Category Archives: Media

| Media

No more paywall at the Journal de Montréal

“Autre nouvelle importante”, it starts, burying the lead a bit: The Journal de Montréal announced on Wednesday that all content on its website will now be free. Ditto for the Journal de Québec. No more paywall on either site.

The Quebecor-owned paid newspapers instituted their paywalls in 2012, putting some content behind it but leaving other content free. At the time, the purpose of the paywall was to protect the print edition’s subscription fees.

So what’s changed? La Presse asked, and the answer is basically that their priorities have changed: with the rise of social media, reach has become more important, and a paywall is a hindrance to that.

So the Journal falls back onto advertising as the primary source of digital revenue, even though digital advertising hasn’t exactly taken off. It’s in that line that it signed up for Facebook’s Instant Articles, which allows JdeM stories to be read directly in people’s Facebook feeds. Publishers can include ads in the feeds, which is supposed to be a way to increase revenue.

Other Canadian launch partners for Instant Articles are Chatelaine, Diply, The Huffington Post Canada, Maclean’s, Sportsnet, The Canadian Press and TVA Nouvelles, plus some international media like BuzzFeed.

The Journal de Montréal’s decision isn’t that surprising considering the context. Its competitors in francophone news, including La Presse, Radio-Canada, RDS, TVA Nouvelles, Métro and others don’t have paywalls. Le Devoir is the only major francophone publication that still has one up, and it’s not searching for as many hits as possible.

On the English side, we’ve seen the Toronto Star drop its paywall, but The Globe and Mail and Postmedia (my employer) still have them, porous as they may be. And they put them up after concluding it was a mistake to have content online free in the first place. Will they follow suit in determining it was a mistake to consider that a mistake?

The decision would be much easier if online advertising was a viable revenue source.

Meanwhile, this decision means the Journal de Montréal and Journal de Québec will be even more eager for as many clicks (or taps or whatever) as possible. There’s a huge incentive for clickbait, so don’t be surprised if it increases.

| Radio

Fall radio ratings show status quo in Montreal

Montreal anglo radio ratings (2+, central market). Click for larger version.

Montreal anglo radio ratings (2+, central market). Click for larger version.

PPM radio ratings came out this week. And while there isn’t much that’s headline-grabbing on the anglo side, there’s a few things I noticed that are worth mentioning.

The top-line numbers show that, once again, CJAD is the most popular radio station among anglophone listeners. No shock there. And when you look at the chart above, you can see that over time their share has actually grown. Its their fourth consecutive book above 25%, after years of never getting above 25.2%.

Among the music stations, The Beat is once again the most popular overall (among both anglophones and francophones), but among the important demographic of adults 25-54, Virgin Radio beats it by five points, and the trend is in Virgin’s favour. Among younger adults (18-34), Virgin beats The Beat by nine points.

Among men 25-54, CHOM is still tops with a 28% share, but that barely edges out Virgin. TSN Radio 690 has only a 6% share among this group, a third of CJAD’s.

CBC Radio One, which peaked in the fall of 2014, has been declining since, with a 6.5% share overall. CBC Radio Two is at 1.5%, the third consecutive quarter at that level or below after being above it for at least four years.

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| TV

The day local TV died

CHCH, the superstation in Hamilton, Ont., was Canada’s last best hope for the idea of truly local television.

It failed.

On Friday at 4pm, the station aired a 90-second statement from Channel Zero CEO Romen Podzyhun, explaining that the station would be undergoing a major restructuring and would eliminate a large part of its local programming, and the jobs that go with that. The amount of local programming would reportedly drop from 80 hours to 17.5 hours a week, a little more than most large-market local TV stations in Canada. (Its licence requires a minimum of only seven.)

Rather than have local original programming from 4am (they prided themselves on being the first on the air weekday mornings) to 7pm weekdays, they’ll be left with 6pm and 11pm newscasts starting Saturday, and the morning show starting Tuesday.

Other, non-news programming gets cancelled.

The human cost: 129 full-time jobs, and 38 part-timers, according to the Hamilton Spectator. Of them, 58 full-time employees and 23 part-time will be offered new jobs. The cuts include the Niagara bureau, apparently in its entirety.

Channel 11 LP, the company that Channel Zero created to do its local news, and which technically employed CHCH’s news employees, has declared bankruptcy, with $1.6 million owed to employees. (This is being erroneously reported in the media as CHCH itself or its parent company declaring bankruptcy, which is not the case.) The consequence of this is that the company can wash its hands of its union obligations, and the union is not happy, though it focuses its blame on the CRTC and the government.

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| TV

Avis de recherche using desperate legal measures to stay on the air

Control room and studio at Avis de recherche

Control room and studio at Avis de recherche

Avis de recherche, the specialty channel devoted to listing missing people and wanted suspects and talking about other aspects of public safety, got a punch to the gut two and a half years ago when the CRTC decided to end its special status as a must-distribute service that every TV subscriber in Quebec was forced to pay for.

Without that mandatory distribution, providers would no longer want to carry the channel, it would lose its subscription revenue and would cease to exist. Owner Vincent Geracitano knows this well because before ADR got that status, he had to pay Videotron to distribute the channel.

