other papers at Fairfax Media.
Torstar has cut 110 jobs as it announces financial results that include a 19% drop in print ad revenue. Torstar owns the Toronto Star, Hamilton Spectator and Metroland community papers.
Metro papers in English Canada, also owned in part by Torstar, are cutting their size down. Their length will drop from 12.5 to 11.5 inches on Aug. 1.
The Eastern Door newspaper in Kahnawake won several awards, including best overall newspaper in the under-1500 circulation category, at the Canadian Community Newspaper Awards. It’s “bittersweet” because the Eastern Door is leaving the CCNA. The full list of CCNA winners is here.
The winners of the inaugural Canadian Magazine Grands Prix were announced.

Online

Employees at Vice Canada have ratified their first collective agreement.

News about people

Bit of exciting personal news: I'm joining the @mtlgazette as a business reporter. Starting on June 1.

— Jacob Serebrin (@jacobserebrin) May 1, 2017

Jacob Serebrin has been hired as the new business reporter at the Montreal Gazette, which has been without a business department of any kind since the departure of Paul Delean in December.
Jennifer Allen, who left CBC Montreal’s Daybreak to do the traffic job at Metro Morning in Toronto, gets a writeup on the CBC Toronto website.
Journalist Stephanie McBride has left The Gleaner (which was downgraded by Transcontinental to an insert of a French-language newspaper). It’s unclear what this means for the future of that paper.
CBC veteran Caroline Harvey has been named executive producer of The National. Still no word on who will host it, with less than two months until the departure of Peter Mansbridge.
La Presse publisher Guy Crevier was honoured in Toronto and La Presse is very proud.
Power Corporation president André Desmarais is taking a medical leave on advice of his doctor. Power Corp. owns La Presse.
Carrie Haber, CBC producer behind the new Monteapolis podcast and the Absolutely Quebec series, among other things, is also a musician, and her group Goldfish got a writeup in the Gazette.
Bernard Drainville is the new Jean Lapierre at 98.5 FM.
Ryan Seacrest is the new co-host of Live with Kelly

Good reads

BuzzFeed on the National Enquirer’s owner publishing Us Weekly and what that means

Jobs

Digital News Editor, National Post (deadline: May 5)
Ottawa correspondent for Journal de Québec (deadline: May 9)
Journalist at CJSO-FM in Sorel-Tracy (deadline: May 12)
General assignment reporter at Yukon News (deadline: May 19)
La Presse diversity bursaries and internships (deadline: June 9)

Upcoming events

May 20: Canadaland in Montreal

April 26, 2017 | Media

Media News Digest: Canada less free, no more Montreal Billboard, Rogers buys Vancouver AM station

News about news

Reporters Without Borders has come out with its latest ranking of press freedom, and Canada has dropped four spots to come in at 22nd. The group cites police surveillance of journalists, particularly in Quebec, as a reason for the drop.
RTDNA Canada, the association of radio, television and digital media, handed out regional awards for the Central Region (Ontario and Quebec) and B.C. CBC Montreal won seven awards, and CBC Quebec City won three more. I don’t tend to put much stock in the regional awards because of the low number of entries and high number of awards. Case in point: CFJC-TV Kamloops won the B.C. regional award for best TV newscast in a small market, mainly because it was the only entry in that category. (I was on the judging panel.) The organization also announced a bunch of lifetime achievement awards, to Terry Milewski and Charles Adler nationally, and three people regionally including CTV Montreal’s Mutsumi Takahashi. Oh, and Stuart McLean is being given a posthumous President’s Award.
The National Post has won an appeal of a libel suit brought on by climate scientist Andrew Weaver. The appellate judges say the trial judge should not have read the several pieces written about Weaver together and based the decision on them, but rather should have considered them individually.
Radio-Canada is suing the Quebec government for making it harder for journalists to search the province’s business registry by name.
The news director at TVA in Trois-Rivières has been suspended after being charged with Internet luring of minors.

At the CRTC

Chairman Jean-Pierre Blais isn’t afraid to call out hypocrisy from Bell and other telcos.
Missed this from earlier in the month: A letter from the commission clarifies that 4K channels owned by vertically integrated companies have the same requirements as HD ones in terms of being available to competitors at the same time they launch. Telus complained because they couldn’t reach an agreement to launch Sportsnet 4K. Telus can now add the channel and the two can go to arbitration later if they can’t reach an agreement on price.
Another CRTC letter finds that Sirius XM Canada was far short on its required contributions to Canadian content development, mainly because it donated money to ineligible programs. A $70,000 payment to POP Montreal, for example, was deemed too self-serving.

TV

NHL second-round TV broadcast schedules and NBC/Sportsnet play-by-play teams pic.twitter.com/pBAJxXOmuC

— Steve Faguy (@fagstein) April 25, 2017

The NHL playoffs begin their second round tonight, with only two Canadian teams remaining. Oilers fans without a subscription to Sportsnet are still getting screwed. But at least the Ottawa games are on CBC now. With the Canadiens out of the playoffs, TVA Sports won’t be getting audiences of 1.5 million anymore.
Speaking of sports ratings, NBA games saw theirs drop this year.
MAtv has pulled the plug on Montreal Billboard, a series that talks to people from non-profit community organizations. Host Kim Sullivan still has her job at Global, and now so too does Dan Spector, whose contract at MAtv came to an end and will now be a videojournalist at Global Montreal. It’s expected MAtv will find other projects for the English community, including those proposed by the community.
Bell Media is starting something called The Launch, which will be a six-part music competition series focused on creating hit songs rather than singers. It’s an original format that Bell hopes to sell worldwide. Insight Productions, Bell’s go-to company for such reality TV (Canadian Idol, Juno Awards, Amazing Race Canada) will produce the series this fall for airing in 2018.
The Writers Guild of Canada handed out awards for screenwriting.
Like Sportsnet, TSN is so hungry for curling it’s creating new competitions.
Bell put its estimated loss of Super Bowl ad revenue because of the CRTC decision on simultaneous substitution at $11 million this year.
History is working on a new documentary series about Canada’s cannabis industry. Bud Dynasty will have seven half-hour episodes.
FX Canada screwed up on airing the season premiere of Fargo last week, forcing a do-over two days later. Apparently it lost the last 15 minutes or so.
Radio-Canada says it will launch Panora.tv, an online marketplace for public broadcasting content, this fall.

