Category Archives: TV

| Montreal, TV

Absolutely Quebec: A taste of regional programming on CBC TV

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlEVa91Pb0I

For those (like me) who complain that there isn’t much local programming in English in Quebec outside of news broadcasts, a regional documentary and short film series is something to look forward to. This summer, CBC television presents Absolutely Quebec, a series of five one-hour documentaries and an hour of short films that reflect the anglophone community in Quebec.

The first episode, Hockey Migrations, aired last Saturday. It tells the story of a hockey tournament in Tasiujaq, an Inuit community near Ungava Bay. But it’s actually an inightful look into the culture of the region, how native communities are struggling with changes to their traditional way of life, and how hockey is a way to give kids something to do and keep them out of trouble. Its director, Tony Girardin, was interviewed on CBC Radio’s All in a Weekend on Saturday morning, and explains that the footage was actually shot seven years ago, but only edited into a documentary recently. (One of the elders interviewed in the documentary has since died.)

You can watch Hockey Migrations on CBC’s website.

“In Quebec, we have an incredibly rich history of storytelling and filmmaking,” Shelagh Kinch, the new Managing Director CBC Quebec, is quoted as saying in the press release. “CBC is proud to produce a series that highlights some of our province’s emerging filmmakers and also allows new audiences to enjoy these local stories.”

The rest of the series, which runs Saturdays at 7pm on CBMT (except Aug. 11, when CBC airs Rogers Cup tennis coverage), is as follows:

Sadly, Videotron’s on-screen listings list 7pm Saturday as being The Nature of Things, but tune in anyway. It’s one of the few chances you’ll have to watch that independently-produced local programming you complain never sees the light of day on local television.

Some of these episodes might end up being aired nationally as well, as part of the Absolutely Canadian series. But which of those will get national exposure (on CBC television, CBC News Network or the Documentary channel) and when that will be hasn’t been decided yet.

| Radio, TV

Bell’s purchase of Astral: The issues in front of the CRTC

While everyone’s attention here was naturally focused on what Bell’s plans are for CKGM, the bigger issue up in front of the CRTC on Sept. 10 is the overall $3.38-billion purchase of Astral Media by Bell Media.

The deal would be a straight purchase, gobbling up everything owned by Astral including non-broadcast assets like its outdoor billboard advertising business. Bell would sell off only those things it is required to.

It’s a deal that has prompted a lot of worries about media concentration (though you could say it’s far too late to worry about that). Quebec’s Option consommateurs has already come out against it, generating some media buzz, but otherwise there hasn’t been much organized opposition.

10 radio stations to be sold

As I noted in the post when the deal was announced, a look at the combined assets of both companies shows they would be over the limits (two AM, two FM, and no more than three total in markets with fewer than eight commercial stations) in six markets, and would need to divest itself of 11 stations to meet the limit. In its application, Bell says it plans to sell 10 stations, and convert CKGM to French.

Bell’s application indicates it has provided the CRTC with a list of the 10 stations it plans to sell, but it wants that kept confidential so that those stations don’t become lame ducks, losing staff and morale. Knowing what markets it needs to sell stations in (two FM in Ottawa, one FM in Calgary, two FM in Toronto, two FM in Winnipeg, and two FM and one AM in Vancouver) and what the ratings are for those markets, it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to find the likely castaways.

Because most of those markets have many English FM stations and multiple independent players, the concern about market concentration isn’t as high there as it is for Montreal’s English market.

Two calculations for TV viewing share

On the TV side, the CRTC’s concern isn’t so much the number of TV services (cable channels are a dime a dozen these days), but viewing share. Specifically, it says it will not allow any one player to control more than 45% of the overall viewing share in either language, and will closely scrutinize any purchase that gives a player between 35% and 45% of the viewing share.

Where Bell fits in depends on how you calculate that share. If you include Canadian viewing of American and overseas TV channels (like PBS, CNN and Spike TV), it falls just under that 35% threshold (33.5%). If you include only Canadian services, it’s just above (38.7%). Naturally, Bell believes U.S. services should be included in the calculation (they represent about 10% of Canadian viewing hours), which makes sense, but also means that one player could own 100% of Canadian television channels so long as 65% of Canadian television viewing is of foreign services. In addition, Bell argues that part of that share is its CTV Two network, which it has agreed to keep operating even though it loses money as part of a commitment made in the purchase of CTV by Bell.

There are also qualitative arguments that Bell uses. For one, Astral has no news or public affairs departments at its TV properties, so there would not be a reduction in diversity of voices here. (Bell conveniently ignores the fact that Astral has many radio newsrooms, and in a market like Montreal it means controlling the biggest TV newsroom and the biggest radio newsroom.) And Astral’s English-language television is limited mainly to its pay TV services like The Movie Network and Family Channel. It doesn’t own many specialty channels in English.

On the French side, because of the dominance of Quebecor and Bell’s virtually nonexistent presence (aside from RDS), combined they would represent only 24.4% of the overall TV viewing share.

Two B.C. stations

It’s a footnote in any discussion of Astral, but it does own two conventional television stations in tiny markets in northern B.C. – CJDC in Dawson Creek and CFTK in Terrace. Both are CBC affiliates with local newscasts. Bell’s application says they would remain that way “for the immediate term” but that this could change. “Following closing, we will determine if, when and how these stations will be integrated into the broader Bell Media conventional television group.”