Knowing the channel had value as a public service, the commission gave ADR a two-year grace period to find a new business model. That grace period ended on Aug. 31, 2015, despite ADR’s ill-fated request for another extension.

Now, ADR is using every trick in the book to stay alive:

  • It has politicians writing letters to the federal government asking it to order the CRTC to review and reverse its decision.
  • It filed an application to the federal court seeking a judicial review of the decision.
  • It filed a complaint with the RCMP, alleging political interference in the CRTC decision (based mainly in hearsay evidence).
  • It took Videotron to court, arguing it had a distribution agreement until Dec. 31 and got a temporary injunction keeping it on Videotron’s system.
  • For Bell, ADR has gone to the CRTC and filed for dispute resolution. (A standstill provision says Bell must continue distributing the channel while the dispute resolution process proceeds.) ADR also filed a complaint of undue preference, arguing that Bell’s decision to pull ADR benefits its similar service Canal D Investigation. (I find that hard to understand. ADR is a news and information channel, while Investigation is entertainment. It’s like saying the Weather Network competes with a channel that shows nothing but Sharknado movies.)
  • UPDATE (Jan. 31): ADR has also filed an undue preference complaint against Videotron, arguing ADR is similar to LCN.

ADR proposes some solutions to Bell’s actions, which basically involve ordering Bell to keep the channel. It suggests the commission use its power to order Bell to keep distributing the channel until 2018, when all specialty channels will have lost their protections as a result of decisions taken in the CRTC’s Let’s Talk TV process.

Even if ADR is successful at keeping Bell and Videotron from pulling the channel, it’s just kicking the can down the road. Both distributors have made clear they have no desire to keep distributing the channel because there’s no demand for it.

A survey ADR provided in its application seems to confirm that. It shows only 16% of the 1,000 Quebecers surveyed had ever heard of the channel, and after being told what it was only 18% said they’d ever watched it.

Nevertheless, respondents said public security is important, and after some very leading questions about the value of such a channel, respondents expressed support for it and disagreement (69% vs. 18% support) with the CRTC’s decision to remove its mandatory status.

Respondents were asked how much they’d be willing to pay for it at four price points:

  • At its current 6 cents per month: 89% in favour
  • At 25 cents per month: 73% in favour
  • At 75 cents per month: 52% in favour
  • At $1 per month: 43% in favour

ADR makes it clear that without an order keeping it on some form of mandatory distribution, it would go off air “within days.”

The channel notes it is in a unique position as an independent service that once had mandatory distribution and has since lost it. And Geracitano has devoted his life to public service and this channel. It’s entirely understandable that he’s doing everything he can to keep it going.

But the CRTC has determined the public doesn’t absolutely need Avis de recherche, and it’s not about to change its mind on that. Rather than seek a way to offer programming that might generate demand, ADR is going all in on lawyers. I doubt it will work.

The CRTC is treating ADR’s complaint about Bell seriously but expeditiously, allowing only three days for comment. You can download the complaint here (.zip) and file comments here before 8pm ET on Friday, Dec. 11. Note that all information filed with the CRTC, including contact information, becomes part of the public record.

UPDATE (Dec. 14): This proceeding has resulted in dozens of interventions, almost all of them from politicians, public safety agencies and non-profit groups lined up behind ADR.

One group definitely not on ADR’s side is Quebecor. It notes in its intervention that ADR is a Category B specialty service, which means distributors are free to drop it if they want. It suggests allowing ADR to stay on Bell’s system this way would open the door to abuse of process:

ADR doit se rendre à l’évidence qu’elle n’a pas d’autre choix que d’assumer sa part des risques liés aux différentes politiques du CRTC et d’accepter la perte de son statut de distribution obligatoire.

UPDATE (Dec. 17): Bell’s reply has been published by the commission. Among the key quotes (with my highlights):

  • ADR has known since 24 September 2015 that their service would be removed from carriage on 1 December 2015.  Yet they waited two months to file their second standstill request and to file the Application.
  • ADR has already had two years to adjust to the lack of access rights.  In particular, Decision 2013-372 extended ADR’s 9(1)(h) status for two years to allow the licensee time to adapt its business plan. Bell has not seen any evidence of ADR changing its business plan; rather its plan appears to be to argue for continued carriage at its existing wholesale rate.  Bell does not consider this to be adapting to new distribution circumstances.
  • Given that ADR’s programming is a public benefit for law enforcement agencies, it could attempt to obtain sponsorship from various levels of government. … If such an attempt was made and rejected, then it would appear that law enforcement agencies do not see the value in ADR.
  • At mediation, there was a good exchange of information between the parties, but in the end, Bell’s position did not change. Our subscribers see little or no value in receiving this service as evidenced by the viewership chart for the service provided further below.
  • There is no regulatory requirement for BDUs to make reasonable attempts to ensure that programming services remain viable if they do not believe the service appeals to their subscribers.
  • The Wholesale Code does not afford independent services, such as ADR, penetration guarantees; rather, it only allows them the ability to negotiate for one.
  • There is no similarity between the programming offered by ADR and Canal D/Investigation.
  • The programming on Canal D/Investigation takes the form of documentaries, dramas and reality television shows related to justice and forensic science. It is an entertainment service that broadcasts programs on resolved criminal stories of national and international scope, it is not interactive, nor is it a “Crimestoppers” channel.
  • ADR’s viewership pales in comparison to Canal D/Investigation.
  • There is no evidence on file of their ability to solve crimes.
  • ADR suggests … there is no evidence that Bell plans to rebate its customers for the loss of service of ADR. … We do not make rate adjustments each and every time the cost of a programming service increases or decreases or when a service is added or removed from a package.
  • This Application is simply another attempt to have the Commission extend its mandatory-to-basic 9(1)(h) distribution order; a proposal that has already been rejected.