Radio

CBC is launching its radio station in London, Ont., in June. The station, CBCL-FM 93.5, will have a local morning show, and will be home to a regional afternoon show that also covers Windsor. The CBC also says it will be a digital-first operation, with digital news platforms being given priority.
Rogers, which last month acquired exclusive radio rights to Vancouver Canucks games, has found a solution to the problem of where to put them, and it won’t be on its News 1130 talk station. Instead, it’s buying CISL 650 AM from Newcap and will turn it into its third Sportsnet radio station this fall. CISL, which has an easy listening format, was an Astral Media station that Bell sold when it acquired Astral so it could keep its two all-sports stations in the market. The selling price was not disclosed, but we’ll probably learn it the next time Newcap reports financial results. Newcap bought CISL and two (much more profitable) FM stations from Bell for $112 million in 2013. The Vancouver Sportsnet station would be the third for Rogers after Toronto and Calgary, and would make Vancouver the only market with three sports stations. Meanwhile at Bell, which has lost a major rights deal and has a new competitor, they might be thinking of converting that second TSN Radio station into something else.
Julie Snyder, who was a big star at TVA when she was in a relationship with its owner and isn’t now that they’re separated, has taken a job at Radio-Canada, though it’s in radio, not television. And she’ll be doing it from the Îles-de-la-Madeleine.
U.S. radio giant iHeartRadio might not survive another year because of its crushing debt load. If it goes under, it’s unclear what that might mean for Bell Media, which uses the iHeart brand and platform for its radio stations in Canada.

Print

Transcontinental is cutting another 20 jobs at its community newspapers in Quebec, just as they’re looking to sell them.
Talks with unionized workers at the Ottawa Citizen have failed to reach an agreement, so the two sides are going to conciliation.
Workers at Postmedia papers in Vancouver have approved a new deal with the company that will save 21 jobs by having everyone earn a bit less.

Online

Nominees for the Digital Publishing Awards have been announced. The Globe and Mail and CBC have several nominations, and GlobalNews.ca, Vice and BuzzFeed also got some noms. Winners are announced June 1.
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is launching a website to combat “fake news” with professional journalists and some wiki-like crowdsourcing. News stories about this announcement don’t mention that there’s already Wikinews, though there are no professional journalists there.
The Huffington Post is now just HuffPost. And is making a big deal out of that. Meanwhile, the HuffPost has invited student journalists who got their principal fired to be their guests at the White House Correspondents Dinner, which will be low on Hollywood stars this year (and also minus one president).
About.com is being shut down, replaced with a series of niche verticals.

News about people

Well folks, as you can tell by my new Twitter handle, I was also among the cuts today at ESPN.

— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) April 26, 2017

ESPN is laying off 100 people, according to reports. The list includes Canadians Pierre LeBrun and Scott Burnside, though LeBrun will still be seen on TSN and RDS. There are also other cuts at the sports broadcaster, which has to balance its books as rights fees increase and subscribers decrease.
In case you haven’t already heard, Bill O’Reilly is not coming back to Fox News. He joins Megyn Kelly, Gretchen Carlson and Greta van Susteren as Fox News stars who have left the network recently.
When you have two people in on-air jobs at TVA both named Félix Séguin, it’s inevitable they get confused. Which is what happened on FM93 when the hockey Séguin was put on air to talk about a scoop by the news Séguin. He said the confusion happens a lot.
Tommy Schnurmacher will be a regular on the CHOM morning show on Thursdays at 7:10.

Obituaries

Jobs

Reporter, The Canadian Press in Toronto
Journalist, L’actualité (deadline: April 28)
Journalists, Journal de Montréal (deadline: May 2)
Journalist at CJSO-FM in Sorel-Tracy (deadline: May 12)
La Presse diversity bursaries and internships (deadline: June 9)

Upcoming events

May 2: CBC Quebec public consultation
May 2: Benefit dinner for freedom of the press, organized by the FPJQ
May 20: Canadaland in Montreal

April 19, 2017 | Media

Media News Digest: Canadian Film Day, Junos go back to CBC, saving jobs in Vancouver

News about news

Suzanne Legault, Canada’s information commissioner, talks to Maclean’s about how disappointed she is that the government is not making more of an effort to improve access to information.
The Canadian Journalism Foundation and CBC have awarded their indigenous journalism fellowships for this year. Julian Brave NoiseCat of B.C. and Lenard Monkman of Manitoba will get $3,000 plus per diems and travel expenses to report on events for possible broadcast by CBC News.

At the CRTC

Francophone community station CHOD-FM 92.1 proposes synchronized retransmitter on same frequency near Hwy 417 (green/blue pattern) #CRTC pic.twitter.com/3a9177XbrU

— Steve Faguy (@fagstein) April 18, 2017

CHOD-FM, a French-language community radio station serving eastern Ontario, needs to improve its signal, so it has applied to the CRTC for a second transmitter. The second transmitter would use the same frequency (92.1 MHz) and would be located in Dunvegan, along the 417 about halfway between Ottawa and Vaudreuil. Having a synchronized transmitter on the same frequency is hard, especially for a low-budget community station. People between the transmitters will hear a lot of interference if it’s not done perfectly. CHAI-FM 101.9 in Châteauguay tried it with a retransmitter in Candiac, but abandoned that plan and replaced its two-transmitter system with a single transmitter. In a few years we could see CHOD-FM do the same.
The CRTC has released its three-year plan. Not much new here, though it finally expects to do its review of French-language music quotas on radio in 2017-18.
The commission’s decision on differential pricing and zero-rating, a process prompted by a complain about Videotron making access to online music services exempt from data charges and data caps, will be delivered Thursday at 4pm.