Disaffiliating from CBC requires a separate CRTC application. But it’s hard not to see them eventually being converted into CTV network stations. Neither is anywhere close to an existing CTV station.

Tangible benefits

Aside from CKGM and other concerns about concentration of ownership, the biggest debate over this acquisition is probably going to be over what’s called the “tangible benefits” package. When ownership of a television service or radio station changes hands through a purchase, the CRTC requires that what can best be described as a sales tax be spent to improve the broadcasting and cultural system in some way. Usually (and particularly for radio stations), this means giving money to an organization that develops Canadian music talent. Or it could be some increase to Canadian programming beyond the minimum requirements of broadcasting licenses.

Tangible benefits packages are usually calculated as 6% of the purchase price for radio and 10% for television. In cases where the purchase price is effectively negative (such as when Channel Zero bought CJNT and CHCH for $12), tangible benefits packages don’t apply.

Bell’s proposal is for $200 million in tangible benefits, breaking down as $140 million for television (based on a $1.4-billion value), and $61 million for radio (based on a $1-billion value). The latter is to be adjusted based on the value of radio assets it will be forced to divest in the deal. Both, bell proposes, would be paid over 10 years instead of the usual seven, mainly because Bell is still paying off the tangible benefits packages from CTV’s acquisition of CHUM and Bell’s acquisition of CTV.

In case you’re doing the math in your head, the two purchase prices add up to about $2 billion. The rest of the acquisition price includes non-broadcast assets like outdoor advertising, as well as 50% stakes in Teletoon, Teletoon Retro, Historia and Séries+, which Bell feels should be exempt from this calculation because it would not mean an effective change in control of those channels. (Judging by correspondence on this matter, the CRTC might not accept this argument at face value.)

The biggest chunk of Bell’s proposed benefits package is $96 million that will go to “programming of national interest” (comedy, drama, documentary and certain awards shows), the majority of which will be spent on French-language programs because of Astral’s French-language skew. Then there’s the $61 million in radio benefits that will go to developing Canadian music talent and community radio funds.

It’s the other two chunks that are causing some consternation, though. About $40 million is being pledged to “support Canadian programming by making it more widely available in Canada’s North through the extension of next-generation broadband wireline and wireless service.”

That sounds fantastic, doesn’t it? The problem, aside from how odd it is that Bell associates upgrades to 4G wireless service as somehow helping the television broadcasting system, is that this is essentially a network upgrade for Northwestel, the main telco in the territories. And as if we need to point this out, Northwestel is a subsidiary of Bell.

This has not gone unnoticed for Northwestel’s competitors, who call the blatantly self-serving investment “shameful,” particularly since Northwestel has been heavily criticized for failing to modernize its system. The fact that the CRTC has just opened up local phone service to competition only makes such an investment in one company seem even more anti-competitive.

Another chunk of the package getting noticed is $3.5 million over seven years that would go to Bell Let’s Talk Day, which is an annual campaign to raise money and awareness for treating mental illness. I’ve written before about how Bell seems fine with ordering its assets (and even local news departments) to participate in and cover this campaign.

It’s hard to come out against such a charity campaign, but what does this have to do with broadcasting? The CRTC’s goal with tangible benefits is pretty clear, and though such causes are laudable, there’s no provision for essentially donating part of this package to a favourite charity.

The CRTC asked Bell to justify this expense, and here’s their response:

The proposed benefits initiative will be used to help raise money and awareness to help battle mental health issues through the development of PSAs and educational materials, among other things, and will yield measurable improvements to the communities served by BCE and by Astral by contributing to the earlier identification and better management of mental illness in those communities. That is why so many municipalities and provincial governments devote significant funding to pursuing exactly those goals. This multi-platform media initiative will leverage the merging parties’ unique expertise in broadcasting, a different sphere of endeavour than that in which municipalities and provincial governments work.

These improvements are also significant and unequivocal benefits to the Canadian broadcasting system itself. Parliament left no doubt as to the importance of this policy goal, which it required the Commission to pursue, when it declared that the Canadian broadcasting system should strengthen the social fabric of Canada; serve the needs and interests, and reflect the circumstances and aspirations, of all Canadians; provide information and enlightenment; and expose the public to differing views on matters of public concern. As a result, we respectfully submit that making space in the Canadian broadcasting system to address key social issues, which include mental health, and that raise both money and awareness in support of those issues, is the very epitome of the significant and unequivocal benefits to which the tangible benefits policy was directed.

I don’t know about that.

As the Globe and Mail’s Simon Houpt explains, all this stuff might be boring financial policy stuff, but it’s important. We’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars being injected into Canadian broadcasting. It’s the CRTC’s job to ensure Bell is spending it properly to benefit the system more than itself.

Correspondence between the CRTC and Bell that forms part of the public record on the application makes it clear that the commission is challenging Bell on all of these matters. Expect them to get discussed in depth at the September hearing.

The CRTC hearing into Bell’s proposed purchase of Astral Media is scheduled to begin Sept. 10 at the Palais des congrès. People wanting to file comments with the CRTC or appear at the hearing can file an intervention here (the application number is 2012-0516-2: Astral Media inc.). The deadline is Aug. 9. Note that comments – including names and contact information – are on the public record.