Bell makes reference to viewership data for ADR above. Because ADR does not subscribe to Numeris, Bell instead used set-top box viewership data from Fibe TV customers. The figures it uses are redacted from the public record, because Bell argues that information is commercially sensitive. So we don’t know what ADR’s actual viewership is among Bell customers, either in real numbers or compared to Investigation, other than it being lower.

UPDATE (April 20, 2016): After its CRTC complaints were rejected, the channel has appealed to Canada’s heritage minister to force the commission to force cable companies to keep paying for it to stay on the air.

| TV

Concordia students get $650,000 out of a Rogers acquisition

Sportsnet records its president announcing its donation at Concordia University's journalism building on Wednesday.

Sportsnet records its president announcing its donation at Concordia University’s journalism building on Wednesday.

Concordia University journalism students will be getting a financial boost in the coming years thanks to a $650,000 donation from Rogers Sportsnet.

More than half of the donation will be used for scholarships for students over five years:

  • Six scholarships of $3,000 each to undergraduate students
  • Seven scholarships of $4,000 each to graduate diploma students
  • Two scholarships of $6,000 each to masters students
  • Two prizes of $8,500 each to students based on sports journalism portfolios

This works out to $75,000 a year, or $375,000 over the five years of the program. The rest of the money will be used for things like new equipment purchases and other stuff whose details haven’t been finalized, said Concordia journalism department chair Brian Gabrial.

Other than the $8,500 prizes listed above, the scholarships are not specifically sports-related.

Students and staff at Concordia celebrate their donation with Sportsnet president Scott Moore (third from left).

Students and staff at Concordia celebrate their donation with Sportsnet president Scott Moore (third from right).

The donation, the largest in the department’s history, was celebrated with a wine-and-hors-d’oeuvres event at Concordia’s journalism and communications building on the Loyola campus on Wednesday, with Concordia president Alan Shepard Sportsnet president Scott Moore in attendance.

But while this is great news for the university, it’s worth noting where this money is coming from. It’s not something Rogers is doing spontaneously out of the kindness of its heart, but rather a mandatory funding initiative linked to Rogers’s 2013 acquisition of The Score (which it turned into Sportsnet 360).

When the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission approved the acquisition of the sports news television channel in 2013, it mandated that 10% of its purchase price (valued at $172 million) be spent on tangible benefits, or donations to programs and initiatives that benefit the broadcasting system as a whole. This is the CRTC’s way of mitigating the loss of diversity that comes from consolidation of ownership.

Rogers had originally proposed more than half of that going to something called the “Sportsnet Winter Games”, an annual amateur sports event. But the commission rejected that, saying it was worried that this would be self-serving. Instead, Rogers broke down the proposed benefits as follows:

  • $5 million for a Sportsnet Independent Production Fund
  • $5 million for a Canadian University Sports Initiative
  • $2.5 million for digital media produciton scholarships
  • $4.7 million for amateur independent sports production

Moore confirmed that the $650,000 donation to Concordia comes out of this tangible benefits package, which has to be paid out over five years. He said internal bureaucracy at Rogers, combined with some major distractions, caused them to get a slow start on this.

Gabrial credits Bob Babinski for helping get this done. Babinski worked with Moore at CBC Sports, and after Moore moved to Rogers Media, he hired Babinski to launch City Montreal. Moore said he called up Babinski and asked about Concordia’s journalism program, and then Sportsnet approached Concordia asking them to put together a proposal.

Moore referred to the donation as an “investment” in the future of journalism. That’s a nice sentiment, though the CRTC rules prevent any quid pro quo.

Other Sportsnet university initiatives include the Sportsnet U Recruited program. Its first recruit is Julian McKenzie, a Concordia journalism student, former sports editor at The Link and producer at CJLO 1690 AM. After the event, McKenzie had lunch with Moore.

A fake Concordian front page announcing the donation.

A fake Concordian front page announcing the donation.

| Radio

CJAD honours Balcan, Sinclair and Blackman as it opens a “hall of fame”

cjad-cartoons

Framed Aislin cartoons of George Balcan, left, Gord Sinclair and Ted Blackman.

This morning, on its 70th anniversary, CJAD 800 inaugurated what it officially calls a “hall of fame” but program director Chris Bury admitted would probably be more accurately described as a wall of fame. Its first three inductees, unveiled during the Andrew Carter morning show, are of no surprise: George Balcan, Gord Sinclair and Ted Blackman.

The three Montreal broadcasting icons, who all died between 2002 and 2004, were immortalized with caricatures produced by cartoonist Terry Mosher (Aislin), actually taken from cartoons he had already drawn of the three. “We had a few versions” for each of the three, Bury explained, and they decided to go that way rather than use old publicity photos, many of which were not in great condition, were poorly lit or seemed too serious.