TV

CBC is holding online discussions, moderated by Daybreak host Mike Finnerty — in a suit! — as part of its response to criticism of the Canada: The Story of Us history documentary series that has been criticized for lack of inclusion or misrepresentation of French Canadians, westerners, Atlantic Canadians, indigenous peoples and just about everyone else. It’s bilingual (the version with French translation is here) though for this episode at least most of the discussion is in English. They’ll be back for another discussion next week.
Today is National Canadian Film Day:
- Bell Media is celebrating by airing a bunch of Canadian movies on its pay TV movie channels TMN, TMN Encore, Super Écran and Cinépop. Which sounds great, but it’s 25 movies spread across 11 channels (they’re actually airing more than is listed there). Other movies these channels are showing today include Furious 7, Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, The Free State of Jones, Mistress America, Suicide Squad, The Devil at Four O’Clock, War Dogs, Mortdecai, The 33, Madonna: Rebel Heart Tour, Be Cool, Letters from Iwo Jima and I Love My Sister’s Big Tits 6. None of these are Canadian.
- CBC is also celebrating, by putting some films online for free streaming. Radio-Canada will be airing the movie Sarah préfère la course at 2pm.
- Other movies screening on TV include Lesser Blessed on APTN, Strange Brew, Monsieur Lazhar and Trailer Park Boys on Hollywood Suite, Laurence Anyways on OUTtv, The Rocket on Sportsnet One, Love Under the Stars on Super Channel, The Stone Angel on Vision TV, and Porky’s on Sundance channel
The Juno Awards, after 16 years on CTV, are moving back to CBC for at least six more years. The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences notes that CBC has promised more content around the Junos year-round.
Historia, which has apparently learned that Montreal Canadiens history is the best way to drive viewership these days, has another documentary coming out, this one about the team’s 1970s dynasty. Starts April 26.
Discovery has a documentary on the Fort MacMurray wildfire airing April 30.
The NHL playoffs continue, taking over CBC six nights a week (they’re keeping Sundays for Anne and The Story of Us). We’re getting some ratings numbers announced. Canadiens Game 1 had 1.165 million viewers on TVA Sports and 1.324 million on CBC, 219,000 of whom were Quebec francophones. On Sunday, TVA Sports had 1,560,000 for the Canadiens, justifying their move of La Voix to Monday, where it got 2,011,000 viewers.
As part of its NHL playoff coverage, NBC is making a thing about having Pierre McGuire in a different city each night. On Thursday, he’ll be at the Bell Centre covering Game 5 of Rangers-Canadiens, though because the game is on USA Network in the States, most Canadians won’t be able to catch him. (TSN’s Chris Cuthbert will be calling the game there, while Paul Romanuk and Garry Galley continue calling it for CBC/Sportsnet.)
A couple of Mohawk girls started a podcast about Mohawk Girls and how the fictional reality of the TV series compares to actual reality on the reserve.

Print

The union representing staff at Postmedia’s Vancouver papers has reached a tentative agreement with the company to save 21 of the 54 jobs cut recently. The deal would see most employees work only four days every other week. Union members will vote on the deal today.
The Boston Globe is reorganizing its staff as newspapers have tended to do these days. They’ll be broken down into teams, some covering breaking news, others on beats and investigations, and a dedicated print team.
The New York Times is changing the way it does placelines because readers don’t understand what they mean. (The fact that many news organizations use fake placelines when covering a story from a distance doesn’t help.) Instead of putting, say, “BEIRUT —” at the beginning of a story, the location of the journalist will go in the byline, as “by Steve Faguy in Beirut”. Purists might scoff at this change, but remember that the NYT refers to these as “datelines” because back in the day when stories would take more than a day to travel around the world, these lines also contained the date a story was written.

Online

One of the things I really like about how the CBC approaches digital video is its embrace of YouTube, not just for posting promos and extras, but full programs to ensure they get as wide an audience as possible. Here, a short 14-minute documentary on a Mohawk school in Kahnawake and the adults working hard to keep it going.
Montreal-based WatchMojo.com has started a new web video series called The Lineup, which is a kind of fantasy hockey game show, hosted by Adam Reid.
Alex Jones’s lawyer says he’s a “performance artist”. Which I’m sure comes as great comfort to Sandy Hook parents who have been harassed by his supporters because he says the murder of dozens of children was faked by the government.

News about people

Mutsumi Takahashi (CTV Montreal news anchor, for the 12 people here who don’t know who she is) is getting a lifetime achievement award from the RTDNA.
Former Telus CEO Joe Natale is CEO of Rogers as of today. Rogers reached a deal with Telus to get him out of his non-compete agreement early.
Lyne Robitaille, who is responsible for newspapers and books at Quebecor Media, will add TVA Publications’ magazine portfolio to her responsibilities.
Patrick Bégin has been named news director for Cogeco Nouvelles.
Toronto Sun entertainment columnist Jim Slotek is a bit critical of his bosses in his farewell column.
Bernard Brault, sports photographer for La Presse, has an exhibition of his work at Lozeau until May 16.
CTV’s Geneviève Beauchemin ran the Boston Marathon.
Chris Mota, who has been doing public relations at Concordia University for 23 years, is retiring. She’s been the university’s voice through some pretty tough times, having to deal not only with professional journalists but also those pesky student ones (including myself 15 years ago).