UPDATE: In a somewhat unrelated press release about winning an old lawsuit against Bell related to its ExpressVu satellite service (now Bell TV satellite), Quebecor CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau made it very clear he and his company are against the Bell-Astral merger, using language you don’t usually see from bosses of big companies:

Bell puts forth considerable efforts to obtain a virtual monopoly of French specialized channels through the acquisition of Astral Média, that would give it 8 of the 10 most popular French specialized and pay TV channels, as well as 67% of the audience and 80% of ad revenues in this market. In the Canadian market, in both languages, over 41% of monthly subscription fees paid by specialized channel viewers would go to Bell, as would 45% of these channels’ advertising revenues. Of the 51 specialized and pay channels that would be controlled by Bell as a result of this transaction, 28 are genre-protected and 30 are must-carry channels in their respective markets. The situation is equally problematic in radio, where Bell would own 117 radio stations across the country, while also exerting total control over all specialized music television channels.

“We call on the CRTC to refuse to approve this transaction on the basis that Bell’s business practices do not meet the ethical standards expected from a company that has the privilege to exploit broadcasting services through licences granted by the CRTC for the benefit of all Canadians. If such practices were to go unsanctioned, Canadians’ slowly eroding confidence in its regulatory authorities would only be further undermined. It is essential for anyone concerned with a healthy and competitive TV industry to take a look at these judgments and oppose Bell’s takeover of Astral. Only by staying vigilant and by denouncing Bell’s unacceptable practices by all possible means will we be able to prevent it from recreating the monopolistic model it relied on for so long,” concluded Mr. Péladeau.

Despite this rather inflammatory statement, Quebecor has not, as of July 25, filed a formal intervention with the CRTC about this case.

| Montreal, TV

CTV Montreal to reduce (but continue) local news during Olympics

CFCF’s anchor desk will sit empty until 6pm during the Olympics

Television changes during the Olympic Games. It’s like the usual rules get thrown right out the window. Canadian television stations relying mainly on rebroadcasting American shows in primetime? Not during the Olympics. NBC provides Olympic coverage, but CTV is doing its own thing entirely, focusing on Canadian athletes. TSN and Rogers Sportsnet in fierce competition? Not during the Olympics. They’re coordinating their coverage to give Canadians more choice, and some events (like the opening and closing ceremonies) will be carried on both simultaneously. Spending the bare minimum on Canadian content? Not during the Olympics. CTV and the other broadcasters are spending millions creating their own live, remote, high-definition programming that will dominate the airwaves throughout the Games.

It’s this domination of the schedule that has led to one change that requires approval by the broadcast regulator.

CTV asked the CRTC to temporarily relieve it from some local programming requirements during the Olympics. Currently, CTV’s stations in large markets (Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver) are each required to air 14 hours of local programming during each week. Other stations are required to air seven hours of local programming a week. CTV asked the commission to, in light of how much time it needs to devote to the Olympics on its schedule, reduce that to seven hours a week for the entire network.

The CRTC agreed to this in a ruling issued June 27. That ruling lowers the minimum of local programming to seven hours for all stations, solely during the period of the Olympics (July 27 to August 12), and says it expects CTV to make up for the shortfall later in the year. (CTV said it would do so.)

CTV also asked for relief from a license condition requiring four hours a week of described video programming. Since described video is usually applied to things like dramas, sitcoms and documentaries, which won’t air much during the Olympics, the CRTC also relieved the CTV network from this obligation, again with the expectation that CTV would compensate for the reduction with an excess during the rest of the year.

No noon newscasts during Games

CTV Montreal (CFCF) normally airs 16 hours of local programming every week, including commercials (all of which is its newscasts – noon, 6pm and 11:30pm weekdays, 6pm and 11:30pm weekends).

The Olympic broadcasting schedule released Wednesday shows Games coverage throughout the day between the opening and closing ceremonies. Because the Olympics are in London, which is five hours ahead, live coverage begins as early as 4am and ends around 5-6pm Eastern time. This is the opposite of the Vancouver games, which were three hours behind and meant a lot of live broadcasting in the evening.

With the exception of the opening and closing ceremonies, the 6-7pm Eastern hour is left clear on CTV’s network, which leaves room for local news. This is followed by a four-hour Olympic Primetime recap of the day’s events from 7 to 11pm, which can then be followed by CTV National News and late local newscasts.

Mary Anne Gyba, programming manager at CTV Montreal, confirms to me that local newscasts will air daily from 6pm to 7pm and at 11:30pm throughout the Olympics, with the exception of the opening ceremony (Friday, July 27) and the closing ceremony (Sunday, August 12), which both run through the 6pm hour.

This means it will air 11 hours of local news the first full week and 10 hours the second week, far exceeding the reduced minimum requirement. (An alternative way of meeting the quota would have been to repeat local newscasts at 6am the next day, which CTV and Global both use regularly in underperforming markets, but with Olympic coverage starting at 4am, even this option doesn’t work for them.)

V stations get similar relief

In a similar decision issued the day after the CTV one, the CRTC also offered relief to two television stations – CFGS in Gatineau and CFVS in Val d’Or/Rouyn Noranda – from local programming during the Olympics. Both stations are affiliates of the V network, which is the French-language conventional television broadcaster in the consortium, and both are owned by RNC Media.

In its brief application, RNC said it was “highly likely” that V would not offer enough free time in its schedule during the Games for local programming, even though each station must broadcast only one hour and 15 minutes a week of local programming, which averages to about 10 minutes a day.