The framed cartoons will be hung in the CJAD studio, where people who work at the station “can get a sense of the history of the radio station,” Bury said.

More CJAD personalities will join these three over the coming years. Bury said the plan is to induct one every six months or so until the 75th anniversary in 2020. “Nothing is set in stone” about who else will be inducted, though there are some obvious picks. Simple math would suggest about a dozen inductees in all, though that too hasn’t been set in stone.

“I don’t know how many other stations could do this,” Bury said after the ceremony.

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| Media

How would you spend $150 million a year at CBC/Radio-Canada?

We will protect the interests of our national broadcaster, in the interests of all Canadians. We will reverse Stephen Harper’s cuts and invest $150 million in new annual funding for CBC/Radio-Canada, to be delivered in consultation with the broadcaster and the Canadian cultural community.
— Liberal Party of Canada platform (page 56)

Restore and increase funding for CBC/Radio-Canada, following consultation with the broadcaster and the Canadian cultural community.
— Prime Minister’s mandate letter to Minister of Canadian Heritage Mélanie Joly

The Government will support CBC/Radio-Canada, encourage and promote the use of Canada’s official languages, and invest in Canada’s cultural and creative industries.
— Speech from the Throne

Though the wording gets more vague with each iteration, the promise of the Liberal Party to add $150 million a year to CBC/Radio-Canada’s parliamentary appropriation looks like it’s going to happen. Mélanie Joly has been confirming it during just about every interview she’s given.

But there are no details yet on how that extra money will be spent. The promise calls for the money to be “delivered in consultation with the broadcaster and the Canadian cultural community.”

The CBC is a large organization that does a lot of things. It has been rightly criticized as trying to be everything to everyone, and yet no one can agree on what things it shouldn’t be.

There doesn’t seem to have been any attempt at public consultation, and it’s not clear if there ever will be, so I’ll do my part here. What would you like the CBC to do with this extra money? I’ve outlined some options below, a few with cost estimates. But there may be other options. Offer your suggestions in the comments below.

CBC funding options

Just reverse the cuts. Hire everyone back that wants to come back. Hire new people for those who don’t. That should work out to about $130 million, not including one-time costs.

Over-the-air broadcasting. Reinstate CBC/Radio-Canada’s network of hundreds of low-power over-the-air TV transmitters, this time digital ones. Offer to multicast with other broadcasters. (CBC says shutting down analog transmitters saved it $10 million a year, but installing digital transmitters would cost more than $1 billion, so would eat up this increase for about a decade.)

Improve local news. Bring back the 90-minute local newscast in major markets while keeping the hourly one-minute updates. Add staff to local newsrooms.

Expand into new markets. Instead of investing in markets like Montreal, Toronto and Calgary that have fierce competition from the private sector, expand television and radio into new smaller markets, giving them local programming for the first time. Restart plans to launch a station in London, Ont.

Improve national and international news. Add more foreign bureaus that can tell major world stories from a Canadian perspective. Increase the resources of investigative programs like The Fifth Estate and Enquête. Make CBC News Network and RDI robust enough that they can go live 24/7 with breaking news and offer more high-quality documentary-style programming.

Factual programming. Commission more documentaries reflecting Canada’s regions. Scrap the “Our [cityname]” shows and replace them with weekly series about local arts, culture and lifestyle.

Create new high-quality TV dramas and bring a scripted drama or two back to CBC Radio.

Eliminate advertising for CBC Radio Two and ICI Musique ($1.1 million), and reduce advertising on television channels ($150 million would do that by a little less than half, though CBC notes it would also need to commission more programming to fill the gap).

Eliminate subscriber fees for CBC/Radio-Canada specialty channels — CBC News Network, RDI, ARTV, Explora and Documentary ($133 million).

Launch new specialty channels offering programming that private broadcasters are not.

Put Radio Canada International back on shortwave. Rebuild the transmission site in Sackville, N.B., and bring back programming in a dozen languages. (RCI’s “transformation” was projected to save $10 million a year, but rebuilding the transmitter site will cost a lot more.)

Better serve aboriginals. Create new programming on TV and radio in aboriginal languages and reflecting various communities across the country. Offer more local programming so that Mohawks and Inuit aren’t treated like one homogeneous block. Invest in serious improvements to CBC North and new partnerships with services like APTN.

Go digital. Add more digital-only journalists and digital bureaus. Experiment with delivering news and other content by podcasts and YouTube rather than live over the air. Hire nerds to make cbc.ca and radio-canada.ca more interactive, fun, informative and adaptive to new platforms.

Become a service provider. Bring back the costume shop at Maison Radio-Canada, and find ways to offer its resources to other broadcasters and producers and the public at large. Explore setting up similar shops in other markets. Create studios that can be used by independent podcasters or YouTube creators. Offer expertise in broadcasting to small communities, particularly aboriginal ones, to help them get community radio and TV stations on the air. Pool resources with private broadcasters to do together what no one can do alone.

Open up the vault. Increase the resources in archives so more content that’s been locked away can be put online.

Jump back into sports. Rights to pro leagues are locked up forever, so invest more in amateur sports coverage instead: university sports, athletics and winter sports. Put our athletes on TV more than once every four years.

Stay in real estate. Cancel plans to sell off buildings and land. Purchase real estate where space is currently rented.