Good reads

Jobs

Reporter, The Canadian Press in Toronto
Internship (paid), Huffington Post Québec
Business reporter, Montreal Gazette (deadline: April 21)
Political producer in Ottawa, National Post (deadline: April 24)
Canada Media Fund board member (deadline: April 25)
Journalists, Journal de Montréal (deadline: May 2)
Journalist at CJSO-FM in Sorel-Tracy (deadline: May 12)
La Presse diversity bursaries and internships (deadline: June 9)

Upcoming events

May 2: CBC Quebec public consultation
May 2: Benefit dinner for freedom of the press, organized by the FPJQ
May 20: Canadaland in Montreal

April 18, 2017 | Media

Who wants to buy Transcontinental’s community newspapers in Quebec?

As was rumoured last week when it sold its Atlantic Canadian newspaper portfolio to the owners of the Halifax Chronicle Herald, Transcontinental announced this morning that it has put its remaining newspapers, including Métro in Montreal, up for sale. This includes 93 publications, almost all of which are community newspapers in Quebec (there’s also the Seaway News in Cornwall, Ont.). And Transcontinental has grouped them into 27 groups, mainly by region.

The magazine Les Affaires and things like Publisac are not part of the sale process.

No buyer has been announced, and the process should “span several months.” Transcontinental will remain in charge of the newspapers during the process, and “will also continue to be the publisher of newspapers that may remain unsold.”

It’s unusual to announce a sale without a buyer lined up already. But there are also no obvious buyers for a collection of newspapers like this. Nevertheless, let’s go through the possibilities.

Quebecor

Many of these newspapers used to be owned by Quebecor, until they were sold en masse to Transcontinental in a deal first announced more than three years ago. (That deal also evaluated the newspapers at roughly $1 million apiece on average.) So buying them back, even at a discount, would be a big step back for this company that has shed assets to focus on its core properties Videotron and TVA.

On the other hand, Quebecor is going back to the past a bit, bringing Pierre Karl Péladeau back as CEO. If he wasn’t crazy about the sale of the newspapers in the first place (PKP stepped down a few months before it was announced), he could bring them back.

Buying the newspapers would let Quebecor re-establish a Quebec-wide source of local news, which would feed not only those local papers but also the Journal de Montréal/Québec and TVA.

But with Videotron spending a lot of money on building its wireless network and upgrading its cable network, TVA still trying to pull TVA Sports into the black, and the company prioritizing buying back the stake in it held by the Caisse de dépôt, there isn’t much extra cash lying around.

Groupe Capitales Médias

The owner of the half-dozen newspapers that used to be part of the Gesca chain (except La Presse) has regional news coverage as its core mission, so this purchase would make sense in that way.

Unfortunately we know little about GCM’s finances because it’s privately owned and Martin Cauchon still hasn’t been very forthcoming about where he got the money to buy the papers in the first place.

There’s also the fact that this purchase would further drive down competition, though the Postmedia/Sun Media deal effectively established that the Competition Bureau doesn’t care about that anymore.

Torstar

There are several community newspaper publishers in English Canada. Among them, Torstar would seem the most likely candidate to make a bid here. Postmedia doesn’t exactly have a lot of extra money lying around, Black Press and Glacier Media operate only in western Canada and the new Saltwire Network is too new to think about expanding right away (and if it was interested, it might have already bought them).

Torstar co-owns the other Metro newspapers in Canada, so it makes sense to buy Métro Montreal, perhaps separately from the others. And it had an interest in buying the Canwest chain until it lost out to Postmedia in the bidding. Its financial situation isn’t nearly as precarious as Postmedia’s.

But language is a big barrier for Torstar and the others. You can’t share articles or editors or page layouts when you’re working in a different language, and none of their current assets operate in French. There wouldn’t be that much efficiency in sharing resources.

XPND Capital

Alexandre Taillefer has made it a thing to try to rescue industries in need of innovation. He launched Téo Taxi to help the taxi industry compete against Uber. He bought Voir, and when Rogers decided to offload its Quebec publications he bought L’Actualité as well.

He definitely has the money, but does he think he can turn a profit on community newspapers?

Various local owners

An interview Transcontinental president François Olivier did with Presse Canadienne suggests this is the company’s actual vision, to sell off “at least half” of the publications to local owners who would be responsible for editorial and marketing, and would keep Transcontinental as their printer. Olivier also says that the newspapers are profitable, though that’s a difficult thing to measure on an individual basis when so much of newspaper operation is centralized.

There have been a few side deals where papers have been sold to entrepreneurs in their communities interested in buying. Others could be found to take over many of the remaining newspapers, but it’s almost impossible to find buyers for all 93. So going this route might mean many of them eventually get shut down, despite Transcontinental’s promise. (Olivier repeats in his interview that this won’t happen because the papers are profitable.) It would also mean breaking up the network, which relies a lot on centralized resources like editing, pagination and administration.

Rogers, Bell or some other rich media company that doesn’t own newspapers

Anything is possible, but why would they?

Someone rich who’s new to the media industry

Anyone who works at a struggling newspaper company fantasizes about a rich benefactor who buys the paper, doesn’t care about wasted money and doesn’t impose any editorial views. Unfortunately very few people like this exist. But there could be someone who decides to jump in and try to save the industry. We saw it with Cauchon’s purchase of the GCM papers, and with Taillefer’s purchase of Voir and L’Actualité.

It could even be someone, or a group of people, within Transcontinental itself that decide to start a new business. Some of them have decades of experience with community newspapers and could decide to become entrepreneurs.

No one

Finally, there’s the possibility that Transcontinental doesn’t find any takers for the majority of its collection. If they’re making money, it could decide to cancel the sale process and keep them. If they’re not, it could be the beginning of the end. They could remain running for a bit longer, but eventually the company would throw in the towel, and when it does there won’t be another sale offer, everything will just be shut down.

You

Got about $100 million lying around? How about $75 million? Or maybe just a few million for a few papers in your region? If so, contact Allison Dent (dent.allison@rcgt.com) or Arnaud Vital (vital.arnaud@rcgt.com).

