Category Archives: Montreal

| Media, West Island

West Island newspaper editors give up on former jobs

A month after their positions were eliminated, and after surprising their bosses by saying they would not accept demotions, the editors of the West Island Chronicle and Cités Nouvelles have both confirmed that they’re not going back to their jobs. Negotiations between their union and Transcontinental Media general manager Serge Lemieux did not result in a decision favourable to them, and they’re leaving their newspapers.

For reasons that are still unclear, Lemieux apparently agreed to consider reinstating the editor position at Cités Nouvelles, but not the Chronicle. Both newspapers previously had one editor and one reporter. Even then, Marie-Claude Simard said she wouldn’t be interested in returning to her job at Cités Nouvelles.

So all that’s left for her and Albert Kramberger is to discuss their severance packages.

Of the four journalists at the two newspapers, only Olivier Laniel of Cités Nouvelles is still there. His reporting has been the only news in either paper since the beginning of January (his Cités Nouvelles articles are translated for the Chronicle). Raffy Boudjikanian, his former counterpart at the Chronicle, has already moved on and has been getting some work at the CBC.

One journalist covering the entire West Island for two newspapers.

It’s possible Transcontinental might choose to hire someone new, at least for the Chronicle. Maybe they’ll pick some eager kid straight out of university. And that kid will jump into a job with a lot of responsibility and little pay, and wonder: How did I get so lucky to land this job?

It’s amazing how much history can be erased with a simple turnover.

| Montreal, Radio

You’re listening to an Astral Media radio station

November 2007 newspaper ad

This is part of an ad that appeared in The Gazette in November 2007, reassuring listeners after Standard Radio was purchased by Astral Media that their radio stations wouldn’t suddenly change.

Since then:

“Please be assured of our commitment to continue providing the same great listening pleasure you have come to enjoy,” the ad said. “Respect for our broadcast audience and the public in general is a core value of Astral Media.”

I’ll leave it to you to judge, based on their subsequent actions, whether Astral Media stuck to their word.

| Montreal, Radio

Corus shuts down AM stations Info 690, 940 Hits

At 10 a.m. today, Corus ended programming on two AM stations in the city: CINF 690 AM (Info 690) and CINW 940 AM (940 Hits, formerly 940 News). Both are currently looping messages from station managers (with ominous intro music) explaining that the “current economic climate” has made continued operations impossible:

The shutdown cuts eight jobs at CINF, and two jobs (announcer Jim Connell and one technician) at CINW. The Corus Nouvelles newsroom, which laid off a dozen people a year ago, will continue operations, mainly feeding the talk station CHMP 98.5 FM. Three journalists, two traffic reporters and three operators will lose their jobs, while five journalists and three traffic reporters will move to CHMP.

Both stations began in December 1999, when they were owned by Metromedia. CINF began as CKVL in 1946, and spent half a century at 850 AM, before changing callsign and frequency and taking an all-news format. More details at the Canadian Communications Foundation.

CINW began as XWA in 1919, eventually becoming CFCF (the television station’s call letters were taken from the radio station’s, which stood for “Canada’s First, Canada’s Finest”) and then CIQC in 1991. It spent just shy of 80 years on the same frequency. Its experiment in all-news was tweaked in 2005 with the adoption of news-talk format similar to CJAD and the hiring of hosts who were branded as opinionative like Aphrodite Salas and former CBMT anchor Dennis Trudeau. It failed completely in 2008 with the firing of almost all its staff and the switch to all-hits programming. Since then the station has been dead-last or close to it in the ratings. More details at the Canadian Communications Foundation.

Both stations ceased transmitting at 7:02 p.m. No fanfare, no countdown, not even a national anthem. They just stopped.

Coverage at CTV Montreal, LCN, Radio-Canada, The Gazette, CBC, or Corus Nouvelles itself (which copies a Presse Canadienne story). Blog posts from Maxime Landry and Sophie Cousineau.

Corus employees won’t be making any public statements about the shutdown, instead referring people to a PR agency. Still, one disgruntled employee emailed me, complaining that a very small number of companies own far too many broadcast outlets, and the CRTC needs to step in.