Give every union member a raise and/or improved benefits. At about 8,000 employees, that works out to $18,750 per employee per year.

Do a little bit of all the above in a way that will barely be noticeable to the audience.

SHUT DOWN THE CBC AND GIVE US OUR TAXES BACK!

Vote below (give up to five answers if you’d like, but remember you have only $150 million a year to work with):

[poll id=”2″]

| Radio

Radio ratings confirm FM93 is still #1 in Quebec City

Numeris, the company that surveys TV viewers and radio listeners to determine ratings for those industries, released its report from radio diary markets on Thursday. This report covers mainly medium-sized markets by having a sample audience fill out forms saying what they listened to. (Larger markets like Montreal are measured using meters, which are considered more accurate.)

In Quebec, the headlines from this report is that talk station FM93 is the undisputed leader in the provincial capital (Le Soleil, Journal de Québec) with a 17.7% market share, well ahead of the next best stations, Rouge FM (CITF-FM) and Radio-Canada Première (CBV-FM), tied at 12.3%. CHOI, once the market leader, is fourth at 11.1%, the same rank it was at in the spring ratings. Among adults 18-34, it has dropped from first to sixth place. It’s also sixth among women 25-54, down from a close second last year.

But before you declare the CHOI style of “radio poubelle” dead, note that former CHOI personalities are doing quite well at other stations, according to data collected by Le Soleil and RadioEgo.com. Jeff Fillion at Énergie beats his former station, but is still behind FM93 (his move from the lunch hour to afternoon drive caused the lunch ratings to plummet back to a third of what they were under him among adults 25-54, and the afternoon drive numbers to more than double). Stéphan Dupont is doing well as Énergie’s morning man (whether he’s #1 or #3 depends how you measure), and it seems clear from the ratings numbers that he’s taking his audience mainly from CHOI, quadrupling his station’s audience in the mornings in one year. Éric Duhaime is #1 at noon with Nathalie Normandeau at FM93, beating CHOI’s Richard Martineau. And André Arthur’s show at CHOI is #1 in his short timeslot of 11:30 to noon weekdays. The station would probably do better overall if he was willing to take more airtime.

Going up: Énergie’s well behind competitors, but its share has increased from 7.8% to 9.4%. And though CHOI is still fourth, its 11.1% share is up from 9.5% in the spring. WKND is up two points from 5.9 to 7.9% (and its reach is up about 15%).

Going down: Rouge and Radio-Canada are both down about two points from the spring. CJSQ Radio-Classique saw its share drop from 4.7% to 2.5%. The fact that Radio-Classique was in transition during the ratings period probably has a lot to do with that.

The sole English-language station in Quebec City, CBC Radio One (CBVE-FM), has a 0.6% rating, down from 0.7% in the spring. About 37,000 listeners in Canada listened to that station or its retransmitters on the Quebec Community Network (which covers most of Quebec except Montreal and Gatineau) for at least 15 minutes during the measured period.

Sherbrooke

Little change here from the spring. The two Bell Media stations (Énergie and Rouge FM) lead with about a 20% market share each.

Trois-Rivières

There’s now a very tight three-way race for the top between NRJ (CIGB-FM) at 16.8%, Rythme FM (CJEB-FM) at 16.5% and Rouge FM (CHEY-FM) at 15.5%. That’s a significant drop for Rythme. Independent Bécancour station CKBN-FM jumped from 5.2% to 9.0% for fourth place, edging Radio-Canada. Talk station CKOB-FM 106.9 is behind at 6.2%, and Espace Musique jumped from 2.9% to 5.6%.

Saguenay

Rouge FM (CFIX-FM) has solidified its dominance here and now has a 31.9% share, up from 25.3% in the spring. Its sister Énergie (CJAB-FM) dropped three points to sit at 17.5%, while KYK Radio X (CKYK-FM) gained two and a half to reach 15.7%.

The Rythme FM station owned by Attraction Radio has fallen back to Earth after shooting up a couple of points following the format change. It’s now at 7.1%, about what it was before becoming a Rythme affiliate.

Drummondville

The only two stations surveyed in this market are tight as can be: CJDM-FM (Énergie) at 27.8% and CHRD-FM (Rouge FM) at 27.7%. Competition would be intense if they weren’t both owned by Bell Media.

Ottawa/Gatineau

On the anglo side, Bell Media’s New Country 94 (formerly Bob FM) still hasn’t been resonating with audiences, stuck with a 2.9% market share. But its competitor Country 101, a Rogers station operating out of Smiths Falls but which targets Ottawa, has seen its share drop more than half from 6.7% to 3.3% in a year.

Otherwise, the only change by more than a couple of points is CBC Radio One, up four points to 22.9%. It has more than twice the share of any other station, thanks mainly to the fragmentation of the market.

On the franco side, Rouge FM is still by far the top rated stations, but it lost 4.5% market share, and is now at 17.7%. Otherwise the only notable shift is a more than doubling of the share for Corus’s English music station Jump! 106.9, which is now at 4.2% of francophone listeners, similar to other English-language music stations in the market.

I’ll leave looking at other markets to others since I’m less familiar with them. PPM quarterly ratings, which includes the Montreal English and French markets, come out next week.