We’ll see which of these options comes true in the coming months.

Newspapers for sale

Abitibi-Témiscamingue
- Le Citoyen Rouyn-Noranda
- Le Citoyen de la Vallée-de-l’Or
- L’Écho Abitibien
- La Frontière
Chambly
- Journal de Chambly
Chaudière-Appalaches – (Portfolio 1)
- Le Peuple Lévis
- Le Peuple Lotbinière
Chaudière-Appalaches – (Portfolio 2)
- Beauce Média
- L’Éclaireur Progrès
- Hebdo Régional
- La Voix du Sud
Cornwall (Ontario)
- Seaway News
Drummondville
- L’Express (Wednesday/Sunday)
Estrie
- Le Progrès de Coaticook
- Le Reflet du Lac
Gaspésie
- L’Avantage Gaspésien
- L’Avant-Poste
- L’Écho de la Baie
- Le Havre
- Le Pharillon
- Vision Terre et Forêt
Granby/Cowansville
- L’Avenir et des Rivières
- Granby Express
- Journal Le Guide
Lanaudière
- L’Action D’Autray
- L’Action (Wednesday/weekend)
- L’Express Montcalm
Laurentides – (Portfolio 1)
- Journal Le Nord
- Le Mirabel
Laurentides – (Portfolio 2)
- L’Information du Nord Mont-Tremblant
- L’Information du Nord Sainte-Agathe
- L’Information du Nord Vallée de la Rouge
Laval
- Courrier Laval
Longueuil
- Brossard Éclair
- Le Courrier du Sud
- L’Information d’Affaires Rive-Sud
- Le Reflet
Mauricie
- Le Courrier Sud
- L’Écho de la Tuque
- L’Écho de Maskinongé
- L’Hebdo du Saint-Maurice
- L’Hebdo Journal
Montreal (Portfolio 1)
- Ambiance/Rendez Vous
- L’Avenir de l’Est
- Cités Nouvelles
- Courrier Ahuntsic
- Courrier Bordeaux-Cartierville
- Corriere Italiano
- L’Express d’Outremont
- L’Express Mont-Royal
- Le Flambeau Mercier-Anjou
- Le Guide Montréal-Nord
- Le Magazine de l’Île-des-Sœurs
- L’Informateur de Rivière-des-Prairies
- Journal de Rosemont
- Messager Lachine & Dorval
- Le Messager LaSalle
- Le Messager Verdun
- Nouvelles Hochelaga-Maisonneuve
- Les Nouvelles Saint-Laurent News
- Le Plateau
- Progrès Saint-Léonard
- Villeray?Parc-Ex Petite Patrie
- La Voix Pop
Montreal (Portfolio 2)
- Métro Montreal
Outaouais
- Le Bulletin
- La Petite-Nation
- La Revue
Quebec City
- L’Actuel
- L’Appel
- L’Autre Voix
- Beauport Express
- Charlesbourg Express
- Le Jacques-Cartier
- Journal Habitation
- Le Québec Express
- Québec Hebdo (website only)
Repentigny
- Hebdo Rive-Nord
Rimouski
- L’Avantage votre journal
Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean
- Le Courrier de Saguenay
- L’Étoile du Lac
- Le Lac-St-Jean
- Les Nouvelles Hebdo
Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu
- Le Canada Français
- Le Richelieu
Sorel
- Les 2 Rives
Thetford Mines
- Courrier Frontenac
Valleyfield
- Coup d’œil
- Le Journal Saint-François
- Le Soleil de Châteauguay
Victoriaville and Plessisville
- L’Avenir de l’Érable
- La Nouvelle-Union (Wednesday/Sunday)

April 14, 2017 | Radio

Bell Media radio rehires The Beat’s program director

Since 92.5 FM in Montreal became The Beat in 2011, the station has made much of its staff lineup by poaching personalities from direct competitor Virgin Radio. Cat Spencer, Vinny Barrucco and Nat Lauzon were hired directly from Virgin, and Nikki Balch and Rob Kemp also previously worked at 1717 René-Lévesque Blvd. (for Virgin and CHOM, respectively).

With The Beat’s ratings being solidly ahead of Virgin for what seems to be a sustainable period, it seemed it was only a matter of time before Bell Media hit back.

Martin Tremblay (via Facebook)

This week we learned that it has poached from the top, hiring Martin Tremblay to lead the Énergie, Rouge FM and Virgin Radio Montreal stations. Tremblay was hired as interim program director at The Beat a year ago. Before that, he spent six years in what is basically the same job he’s now going back to, leading the Montreal French music stations and Virgin at Astral and then Bell Media.

His CV also includes plenty of work for radio stations as part of his consulting company Oumf! Communications. They include:

Helping RNC Media create a Rythme FM affiliate in Gatineau, which lasted two and a half years until RNC decided to rebrand it as WOW FM.
Helping Attraction Radio turn CKRS-FM in Saguenay into another Rythme FM affiliate.
Helping RNC Media turn CHOA-FM in Abitibi into yet another Rythme FM affiliate.
Helping RNC transforming its struggling CKLX-FM into 91.9 Sports in Montreal, and later turning Capitale Rock 96.5 in Gatineau into a partial affiliate of it. While 91.9 Sports is going strong and RNC finally seems happy with that format, the Gatineau station has dropped sports programming and is now Pop 96.5.
Launching Groupe Puissance Média, an ad sales group that works with both RNC Media and Cogeco Media TV and radio outlets in the Outaouais region.
Work for Rogers’s Kiss 105.3 in Ottawa.

Tremblay starts his new job Aug. 7. Like the on-air personalities who made the jump, he’s bound by the terms of a non-compete clause in his contract that prevents him from working for Bell Media right away. “So enjoying my free time,” he tells me.

I asked Bell Media how this affects existing management at these stations. Mark Bergman is the current program director at VIrgin Radio. Will his role change?