V’s Olympic schedule is much like CTV’s, with nothing scheduled during the 6-7pm hour (except during opening and closing ceremonies), and nothing after 11pm. V normally offers entertainment programming at 6-7pm instead of local news, to set itself apart from Radio-Canada and TVA. Still, it seems a bit incredible that such stations can’t find 75 minutes a week for local news.

The CRTC’s decision relieves them completely of the requirement to air local programming during the Olympics.

UPDATE (July 16): The CRTC has issued a similar decision relieving Télévision MBS Inc., which owns the V affiliate in Rivière du Loup (CFTF-TV), of its local programming obligations during the Olympics.

UPDATE (July 24): And finally, a decision relieving the owned-and-operated stations of the V network (CFJP Montreal, CFAP Quebec, CFKM Trois-Rivières, CFKS Sherbrooke and CFRS Saguenay) from their obligations. That application prompted a letter in opposition by SCFP union executive Denis Bolduc, saying that there was plenty of time in the schedule for V to air local news, that it should have asked for this exemption during its license renewal hearing last fall, and that the CRTC should maintain some minimum of local programming during the Olympics.

| TV

CRTC looks at ending MuchMusic/MusiquePlus monopoly

Want to sit down and watch a TV channel that just airs music videos all day? Your options are actually artificially limited, but the CRTC could soon be making it a lot easier for people to start up music-based specialty channels.

In April, the CRTC opened a call for comments about allowing more competition in channels devoted to popular music, in the same way it opened up competition for two other genres it deemed mature enough – sports and news.

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| TV

Vanessa sex channel wants to be bilingual

Vanessa, the French-language pay TV channel launched by Anne-Marie Losique in 2010, is having trouble getting television distribution services to add an English-language counterpart to their systems. Cable and satellite services, it says, are reluctant to devote a second channel as more and more specialty services (particularly those in high definition) are taking up a finite space on their networks.

Its solution, as detailed in an application to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission that was published on Thursday, is to turn its existing channel into a bilingual one, with all programming in one language subtitled in the other.

Jokes about how much translation of pornography is required would naturally go here. The channel only offers porn between 11pm and 6am, with the rest of the day devoted to programming about sexuality. (Or, you know, so I’m told.)

A bilingual license isn’t unprecedented. Pelmorex has one for The Weather Network/MétéoMédia, and Corus and Astral share one for Teletoon/Télétoon, but those involve one actual channel for each language. CPAC also has two channels to serve each language. One example of a single specialty channel that offers programming in both languages is IDNR-TV, the natural resources channel, which has low distribution.

Vanessa was approved as a French-language service in 2007 and an English-language service in 2009, so the only real issue is whether the CRTC would accept it as a bilingual channel. It has scheduled the application as a Type 1 application, meaning a hearing has not been called to consider it.

It took three years for Vanessa to launch in French, and the channel had only 6,790 subscribers in 2011, according to data submitted to the CRTC. Even though it’s among the top 10 in terms of revenue per subscriber at $45 a year or $3.75 a month (Bell and Videotron charge about $15 a month for the channel), its total subscription revenue was $305,538 in 2011, or about 1% that of the Weather Network or 0.2% that of TSN. With $700,000 in total revenue but $2.1 million in total expenses in 2011, the service lost more than twice what it made, making it one of the worst performing specialty channels in Canada.

People wanting to comment on the application have until July 9 to do so. They can read the application and write to the CRTC through its website.

| TV

TVO pulled from cable, satellite outside Ontario

TVO, Ontario’s public broadcaster, has been pulled from cable and satellite systems outside its home province, including Bell satellite TV, because of a carriage dispute.

According to TVO, it was asked by the government to reduce its reliance on public funding and has decided to try to earn revenue from distribution outside Ontario. As of Sept. 1, 2011, cable and satellite providers are required to get permission from over-the-air television stations before distributing them outside their home markets. TVO has more than 200 transmitters across Ontario (though most of them will be shut down between July 31, 2012, and October 2013).

Videotron, the main cable player in Quebec, is still carrying the channel on its digital service on channel 77. Rogers cable customers outside Ontario (it also operates in Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick and parts of eastern Quebec) have also lost the service.

Bell’s media relations didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, but a customer service representative said “it was removed due to poor viewership.”

The fact that I’m hearing about this more than a week after it happened suggests they may be right.

TVO is known mainly for its children’s, educational and current affairs programming, including The Agenda with Steve Paikin

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| Montreal, TV

Citytv comes to Montreal … kinda

CityLine appears on CJNT on its first day as a Citytv affiliate (the box disappeared a few minutes later)

There wasn’t much ceremony surrounding it, but at 5am on Monday, the beginning of its broadcast day, CJNT Montreal went from being a sister station to CHCH Hamilton to being an affiliate of the Rogers-owned Citytv network.

A month ago, Rogers and Channel Zero, which owns CJNT and CHCH, announced that they had come to an agreement to sell the station for an undisclosed sum. The deal made sense because Channel Zero had done just about nothing with CJNT, instead focusing its efforts for the first two years on the higher-rated Hamilton station. And Rogers needs a Montreal presence for its Citytv network and has plenty of experience with ethnic programming thanks to its OMNI stations. It comes as little surprise that Rogers was interested in buying CJNT for years.