If you want to delve into deeper analysis, InfoPresse has posted the charts put together by Bell Media research and Cogeco Force Radio, or you can read the self-congratulatory statements from Bell or Leclerc.

| Radio, TV

Bell Media rehires Louis Douville as regional sales manager

Louis Douville

Louis Douville

Two months after he lost his job as general manager of CTV Montreal, Louis Douville is back at Bell Media. It was just announced internally that he is taking on the new job of regional sales manager for local TV and radio in Quebec, starting Monday.

In his new job, Douville will be responsible for advertising sales managers at CTV Montreal and Bell Media’s radio stations in both languages throughout the province. He reports directly to Toronto.

Douville tells me he considers the change a lateral move, with “a more focused responsibility” but with a wider scope.

He says he had no hard feelings about being cut as part of hundreds of job cuts at the company this year. “I never took it personally. I was a victim of economic times,” he said. “To be able to stay with a company that I’ve invested in for 33 years is pretty fabulous.”

Advertising is a big challenge, especially for a company like Bell Media, which is looking to increase or at least maintain its revenues while operating with fewer staff. Douville said he has ideas for strategy but wants to discuss them with his staff first. And as for taking on that daunting task, he offered advice he heard from a wise man once:

“If you take a challenge that doesn’t terrify you, you’re not taking on enough of a challenge.”

| TV

Alex Despatie leaves Breakfast Television

Alexandre Despatie

Alexandre Despatie, the former world champion diver who was a surprise hire as one of the first hosts of Breakfast Television Montreal, has left the show.

The show has been co-hosted by Wilder Weir the past few weeks, but Despatie’s departure was only announced on air this morning, at the end of the show.

“Alex is moving on to different and exciting projects, so it’s a start to a new chapter in Alex’s life,” co-host Joanne Vrakas said before reminiscing about her screen test with him before they were hired.

The use of boilerplate, combined with the fact that Despatie wasn’t there to offer his own goodbye message certainly raises an eyebrow, but statements offered from both parties suggest an amicable departure. Here’s statements that Rogers PR emailed me afterward:

Colette Watson, VP of Broadcast & Operations, Rogers Media :

“Alex was a big part of our launch in Montreal and we are appreciative to have had the opportunity to work with him.  He is a true professional and we wish him all the best as he moves on to his next venture.”

Alexandre Despatie:

“From a young age I have been motivated by challenges, and the chance to participate in the launch of a new station in such an important role was quite a big one. I want to thank City for offering me this extraordinary opportunity and the viewers who let me into their homes every morning. I was privileged to share the show with a great team both in-front of and behind the camera and I wish them all the best. I would have loved to continue this wonderful experience, but I’m looking forward to my next exciting endeavour.”

It’s unclear what happens now as far as on-air staff. Weir would be the obvious choice to replace Depatie since he’s been doing it as a fill-in. But that opens up Wilder’s position as the “Live Eye” reporter.

To complicate matters further, Vrakas is pregnant, which means she’ll be going on maternity leave soon.

Despatie is the latest major figure to leave City Montreal after only two and a half years of local programming. He follows Montreal Connected host Alyson Lozoff, executive producer Bob Babinski (who hired Despatie), supervising producer Jeffrey Feldman, plus some behind-the-scenes people like news producer Levon Sevunts.

UPDATE (Feb. 5, 2016): Despatie will be on the Radio-Canada Olympic broadcast team in Rio.

| Radio

Châteauguay’s CHAI-FM replacing two transmitters with one

If you look at a list of radio transmitters in the Montreal area, you’ll find a listing at 101.9 MHz for CHAI-FM, a community radio station in Châteauguay. But you’ll also find one called CHAI-FM-1 in Candiac, also at 101.9 MHz.

It’s an unusual solution to a coverage problem to have a repeater on the same frequency, and CHAI is the only one in the area that attempted it. There’s a reason for this: talk to any broadcast engineer and they’ll tell you that while it can be done, it’s very tricky. If the stations aren’t perfectly synchronized, people between the transmitters can hear unpleasant sounds and echoes.

CHAI-FM proposal: A new transmitter (green) replaces the two old ones (red and blue).

CHAI-FM proposal: A new transmitter (green) replaces the two old ones (red and blue).

So CHAI has decided after less than a decade to abandon that plan and instead seek changes to its primary transmitter (an increase in power, change in pattern and shift of location and height) to allow it to cover both the city of Châteauguay and the MRC de Roussillon with one signal. As you can see from the map above, the engineers have done a pretty good job of replicating the two coverage areas with one signal.

The new CHAI-FM would transmit from atop the Châteauguay water tower in the eastern corner of the city, using a directional antenna and a power of 238 watts, up from 100. The height above average terrain would go from 50 to 66.7 metres. (The city approved the installation unanimously in a council meeting on Dec. 1, 2014, setting a $350 a year rent plus taxes and $460 a year for electricity, a deal of five years renewable twice.)