“We have no comments to make at this time,” was the response from Bell Media communications director Simon Céré. I also asked Bergman and Martin Spalding, who heads local TV and radio in Quebec, for comment, and will update this if I hear back.

Chris Bury takes over PD role at CHOM

Chris Bury, program director of CJAD, TSN 690 and now CHOM 97.7

Meanwhile, the other three radio stations at Bell Media in Montreal will all come under the control of Chris Bury, currently the PD for CJAD and TSN 690.

“As CHOM’s Assistant Program Director and Music Director, Picard will work directly with Chris,” notes a memo to staff.

Bury’s expanded duties means that more will be delegated to CJAD/TSN 690 Assistant Program Director Mathew Wood, who takes on a larger role at TSN.

“Mathew will now handle day-to-day responsibilities at TSN 690 and Picard will continue to do that for CHOM,” Bury explains to me by email. “I’ll be involved in brainstorming, strategy, long-term planning, major decisions etc.”

I asked Bury if we should expect any changes at CHOM with this announcement. “It’s too early to get specific but, for me, the general goal is always the same: produce the most compelling content possible — as consistently as you can,” he responded. “That can mean introducing new segments or features or executing the ones we have a little more effectively.”

“I’ll add that… It’s an honour to be working on CHOM, in any way. The station carries a powerful legacy in Montreal. And the team at CHOM are as passionate about their station as anyone else. I’m excited to get going and to help however I can. And, although I do have some music programming experience, there will certainly be a learning curve. It’ll be a fun challenge.”

These management changes took effect immediately when they were announced to staff earlier this week. CHOM has been without a program director since the death of André Lallier in 2015.

Meanwhile, at The Beat, there are decisions to make. The station is led by general manager Luc Tremblay, who was also hired as head of digital strategy at Cogeco Media last June.

April 13, 2017 | Media

Transcontinental/Chronicle Herald sale continues regional monopolization of newspapers

The Halifax Chronicle Herald surprised me this morning by announcing it is purchasing almost all of Transcontinental’s print assets in Atlantic Canada, including 27 newspapers, one online-only news outlet, and four of Transcon’s six printing plants. (This despite the fact that the paper is 15 months into a general strike.)

Included in the sale are newspapers like the St. John’s Telegram and Charlottetown Guardian. The sale takes effect immediately, Transcontinental said. No word on purchase price, but we’ll probably learn that at Transcontinental’s next financial report to shareholders.

This sale follows several recent region-wide newspaper selloffs, including Quebecor selling 74 community papers in Quebec to Transcontinental, Transcontinental selling its 13 Saskatchewan newspapers to Star News Publishing, Transcontinental buying all of Rogers’s business-to-business magazines, Gesca selling all its newspapers except La Presse, and swaps of newspapers between Black Press and Glacier Media in B.C. (Not to mention the whole Postmedia/Sun Media thing.)

The result of most of these transactions is that the country is being divided up regionally, and community newspapers are avoiding competition so much that their owners are swapping assets to stay away from each other’s markets.

After the Transcon/Chronicle Herald deal, the new owners (who have incorporated as Saltwire Network) made it clear they have no plans to expand into New Brunswick (beyond the purchased Sackville Tribune Post, which is on the Nova Scotia border) to avoid competing with the Irving-owned Brunswick News. The Transcontinental-Quebecor deal ended the companies’ competition in Quebec, which had heated up a few years earlier when Quebecor decided to launch some new publications on Transcontinental territory.

A look at which groups own more than a nominal number of newspapers in each province shows how fragmented it has become (numbers are based on a quick count and may not be exact):

British Columbia: Black Press (77), Glacier Media (25)
Alberta: Postmedia (36), Glacier Media (17), Black Press (12)
Saskatchewan: Glacier Media (15)
Manitoba: Glacier Media (9), Postmedia (9), FP Newspapers (9)
Ontario: Torstar (115), Postmedia (61)
Quebec: Transcontinental (100)
New Brunswick: Brunswick News (24)
Nova Scotia/Prince Edward Island/Newfoundland and Labrador: Saltwire Network (34)

Besides Alberta and Manitoba, no province has more than two major community newspaper publishers (as measured by number of titles). But just as importantly, no publisher operates substantial operations in more than four provinces.

As a result of the latest sale, Transcontinental will drop to being a Quebec-only newspaper publisher (except for papers in Cornwall, Ont., and its partnership in the Halifax Metro free daily).

The transactions make sense from a business perspective, and as much as we can complain about lack of competition, the truth is that healthy competition in community newspapers just isn’t possible as the industry continues its slow death march.

We may see further consolidation (particularly in western provinces) in the future, and if the situation doesn’t improve, major shutdowns. And if one of these companies goes under and is forced to shut down completely, it could leave an entire province without community media.

April 12, 2017 | Media

Media News Digest: Pulitzers, lawsuit settlements, NHL playoffs, Aislin’s 50th

Now that it looks like it’s finally dying down, here’s who’s written about that Andrew Potter Maclean’s piece and McGill’s reaction to it, in alphabetical order (not including letters to the editor or social media posts):