UPDATE (Feb. 1): Jim Connell, the on-air personality laid off as a result of 940’s closing, was on CFCF News at Noon today, lamenting the death spiral of AM radio.

So what now?

The release says Corus will surrender its licenses for the two frequencies to the CRTC. This means two clear channels (those that don’t have to reduce power to avoid interference at night, meaning their signals carry much farther) are up for grabs. (Both frequencies were used by many years by CBC Radio – 690 in French and 940 in English – before both moved to FM and the all-news stations took up the channels). According to Wikipedia’s list, the only other clear channel in Montreal is CKAC. A decade ago this would have been a huge opportunity. Half a century ago station managers would kill for even a chance at getting one of these.

But in the current media environment, the question is more whether anyone would bother.

Various theories are being brought up on the local radio discussion group, including:

  • CJAD should move to 940 from 800 to take advantage of the clear channel. This was brought up last time the channel was available, but CJAD dismissed the idea, preferring its spot on the dial, which it considered easier to find.
  • CBME-FM (CBC Radio One) should simulcast on 940 AM to reach more listeners. CBC dealt with the coverage issue by setting up a network of FM repeaters, including 104.7 FM in NDG. It’s unclear if there are enough people having trouble receiving the station to warrant the expense of running an AM transmitter.
  • Rogers, which owns a chain of all-news AM radio stations including CFTR 680News in Toronto, could setup a station here.

Other stations, especially those in the extended AM broadcast band like CJLO 1690, would definitely benefit from moving to the lower frequency and increasing their power. Or some new player (Rogers, perhaps?) could come in and setup a new AM radio station.

But the future of AM radio in particular doesn’t prompt much optimism. New portable media players, if they have radio receivers at all, only do FM. AM radio has a smaller bandwidth, meaning the sound is less clear, and it’s more susceptible to interference. Even the CBC realized that when it moved all its Montreal stations to FM.

As for the all-news format, I think there’s definitely room for something coming up on the French side, with CKAC concentrating on sports, CHMP doing talk (and simulcasting a lot of CKAC, including Habs games) and leaving Radio-Canada alone on news. But on the English side, CJAD and CBC will be tough competition for any new entrant. One will take away any serious news listeners, and the other will take away the rabid angryphones who want to call in constantly to complain that there’s too many potholes.

We’ll see what kind of interest there is when the CRTC puts the two channels on the block.

Until then, the shutdown gives a rare opportunity to listen to far-away stations without interference from local frequencies. I got lots of stuff late at night from both newly created holes, stations overlapping each other to the point where I couldn’t really understand any of them. The best I could hear was WEAV 960AM in Plattsburgh, which was carrying Sean Hannity when I tuned in.

UPDATE (June 10): The CRTC has revoked the licenses of CINW and CINF.

| Montreal, Pop quiz

Montreal Geography Trivia No. 67

This map notes some of the locations of something that used to be all over the city but no longer exists.

What is it?

UPDATE: A bunch of you guessed correctly: These are Steinberg’s store locations on the island.

For those new to the city or too young to remember, Steinberg’s (later without the apostrophe-S) was Quebec’s first and largest supermarket throughout most of the 20th century. Based in Montreal, it expanded throughout the city and then throughout the province and into eastern Ontario as well. But financial pressures led to its decline in the 1980s and by 1992 they had all disappeared.

Their memory is kept alive on Flickr’s Ghosts of Steinberg account, which collects photos of former Steinberg locations. It’s explained by Chris DeWolf on Spacing Montreal in 2008.

You can check out my map (locations taken from Ghosts of Steinberg and a few other locations) on Google Maps here.

| In the news, Media, Montreal

Journal de Montréal: One year later

I was going to have a whole deal about the first anniversary of the Journal de Montréal lockout, but it seems everyone else had the same idea, and most of them are more interesting and better produced than whatever I could come up with.

Rue Frontenac, of course, goes all out. Besides Bertrand Raymond’s retirement, there’s a really well-produced video from Alain Décarie and Olivier Jean about the first year of Rue Frontenac. Gabrielle Duchaine has a timeline of events, and Duchaine and Valérie Dufour keep it fresh with news stories about pressure from the Fédération professionelle des journalistes du Québec and politicians for the government to step in and put an end to this conflict.