Being so close to Montreal, the signal has to be careful not to interfere with other existing ones. An engineering analysis found potential interference issues with a half dozen stations but managed to minimize them:

  • CBMG-FM Cowansville (101.9): CHAI and this CBC Radio One transmitter would cause interference to each other, but CHAI notes that the area of CBMG’s signal it would interfere with, centred around Iberville, would be covered by Radio One’s main Montreal transmitter at 88.5 FM, which carries identical programming. CBMG could cause interference to CHAI in Candiac, Delson, Lery and the southern West Island.
  • CJSS-FM Cornwall (101.9): Though they operate on the same frequency, the analysis found CHAI would not interfere with CJSS and CJSS’s interference with CHAI would be minimal, confined to a sliver of its pattern southwest of Lery.
  • WCVT-FM Stowe, Vt. (101.7): No potential interference was found here unless WCVT were to increase to its maximum theoretical power, which it couldn’t do anyway because that would interfere with CBMG.
  • CHPR-FM Hawkesbury, Ont. (102.1): The stations are far enough apart in space and frequency that there are no interference issues.
  • CIBL-FM Montreal (101.5): CHAI would cause some interference to reception of the Montreal community station in the area southeast of CHAI’s transmitter, but that interference would be less than is currently caused by both CHAI-FM and its retransmitter. CIBL would not cause interference to CHAI.
  • CINQ-FM Montreal (102.3): The mutual interference situation for CINQ is virtually identical to that of CIBL.

The worst interference issue both ways is with the Cowansville station, and that’s the only one that would actually increase a non-trivial amount under this scenario. CHAI’s proposed parameters go as far as they can without leaving a coverage hole for CBC Radio One (an area that isn’t within either coverage area of CBME-FM 88.5 or CBMG-FM 101.9).

UPDATE: The application was approved by the CRTC on Nov. 24, 2016. On Oct. 25, 2018, the station was given a two-year extension to implement the change, explaining that it had undertaken the process, including buying the antenna, doing an engineering study of the tower, and seeking submissions for the actual antenna installation.

| Radio

Valleyfield’s CKOD-FM gets approval for sale, rebrands as Max 103

Barely a week after the CRTC officially approved the sale of the station to Torres Media (owner of Ottawa’s Dawg FM), CKOD-FM has relaunched with a new studio location, $75,000 of new equipment, and a new branding: Max 103.

As I explained in May, the Valleyfield station was in a pretty dire situation less than a year ago, unable to pay its rent or even keep the transmitter running. Torres Media came in with a lifeline and got it back up and running, getting the CRTC to approve a temporary management agreement while it deliberated on the official sale.

The purchase price was $250,000. Torres Media asked for an exemption to the CRTC’s tangible benefits policy, which normally places a 6% tax on the sale of radio stations, with that money going to Canadian content development funds or other similar initiatives. The commission denied that request, and so the new owner has to pay $24,076 in addition to $1,500 to make up for the previous owner’s failure to pay mandatory Canadian content funding contributions.

The relaunch happened yesterday, and Cogeco’s local community TV service sent a reporter to do a report on it:

The Journal Saint-François was also there.

 

Yves Trottier, who has been with the station for a couple of decades now, returns to the air as the morning man. He also has a 5% ownership stake in the station.

CKOD-FM’s 3kW signal at 103.1, which is unchanged in this ownership transition, allows it to cover the Suroît area, reaching from Hudson to Huntindgon and the Ontario border to Saint-Martine. Its coverage area also includes Île Perrot and Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue. People further east will have trouble hearing it due to interference from CHAA-FM 103.3.

The investment seems significant, and Torres Media seems serious about relaunching the station. They’ve promised to keep it local, and have apparently reached a deal with InfoSuroit.com to provide local and regional news.

I can’t find a website for the station The station’s website is pretty bare right now, and there’s no online stream. Hopefully that will come soon.

| Radio

Radio Humsafar ready to launch on AM, but needs to move its antenna first

Jasvir Sandhu in the Radio Humsafar studio in Lasalle.

Jasvir Sandhu in the Radio Humsafar studio in Lasalle.

A year and a half after it was approved by the CRTC, Radio Humsafar, a South Asian station set to broadcast at 1610 AM, still isn’t on the air.

But there are signs of life. The group has applied to the commission for an amendment after it determined that its original plan to share an antenna with CJLO 1690 AM wasn’t feasible (the frequencies are too close together).

Instead, Humsafar will install its own antenna on 46th Ave. near François Cusson St. in Lachine’s industrial park, four kilometres west of CJLO’s antenna. Otherwise, the technical parameters are the same, 1000W day and night, and the coverage pattern is almost identical.

Humsafar has gotten a permit from Lachine to install the antenna, according to a report in the community paper. But the CRTC needs to approve the location change, so it has opened the application to public comment until Jan. 8. That means it’ll probably be the end of February before it gets the okay from the commission.

In the meantime, you can listen to it online.

| Media

Montreal Gazette adds NP section, makes Basem Boshra columnist

A little over a year after it “reimagined” itself with redesigns on four platforms, the Montreal Gazette — my employer — made some minor changes last week, particularly in print.

The daily “Context” section, which included national and world news stories as well as the editorial and opinion pages, has been eliminated, replaced by “NP in the Montreal Gazette”, a section of content from the National Post.

National Post section in the Montreal Gazette

National Post section in the Montreal Gazette

The NP section, which will be six to 12 pages long, is National Post content presented using the National Post stylesheet. It includes national and world news, opinions and columnists like Andrew Coyne, Michael Den Tandt and Christie Blatchford. Similar sections exist in the Edmonton Journal and Windsor Star, and should follow for other papers.