Since buying a television station is a long process, requiring approval from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission before it can close, the deal between Channel Zero and Rogers also included a provision making CJNT a Citytv affiliate as of June 4.

While it’s being branded as a Citytv affiliate, with sitcom reruns in the afternoons, a look at its primetime schedule shows it’s really more of an OMNI station than anything else. Half its primetime schedule is OMNI programming, mainly national daily newscasts in various languages.

The schedule

Citytv has a full weekly schedule for CJNT on its website. Here’s how it breaks down for the new CJNT on weekdays:

  • Midnight to 5am: Episodes of Seinfeld, Two and a Half Men, The Office, Judge Joe Brown, Maury Povich, Cold Case
  • 5am to 6am: CityLine
  • 6am to 7am: Rerun of Italian newscast
  • 7am to 10am: Metro Debut, extended to three hours
  • 10am to 11pm: CityLine
  • 11am to 1pm: Rebroadcasts of other OMNI newscasts
  • 1pm to 3pm: Ethnic programming
  • 3pm to 4pm: General Hospital
  • 4pm to 8pm: Judge Judy, 30 Rock, The Office, Two and a Half Men, How I Met Your Mother
  • 8pm to 9pm: Italian OMNI newscast (Ontario)
  • 9pm to 9:30pm: Cantonese OMNI newscast
  • 9:30pm to 10pm: Mandarin OMNI newscast
  • 10pm to 11pm: Murdoch Mysteries (an original Citytv series)
  • 11pm to 11:30pm: Punjabi OMNI newscast
  • 11:30pm to midnight: Portuguese OMNI newscast (Ontario)

On weekends, the schedule is mainly ethnic programming, with documentaries, movies, weekly newsmagazines and other programs.

Fall schedule announced for CJNT

As part of its announcements last week of its fall schedule, Rogers released programming grids for its stations. Here’s the one for CJNT, which still has the Italian newscast at 8pm (except Mondays when it’s at 7) and filling other parts of the prime-time schedule with OMNI documentaries.

Regulatory requirements

The schedule looks like this because of CJNT’s conditions of license that require half of primetime to be ethnic programming. Specifically:

  • Not less than 60% of programming broadcast annually between 6am and midnight must be ethnic programs (the current schedule shows only eight hours a day on weekdays devoted to ethnic programming, so CJNT devotes 100% of its hours from 6am to midnight on Saturday and Sunday to make up the difference, and it does so with less than half an hour to spare)
  • Not less than 50% of programming broadcast monthly between 6pm and midnight must be ethnic programs (the fall schedule shows 50% for 7pm to 11pm – assuming it continues with OMNI newscasts from 11pm to midnight it would meet this requirement and could still air sitcom reruns at 6pm to 7pm)
  • Not less than 75% of programming broadcast monthly between 8pm and 10pm must be ethnic programs (the fall schedule shows 79% in those hours)
  • Not less than 50% of programming between 6am and midnight must be Canadian (the current schedule has weekdays with 10 of 18 hours being Canadian programs)
  • Not less than 40% of programming between 6pm and midnight must be Canadian (with OMNI newscasts produced in Toronto, this isn’t a difficult threshold to reach)
  • Not fewer than 18 distinct ethnic groups targetted monthly
  • Not fewer than 15 languages monthly (with five language versions of the OMNI daily newscast, much of this and the previous requirement is met with weekly weekend programs)

Then there’s the matter of local ethnic programming.

In the CRTC decision awarding a license to Channel Zero, it’s not listed as a “condition of license” but rather a “commitment” – the new owner had actually proposed a slight increase in the amount of local ethnic programming to 14 hours a week.

But in the three years it owned the station, Channel Zero hasn’t produced a minute of local ethnic programming. Instead, it has been airing years-old repeats of local programs that were produced under Canwest, much to the annoyance of the people who ran those programs who would like to be able to reach their audiences again. When I spoke to Channel Zero’s programming director Jennifer Chen a few months ago, she said that there were setbacks because a deal with a local producer fell through, and that the company was in talks with another producer. But she also admitted that to a large extent Channel Zero focused more on CHCH at first than CJNT.

With the CRTC holding a hearing into the sale of CJNT to Rogers, there’s not much point in complaining about how Channel Zero has failed to keep the station on its mandate. But legitimate questions can be raised over what plans Rogers has for local ethnic programming.

Looking at the fall primetime schedule above, it seems Rogers is prepared to continue with the other conditions of license.

Other OMNI stations have similar programming requirements, and produce regional editions of their newscasts. The Cantonese, Mandarin and Punjabi editions of OMNI News that air on CJNT are national newscasts, while the Italian and Portuguese versions are regional Toronto editions. (This is why, for example, the latter two only go from Windsor to Ottawa when giving the weather.)

No application has been published by the CRTC for Rogers to acquire CJNT. It’s at that point that we’ll have an idea of its plans, whether it will ask the regulator to reduce ethnic programming requirements (unlikely, since it rejected two requests from Canwest to do that) or reduce local ethnic programming requirements in favour of non-ethnic local programming (like Metro Debut or another morning show).

OMNI News

The biggest part of CJNT’s new schedule, and perhaps the most unfamiliar to Montreal audiences, is OMNI News, the foreign-language daily newscasts that make up a large part of ethnic programming requirements for OMNI stations.