Paul Adams, iPolitics
Jérémie Bédard-Wien, Ricochet
Frédéric Bérard, Métro
Denise Bombardier, Journal de Montréal
Ann Brocklehurst
Michael Byers, Globe and Mail
Lucinda Chodan, Montreal Gazette
Colby Cosh, National Post
Andrew Coyne, National Post
Dan Delmar, Montreal Gazette
Raymond J. de Souza, National Post
Bernard Drainville, 98.5fm
Sophie Durocher, Journal de Montréal
Sophie Durocher again, Journal de Montréal
Joseph Facal, Journal de Montréal
Michael Friscolanti, Maclean’s
Lysiane Gagnon, La Presse
Jamie Gilcig, Cornwall Free News
Scott Gilmore, Maclean’s
Matt Gurney, The Walrus
Graeme Hamilton, National Post
Allison Hanes, Montreal Gazette
Trevor Hanna, Ricochet
Michael Harris, iPolitics
Joseph Heath, In Due Course
Chantal Hébert, Toronto Star
Barbara Kay, National Post
Jonathan Kay, The Walrus
Philippe Labrecque, Huffington Post Québec
Patrick Lagacé, La Presse
Patrick Lagacé in English, Globe and Mail
Josée Legault, Journal de Montréal
Josée Legault again, Journal de Montréal
Peter Loewen, National Post
Emmett Macfarlane, Maclean’s
Don Macpherson, Montreal Gazette
Candice Malcolm, Toronto Sun
Mylène Moisan, La Presse
Éric Montpetit, Globe and Mail
Brian Myles, Le Devoir
Michèle Ouimet, La Presse
Natalie Pendergast, Journal Pioneer
Nathalie Petrowski, La Presse
Joseph Quesnel, Local XPress
Lise Ravary, Journal de Montréal
Sandrine Ricci, Ricochet
Chris Selley, National Post
Michel Seymour, Huffington Post Québec
Evan Solomon, Maclean’s
Michael Taube, Troy Media
William Watson, National Post
Daniel Weinstock, In Due Course
Ira Wells, Literary Review of Canada
Margaret Wente, Globe and Mail
Suzanne Wexler, Huffington Post
Peter Wheeland, Cult MTL
Barry Wilson, CTV Montreal

Plus:

three professors in Maclean’s
a discussion on CBC’s The Current
Podcast discussions at Canadaland, Ricochet
Editorials: Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Maclean’s, Winnipeg Free Press, The Senior Times
Fact-checks: Le Soleil, La Presse, Maclean’s

News about news

Fact-creation in 2017. According to my sources, 84 percent of all the statistics you've ever seen on the war in Syria were created this way. pic.twitter.com/m1yscTa1q6

— Aron Lund (@aronlund) April 10, 2017

Pulitzer Prize winners were announced on Monday. Winners include David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post for coverage of Donald Trump’s charitable donations, and Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan.
A bill that passed through Canada’s Senate seeks to better protect the identity of journalists’ sources in court. Bill S-231 makes amendments to evidence law and seems fairly reasonable. One issue, though, is that it defines what a “journalist” is, and that definition is limited to “a person whose main occupation is to contribute directly, either regularly or occasionally, for consideration, to the collection, writing or production of information for dissemination by the media, or anyone who assists such a person.” It also protects people who were journalists when information is given but are no longer journalists. But what about freelancers? And what is “information for dissemination by the media” anyway? Does a PR person qualify? The problem of defining journalists is a complicated one.
The Chamberland Commission into police spying on journalists continues. Among the revelations this week is that police would sometimes request “tower dumps” which would note every phone connected to a cell tower at a given time.
J-Source on the Toronto Star’s fight against a police attempt to seize video.
CBC freelancers got a raise no April 1.
The Daily Mail apologized to Melania Trump and agreed to pay her money (believed to be in the low millions) for casually suggesting she may have been a prostitute.
Rolling Stone has reached a settlement with a University of Virginia administrator over its campus rape story.
Nominations for the Grands prix du journalisme indépendant, awards for Quebec freelance journalists, were announced. They include articles published in Le Devoir, L’actualité and Ricochet. Winners will be announced May 4.

At the CRTC

As mandated by the CRTC once every two years, CBC Quebec is holding a public consultation with the anglophone community on May 2 in Montreal. Attendance is free and open, but you’re asked to RSVP.
First notice of hearing in a while. The applications:
1. A low-power Native FM station in Potlotek First Nation in St. Peter’s, N.S.
2. Converting a 5W developmental community FM station in Val-des-Lacs (106.5 FM, near Mont Tremblant) to a low-power community station.
3. A new French-language community radio station in Ottawa-Gatineau at 1350 AM. This station would use the same frequency, site and signal as the former Radio ~~Centre-Ville~~ Ville-Marie (CIRA-5) retransmitter there (1000W daytime, 180W nighttime).
4. Dufferin Communications (Evanov Radio) acquiring Christian music station CFWC-FM Brantford, Ont., from Sound of Faith Broadcasting, for $440,000.
5. Dufferin converting ethnic station CKJS Winnipeg (810 AM) from AM to FM (92.5 MHz, 35,000W). In its application, the company reveals sister station CFJL-FM (Hot 100.5) has lost $700,000 in four years.
6. A corporate re-organization at Blackgold Broadcasting

TV

Announced NHL play-by-play teams per network for the first round of the playoffs. pic.twitter.com/quVIiRwVfc

— Steve Faguy (@fagstein) April 10, 2017

(Note that NBC staff here is for Game 1 of each series only.)

The NHL playoffs begin today. Sportsnet has managed to make sure the Canadiens and Maple Leafs don’t play any games on the same day, so both can get airtime on CBC. (Sunday is an exception, since CBC is keeping that night to itself for its Story of Us series.) Calgary gets priority for the late game. So the Senators and Oilers are largely stuck on Sportsnet. Sportsnet’s schedule for games 1-4 of each series is here. Also, Rogers revealed during a conference call that it has extended its Hockey Night in Canada agreement with CBC for a fifth season.
TVA Sports 3 has returned for another NHL playoff season. (Channel 199/799 on Videotron.) It will carry extra games that conflict with those already on the first two channels, and be basically dead otherwise. First games are Columbus vs. Pittsburgh and San Jose vs. Edmonton tonight.
The Canadiens’ playoff series is so big for TVA that it’s moving the next episode of La Voix to Monday night.
For American viewers, a bit of a treat this time: Viewers in markets where the local team is in the playoffs will get to choose between the local regional feed and the NBC national one. (Except Boston and ~~Philadelphia~~ Pittsburgh.) Unlike in Canada, in the U.S. a team’s regional broadcaster gets to produce games in the first round of the playoffs as well.
Radio-Canada has announced a new TV series set in New Brunswick, called Le siège. (Hugo Dumas has some details.) After burying the very good series Le clan on Saturday nights, let’s hope this series gets a bit more love from the broadcaster.
CBC has apologized for some of the issues brought up about its historical series The Story of Us. Unfortunately it’s too late to do anything about it.
Space has announced premiere dates for original sci-fi series Dark Matter (June 9) and Killjoys (June 30).
Hasan Minhaj of the Daily Show will be the featured performer at the White House Correspondents dinner, though President Donald Trump has already said he won’t be there.