Doing national and international news this way saves resources because the layouts are identical and can be copy-pasted between the local papers. And it makes it look like you get a free National Post in your Gazette.

The change comes with some challenges though. The A section, which is now just local news plus one page of local editorial, letters and opinion, gets more of the ad stacks that leave oddly-shaped holes for news copy. (Insert joke about ads disappearing from newspapers here.) And since national and international news is in another section, it might be a challenge finding local news copy to fill those spaces, especially around the holidays when there are a lot more ads.

The Saturday paper is changing a bit. In addition to Context being gone, the Saturday Extra section is being retired, and its contents scattered into other sections:

  • The main feature story will occupy clear pages in the A section (and still get that big splash on A1)
  • The weekly Viewfinder photo will go to a page in Weekend Life with Dr. Joe Schwarcz’s chemistry column and Mark Abley’s Watchwords.
  • The Instagram challenge is moving to (usually) Page A2 with Josh Freed’s column
  • Montreal Diary is being discontinued
  • Local editorial, opinion and letters move to the A section
  • Andrew Coyne and other national Postmedia columnists go to the NP section

Saturday Extra has been in the Gazette since Feb. 25, 2006. And I admit to a bit of mourning for the demise of Montreal Diary, a section with short stories about the city. My first freelance story for the Gazette was a Diary story, and many other freelance writers got their start there. But after a decade, these things get old and I can’t honestly say it would necessarily be a bad idea to move on to other things.

Another change: Letters to the editor are no longer being posted online.

People who have comments or complaints are being asked to send them to feedback@montrealgazette.com.

Meanwhile, the Gazette has also added a city columnist, which it has been missing for a while. Basem Boshra, who has had many hats but was most recently the city editor, is now writing almost daily with his take on the news of the day. His first column, re-introducing himself, is here.

The Gazette has also launched its Christmas Fund campaign, including the daily anonymous profiles about needy families written by slightly less needy freelancers.

Oh, and since a bunch of people keep asking:

  • Don Macpherson is on leave, but is expected to return. Dan Delmar is filling in as a columnist in the meantime.
  • Stone Soup isn’t in the daily comics pages anymore because it’s no longer a daily comic. And the Gazette does not have the power to force Jan Eliot to work against her will.

Gazette 2.5 app

UPDATE (Nov. 30): Today the paper updated its smartphone app, combining the pull-full-stories-from-the-web functionality of the older app and the stories-written-specifically-for-smartphone aspect of the 2.0 version. This comes after many users complained that the 2.0 app didn’t let them read all the stories the Gazette published. Like with the NP section, the new functionality of the smartphone app started with the Edmonton Journal.

Confusingly, the app actually updates the 1.0 version in the App Store and Google Play. People who have the 2.0 app installed are being asked to delete that in favour of the other one.

Among the features of the new app, which is being referred to unofficially as “version 2.5”:

  • Live weather, with current condition visible on all pages and a full page of details provided by The Weather Network
  • Ability to turn notifications on and off from within the app
  • Continuous scrolling on stories instead of being broken up into pages
  • Font size preference (3 sizes)
  • A running count of the number of stories (X of YY) on each story
  • Better functionality for photos and videos (tap a photo to read the caption, ability to watch videos from within the app)
  • No more following stories to be updated when they change
| Radio

TSN 690’s Elliott Price, Abe Hefter laid off as part of Bell Media cuts in Montreal

The wave of job cuts sweeping Canada finally hit Montreal today, with the first big names on the list of those getting the axe: Elliott Price, co-host of the morning show on TSN Radio 690, and Abe Hefter, host of the weekend morning show.

I lay out the news in this story in the Montreal Gazette.

“Unfortunately, I can confirm that Elliott Price departed the company as part of the ongoing restructuring at Bell Media,” was the official comment from Bell Media spokesperson Olivier Racette.

Bell Media isn’t offering much comment on departures, and program director Chris Bury referred all comment to Racette.

Price didn’t respond to a request for comment and hasn’t said anything on Twitter, but he did change his Twitter biography:

price-bio

Price’s departure leaves the morning show in the hands of Shaun Starr and Rick Moffat, along with their contributors.

Price has been a fixture on Montreal radio since 1982, notably as a voice of the Montreal Expos.

Hefter, host of The Locker Room, is also gone, Mitch Melnick announced today on the air.

Other confirmed on-air cuts:

The fact that both Virgin and CHOM have ditched their overnight hosts suggests to me that they might try going announcerless overnight. We’ll see.

There are also several behind-the-scenes jobs at these stations that have been cut. Producers, marketing and promotions people and others.

At CTV Montreal, the cuts have been more modest. No anchors or reporters have lost their jobs yet, though they will be filling the vacant Quebec City reporter position internally instead of hiring someone new, according to union local president Susan Lea.

Five positions are gone, all in operations (i.e. off-air jobs), of which one was a voluntary departure with a severance package to protect the job of a younger employee, Lea said.

“We’re expecting a couple more” jobs to be cut, she said.

Lea said CTV Montreal was probably spared more severe cuts like we’ve seen elsewhere because of more severe cuts that happened a year ago. The station is down to about 100 people.

I haven’t heard about on-air cuts at RDS or other French-language properties in Montreal yet.

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