The newscasts look about as identical as their title screens make them look. Low-budget with only a single anchor (except the Italian edition which has a separate sports anchor). All are in high definition. The Italian edition is an hour long, the others are half an hour long. The Italian and Portuguese editions are actually local Toronto versions that cover the Ontario region, so they qualify as local programming. Other regions (there are also OMNI stations in Alberta and British Columbia) have other regional editions in various languages.

The newscasts tend to have similar-looking stories, usually with the same top headlines (and using the same video for them). They distinguish themselves where it matters to their communities. More talk of Italian soccer in the Italian edition. More about what’s happening in China in the Cantonese and Mandarin editions. The newscasts make use of foreign news reports in their language and even add the homeland to their weather forecasts.

It might be fun to have something like this in Montreal, a daily newscast perhaps attracting a bit more attention from local ethnic viewers than the low-budget newsmagazines of the old CJNT days. But Rogers’s plans for local programming for the station are still unknown.

Not coming back

With many new programs coming to the station, there’s also a long list of programs that have been pulled off:

  • Fifth-rate American programming (mainly CW network shows) whose Canadian rights are owned by Channel Zero: The Insider, Nightline, Hart of Dixie, The Secret Circle and Supernatural, as well as some NBA games. They have been replaced by third-rate American programming from Citytv.
  • The daily sports show Sportsline, produced for CHCH but also aired on CJNT
  • Shows featuring Ed the Sock that are produced mainly for CHCH
  • Frank D’Angelo’s vanity programming (it’s still airing, at least for now)
  • Much of Metro 14’s music video programming, with shows like The Main Line and World Beats
  • Independently-produced local ethnic programming of questionable technical quality, such as Bossbens Show and Amet.tv. Amet.tv disappeared for the first weekend, but returned to the schedule, taking over Saturday afternoons. Religious infomercial Il est écrit is also continuing to air.

Also gone are those three-year-old reruns of former CJNT local programming, like Soul Call, Foco Latino, Hellas Spectrum and Magazine Libanais.

Evan Arppe hosts Metro Debut, weekdays from 7 to 10am

Metro Debut remains

The only show that remains on the schedule is Metro Debut, the morning show hosted by Evan Arppe, who ironically looks like the whitest man on television. The show consists mainly of music videos (some of which are produced in HD, converted to standard definition then converted back into HD, meaning they take up only a tiny box on the screen), interspersed with the host giving news headlines, traffic and weather information with no help from graphics, reporters, live images or anything else. It’s about as low-budget as you can possibly get.

Another program that was on Metro 14 and will come back to it is Jimmy Kimmel Live. This is just a coincidence – Citytv has picked up the Canadian rights to the show from Channel Zero. It will start airing this fall, and CJNT fills the midnight to 1am hour with Seinfeld reruns in the meantime.

Analysis

There’s still a lot that’s unknown and will be determined through the CRTC process. It’s unsurprising that OMNI content will fill much of CJNT’s schedule, and that the schedule maximizes the amount of American programming that airs during weekdays. A look at the station’s programming page shows that it looks to get a lot of its viewers, at least during the summer, from afternoon programming. And much of that will benefit from simultaneous substitution: General Hospital at 3pm (WVNY), Judge Judy at 4pm (WPTZ), 30 Rock at 5pm (WFFF), The Office at 5:30pm (WFFF) and Two and a Half Men at 6pm (WFFF).

If Rogers is planning on local ethnic programming for CJNT, expect it to take the form of new regional OMNI newscasts (Spanish, Italian and Arabic might be good choices here) and weekly newsmagazines.

Will Videotron pull CITY or OMNI Toronto?

With the arrival of Citytv in Montreal carrying much of OMNI’s programming, there’s a question about what will happen to two Toronto stations on Videotron’s illico digital cable system: CITY-DT Toronto (Channel 78 in SD and 678 in HD) and CFMT-DT Toronto (OMNI.1, Channel 80). I’ve asked Videotron about its future plans for these channels, particularly since one uses up a bandwidth-hogging HD slot. I’ll update this when I hear back.

CJNT’s schedule differs from CITY’s enough that there’s probably a good argument to keep the latter. But with ethnic programming all over CJNT’s schedule, there might be less of one for keeping OMNI.

UPDATE: Mike Cohen talks to Rogers VP Scott Moore about his plans for CJNT.

| Media, Montreal, Radio, TV

Eulogy for Neil McKenty: “one the most complicated and interesting men who ever lived”

I received this from Daniel Freedman. He’s a former news director at CFCF-12 and produced McKenty Live, the TV call-in show starring his friend Neil McKenty, who died a week ago. He also delivered a eulogy at McKenty’s funeral on Saturday, which he wanted to share. It’s republished here with his permission.

Some people make a difference in the world.

Neil McKenty was one of those people.

Though he often led a troubled life himself, Neil ended up making the world a better place. That’s because he touched so many lives.

Mine was one of them.

I’m Daniel Freedman. Like so many others, I grew up listening to Neil on CJAD. Neil was more than special. He was unique. Nobody did a call-in show like Neil. His gift went beyond putting his fierce intellect to work in building bridges…at a time when so many others were trying to blow them up.

Neil actually listened. He could get politicians to actually think on the air…and say something unexpected and newsworthy. And he could get callers to open up about the most intimate details of their lives. And it’s all because he listened. And because he cared.