Radio

Jian Ghomeshi is back. With a podcast. It’s very pretentious, and you can imagine how people feel about it.

Print

Quebec’s regional newspapers are taking their battle to save themselves financially to the public with a new campaign. At least I assume it’s the newspapers. The website doesn’t make clear who’s behind the campaign. They want the Quebec government to abandon plans to allow municipalities to issue public notices online instead of in local papers, and reduce burdens such as recycling taxes.
Aislin’s 50-year retrospective exhibit has opened at the McCord museum. Terry Mosher has been doing the media rounds promoting it, including interviews with or stories in La Presse, Le Devoir, The Globe and Mail, Global News, Breakfast Television, CHOM, The Suburban, the Montreal Times, HuffPost Quebec, pieuvre.ca, and of course the Montreal Gazette.
L’Express in Drummondville, the community weekly, got a visit from the bomb squad when a package with the word “EXPLOSIF” was found outside their door. It turned out not to be explosive, but the police took no chances, and a photographer’s equipment was one of the victims. An arrest has been made.
Nathalie Collard explores the people who despite everything gamble on starting new magazines, as the magazine Nouveau Projet (which, I admit, I didn’t think would last) celebrates its fifth anniversary.
Canadaland takes issue with Liberal MP Seamus O’Regan’s involvement in a committee that’s supposed to ensure that The Walrus remains educational.
La Presse+ is using the fading-text technique on some of its stories online to get more people to use its iPad app. You can (probably) see an example here.
Transcontinental has sold L’Oeil régional, the community weekly in Beloeil, to DBC Communications, which owns papers in St-Hyacinthe and elsewhere.
Postmedia CEO Paul Godfrey was interviewed by BNN. He doesn’t like being compared to Bombardier.
Postmedia has met its 20% salary reduction target, but more cuts will be needed, though it’s unclear if those will also come from job cuts.
Paul Adams at iPolitics imagines the future of Postmedia. It’s … not good.

Online

Quebecor Media is reorganizing its digital content teams, and laying off six people, mainly at Canoë, according to Le Devoir.
PRWeek is feeling a bit awkward about the Communicator of the Year award it gave to United Airlines’s CEO.
Canada Media Fund’s latest funding decisions for web series. They include another season of Têtes à claques (remember them?) and a second season of Space Riders: Division Earth. (If you haven’t seen Season 1, it’s here.)
OpenCorporates, which catalogs public information on companies as collected by governments, is suing Quebec for trying to restrict access to its database.

Movies

Bravo FACT has announced its latest funding recipients for short films. They include a film produced by actress Tatiana Maslany, and one written and directed by Kahnawake native Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs.

News about people

The @davidakin career recap update:
Post 1998-2001
Globe/CTV 2001-05
CTV 2005-08
Post 2008-10
Sun 2010-16
Post 2016-17
Global 2017-

— Steve Faguy (@fagstein) April 7, 2017

Two high-profile hires at Global News: Vassy Kapelos is now the permanent host of political talk show The West Block after taking over from Tom Clark in January. And David Akin, who has a resume of political reporting for just about every major private media now, will be the new chief political correspondent.
Former Quebecor CEO Pierre Dion is being paid $7.2 million in severance to make way for Pierre Karl Péladeau’s return.
After 20 years at CTV Vancouver, Coleen Christie is joining Global’s BC1.
The National Post has hired Maura Forrest of Yukon News and Lauren Heuser of The Walrus.
Radio-Canada’s Michel Rochon is retiring.
Régys Caron, journalist with the Journal de Québec, is retiring. He was recognized at the National Assembly along with fellow retiree Michel Hébert.
Guy Amyot, secretary general of the Quebec Press Council, is leaving for an unspecified other job. Oh wait, he’s joining the PQ.
Arlene Dickinson is coming back for Season 12 of Dragon’s Den on CBC.
Bill O’Reilly’s show is facing an exodus of advertisers amid sexual harassment claims. So he’s going on vacation. Pre-planned, he says.

Good reads

What it's like being a reporter, summarized in five lines https://t.co/fuG7SaJut4 pic.twitter.com/2PXAhp937x

— “Mark Berman” (@markberman) April 10, 2017

The New York Times on how to write a headline. Though it doesn’t really teach how to write in that almost Yoda-like New York Times headline style
Washington Post profile of media journalist and CNN host Brian Stelter

Obituaries

Guy O’Sullivan, president of Proper Television, the company behind series including MasterChef Canada and Canada’s Worst Driver
Gary Miles, former CEO of Rogers Radio
Dorothy Mengering, aka David Letterman’s mom
The Globe has a more in-depth obituary for TV writer Denis McGrath

Jobs

Foreign editor, Globe and Mail
Reporter, The Canadian Press in Toronto
Viral content journalist at Huffington Post Québec
Internship (paid), Huffington Post Québec
Political producer in Ottawa, National Post (deadline: April 24)
Canada Media Fund board member (deadline: April 25)
Journalists, Journal de Montréal (deadline: May 2)
La Presse diversity bursaries and internships (deadline: June 9)

Upcoming events

May 2: CBC Quebec public consultation
May 2: Benefit dinner for freedom of the press, organized by the FPJQ
May 20: Canadaland in Montreal