Life’s rich pageant unfolds in unexpected ways. One day in 1987, I was surprised to find myself in my boss’s office at CFCF Television, meeting Neil for the first time.

The meeting was to discuss the possibility of reviving Neil’s program for television. The boss in question was Don McGowan, who in his inimitable style saw fit to begin the meeting with the following question: “So Father McKenty … do you still consider yourself a good Catholic?” As my mouth dropped open, Neil remained unfazed. “Yes,” he instantly replied, “I do consider myself a good Catholic……in my own way.”

Mr. McGowan was reduced to silence – the first and last time I ever saw that happen.

The program went ahead and I became the producer. Mr. McGowan, in his largesse, made the grandiose gesture of sending a limousine to pick Neil up each morning. But since this is Montreal… and not Hollywood …the so-called limousine turned out to be a very big…. but very old and very noisy… Cadillac. And since I lived near Neil, this ridiculous vehicle also stopped to pick me.

On the first morning Neil said to me: “This is really a bit much.” He was embarrassed. I later learned that Neil had once turned down a suite at a hotel. The suite was to have been his reward for speaking at conference. But Neil was embarrassed at the fuss. He asked for a regular room instead.

That was Neil. He hated pretence. And he hated hypocrisy. I saw him show the same respect for a make-up artist, stagehand or waitress that he showed for a professor or prime minister.

Neil’s idea of a good time was dinner and dancing with Catharine at the Rib and Reef Restaurant….not exactly the Starlight Roof of the Waldorf Astoria.

Neil once told me: “I’ve made many mistakes in my life. But I got one thing right. I married Catharine. I’m the luckiest guy alive.”
I long ago concluded Neil was one the most complicated and interesting men who ever lived.

For much of his life, Neil wrestled with demons. But throughout it all, and behind the sometimes formidable exterior, Neil also had a great gift for friendship. Neil valued his friends from a Laurentian ski lodge…whose history he later wrote with Catharine.

Neil also had a great capacity for mentorship. I worked on Neil’s program with two exceptional colleagues: Joan Takefman and Wendy Helfenbaum. We called our team “Three Jews And A Jesuit” and kept threatening to get T-shirts printed.

You never knew what to expect from Neil. He could be funny….he could be demanding…he could be endearing…and, Lord knows, he could be exasperating – all in the same conversation.

For a time, Neil shared a tiny, glassed-in office with Dick Irvin. But he seemed to have bionic ears, perhaps acquired during his tenure as a teacher in the Jesuits. Neil had an uncanny ability to overhear what we were saying and correct our many errors of logic from afar – all in that booming voice so familiar to everyone.

But we always knew that Neil cared about us.

Neil cared about a lot of things. He cared about the truth. He cared about humanity. He cared about the church, with which he was so often at odds.

On one occasion, an author who had written a book critical of the church was a guest on the program. To my astonishment, Neil took her to task. His criticism was that somewhere along the road of criticizing the Vatican she had taken a detour to invent her own religion. Neil thought that was cheating.

So life with Neil was never dull. He ate ice cream on the air with one of the founders of Ben and Jerry’s – with great gusto, but very little elegance. Earlier in his career, when asked to comment on the Pope’s visit to Montreal Neil uttered the immortal words: “I’m having an ecclesiastical orgasm.” Who else could have gotten away with it?

On one occasion, we experienced every producer’s nightmare: multiple, simultaneous and catastrophic technical failures while live on air. Neil was left utterly alone on a single camera with no capability of talking to guests or callers. Most broadcasters would have melted down under the pressure.

But not Neil. Talking — and arguing — was never a problem for him. If he had to argue with himself … well, that just made it more fun. So Neil ad-libbed for almost 15 minutes, making such perfect sense that some viewers thought it had all been planned.

One thing stands out above all else. Above all, Neil was always interested in justice.

I’m sure Neil is already in heaven. And I suspect he’s already fighting to make it a better place, arguing that too many people are excluded and it’s too unfair.

After all, Neil always fought the good fight. Why would he stop now?

| Montreal, Radio, TV

CBC weekend newscasts off to a strong start

Thomas Daigle anchors his first newscast on Saturday, May 5

Whether it was despite some important breaking news or because of it, CBC Montreal’s first weekend newscast in eons went smoothly, leading with news that a tentative deal had been reached between the government and striking students. (Remember those days, how optimistic we were that this would all be over soon?)

Anchor Thomas Daigle and weather presenter Sabrina Marandola clearly showed the effects of rehearsals, and Daigle in particular was quite good for someone who comes into this with no anchoring experience.

Daigle credited weekday anchor Debra Arbec with helping him. “She gave me some good tips to improve my delivery and it has helped a lot. Debra has been a great coach,” he said during our interview the week before he started.

Sabrina Marandola on weather

In addition to Daigle, Marandola and the technical staff, the new weekend news means more weekend reporters. So far the plan, according to news director Mary-Jo Barr, is this:

  • On Saturdays, three television reporters and one radio reporter.
  • On Sundays, two television reporters, an additional national TV reporter filing to The National, and one radio reporter.

In addition, there’s an expectation that radio reporters will file to TV and TV reporters to radio wherever possible, and extra staff during major events where warranted.

The local online desk also gets weekend staff for the first time in a decade. No more waiting until Monday to post local news stories.

The staffing is similar to what you’ll find on the weekends at CFCF, where there’s a one-hour evening newscast and 35-minute late newscast each day.

Daigle does the late Sunday newscast from the newsroom set

It was a bit surprising to me that the station isn’t making use of its brand new set on either weekend newscast. The Saturday one was done from the newsroom studio, with the control room in the background. The Sunday one was done from exactly the same place, but with the green screen lowered behind and the same virtual set as the weeknight late newscasts.

While CFCF is doing all its newscasts from the same set, CBC is basically using three.

You can read more on CBC’s weekend newscasts and its two new personalities in this story I wrote for The Gazette.

The first weekend newscasts are online if you want to see them again: Saturday, Sunday.

CBC Montreal’s weekend newscasts air at 6pm on Saturdays and 10:55pm on Sundays, unless pre-empted or postponed because of NHL games.

More weekend radio

I should also mention that the addition to weekend news also applies to radio. Instead of pulling the plugs on local radio newscasts at noon, they continue until 4pm, and this since April 21. Katherine Canty, who assigns stories in the mornings, reads them in the afternoons, taking over from Loreen Pindera, who does 6:30am to noon.

| Montreal, TV

CBMT to expand late-night newscasts to half an hour

Nancy Wood is excited

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation had its big bash in Toronto on Thursday to announce its lineups for the fall television season. There are some big changes coming, besides the usual turnover of primetime series. The CBC has decided to drop Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune (mainly for cost reasons), opening holes in its afternoon/evening schedule. It will fill one of those holes with George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight, which moves from 11pm to 7pm, but with a repeat at 11:30pm.

Not given as much attention is that CBC is expanding evening local newscasts in some areas, including Montreal. Rather than the 10-minute rush that it has been doing since 2009, CBC Montreal will have a full 30-minute newscast starting this fall, from 11 to 11:30pm.

The time slot puts the newscast in more direct competition with Global Montreal’s News Final, which has the same schedule. (Feel free to insert jokes about whether Global’s 2,000 viewers at 11 constitutes competition.)

CBC Montreal communications manager Debbie Hynes tells me the Sunday newscast, which you’ll recall is less than a week old, will remain at 10 minutes, or at least that’s the plan.

Nancy Wood, who just started as the late-night anchor, says she heard the news on Wednesday, and is excited about having a longer newscast and one that has a real time slot instead of being awkwardly sandwiched between two others.

While CBC News Montreal Late Night gets a good lead-in from The National, allowing it to get about 15,000 viewers on average (it has 30,000 at 6pm), the 10:55pm start time means it isn’t going to attract many viewers from people who watch something other than The National at 10pm. An 11pm late newscast could mean picking up people who watch U.S. primetime dramas on CTV, Global or other channels and want some local news before going to bed.

There’s no news yet as far as what specifically a late newscast would include. At the top of that list, I think, would be a local sportscaster. The 10-minute newscast includes a bizarre “CBCSports.ca Update” segment that previews the next night’s hockey games but says nothing of the ones that finished an hour before. This is mainly because there’s no one to put together a sports roundup on deadline, but it sticks out that you have a newscast talking about sports without saying what happened in the sports world that night.

The new local newscast launches in September along with the new CBC television schedule.

News headlines and weather on screen in mornings

Also announced is that some local information will appear in mornings on CBC television. During the 6-7am hour, when CBC airs CBC News Now (duplicating content from CBC News Network), the programming will be surrounded by a local wrap with local headlines, weather and other information. Something similar is done on CJNT, and people familiar with CityNews or CP24 in Toronto will know what this looks like. CTV also inserts local content into national programming (Canada AM) through an on-screen ticker. These are “rolling out across the country now,” Hynes says.

| My articles, TV

Nancy Wood back in the saddle

Nancy Wood has a lot to be happy about these days

There’s a saying in radio that it’s not if you get fired, but when. People are pulled off the air all the time without notice, told their station is going in another direction, or has decided to make a change, or some other vague euphemism for the fact that they want a change behind the microphone. As someone who covers local media – and particularly broadcasting – I’ve seen quite a few of these. When I ask about it, both parties usually repeat the vague euphemism and offer some boilerplate about how they wish each other well in their future endeavours.

For those let go, it’s rarely good news. Even if they do end up finding a job quickly elsewhere, even if the reason for their departure isn’t their fault, it’s crushing to be pulled out of a public job like this, because you know they wouldn’t have done it if you were wildly successful.

I don’t particularly enjoy reporting on these things. It’s uncomfortable. I don’t take joy in seeing people lose their jobs. But a hiring is just as much of a change as a firing, and only the former tends to involve press releases. So I search them out (sometimes a difficult thing to do because they can’t be reached at work) and ask them for comment. Trying to manage the blow to their reputation, and protect future job prospects, they stay timid, keep a happy face and repeat management’s vague reasoning.

Nancy Wood is not one of those people.

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| TV

CBC Montreal has a new set

If you’ve been tuning in this week, you’ll have noticed that CBC Montreal has inaugurated its new set. Built in the same space in the Maison Radio-Canada’s Centre de l’Information as the previous one, it feautres a new smaller desk, a new background, flat screens and LED lighting.

Tearing down the old set and building the new one took two weeks, during which the newscast was done from the newsroom studio.

Anchor Andrew Chang takes viewers on a tour of the new set on the first newscast on Monday (it starts at the 24th minute).

Here are some shots from that first newscast to give an idea what it looks like.

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