La Presse’s Louise Leduc also has a dossier on the topic, with articles about the negotiations, concerns about the quality of journalism being produced by the Journal, and about the emotional impact of the lockout on staff.

In other media, a bit of acknowledgement: an article at Radio-Canada.ca about the FPJQ’s demands, a story in The Gazette, a 15-minute discussion with two locked-out journalists at Corus radio, and Quebecor-owned TVA throws up a Presse Canadienne piece. Philippe Gohier of Macleans’s Deux Maudits Anglais translates Pierre-Karl Péladeau’s recent rant about the threat of unions (which has caused a lot of reaction) and points out how disingenuous it is.

A bus driver reads the Journal de Montréal at a red light a year after the paper's journalists were locked out

But the most interesting piece to me is this one by Patrick Bellerose (the only person I’ve seen to bring anything original to Quebec89.com) that asks the simple question: Why are people still reading the Journal de Montréal?

It seems so simple, but this is the first I’ve seen any journalist covering this conflict actually talking to people on the street about it. And their answers are mostly the same: They read it because it’s there. They know about the lockout, but they don’t really care.

If Rue Frontenac is really going to succeed as a pressure tactic, that’s the sentiment that they’re going to have to change.

UPDATE: Projet J has an audio interview with Raynald Leblanc.

| Media, Montreal, Sports

Bertrand Raymond retires from Journal de Montréal

Bertrand Raymond

It wasn’t a very well-kept secret, but on the one-year anniversary of the Journal de Montréal lockout, sports columnist Bertrand Raymond has filed his final column.

As Raymond explains it, he knew he would never be going back to the Journal shortly after the lockout, when a bailiff came to his home to collect his laptop and cellphone (which were Journal property).

Ce jour-là, j’ai su que je ne travaillerais jamais plus au Journal de Montréal. Je ne voulais plus jamais y mettre les pieds. Je ne me trouvais plus aucune affinité avec des gens qui me traitaient comme un criminel. C’était quoi, l’urgence d’un tel geste ? Que voulaient-ils que je fasse de ces appareils ? Que je m’en serve pour faire sauter l’édifice ? Nous ne sommes pas des terroristes, nous sommes des journalistes. Les médias ne font pas la guerre. Ils la couvrent. Ils la commentent. Ils la vivent pour mieux raconter aux gens ce qui se passe.

Peut-être voulaient-ils nous faire sentir bien petits face à l’Empire ? Peut-être cherchaient-ils à nous humilier davantage ? Qui sait ?

Nous soulignons aujourd’hui, chacun à notre façon, un bien triste anniversaire. Un an sans travail, ça ronge l’enthousiasme; ça gruge le moral. C’est une année inutilement perdue dans une vie qui défile déjà trop vite.

Je veux être certain de vivre assez vieux pour ne pas oublier cet anniversaire. C’est pourquoi je choisis cette date pour partir. En annonçant ma retraite d’un métier qui a été toute ma vie, je veux m’assurer de ne pas avoir à vivre une deuxième année de lock-out.

Raymond has worked at the Journal for 40 years, and has been a columnist for the past 24. He was fiercely loyal to his newspaper before the lockout, but then fiercely loyal to his union afterward, even going so far as to blast Yvon Pedneault for writing for the Journal de Québec during its lockout in 2008-09.

After a vacation, Raymond will remain a part of RDS’s Antichambre and la Ligue en question, and hinted about doing more for the all-sports network.

His departure is being noted by his colleagues, both at Rue Frontenac and in other media: La Presse’s Réjean Tremblay, The Gazette’s Mike Boone and RDS’s Luc Gélinas devote columns to Raymond’s retirement. (UPDATE: Corus Sports also has a quick question-and-answer with Raymond about his best and worst moments, and Patrick Lagacé has a few words on his blog)

But I feel most sorry for Four Habs Fans, who will have to find someone else to make fun of. (UPDATE: FHF bids Bertrand goodbye in its own way)

For the record, this stands as the final column he wrote for the Journal, a column about Mark Streit published one year ago today.

UPDATE (Jan. 28): Rue Frontenac has an article and a photo gallery from Bertrand’s retirement party.

| Media, Montreal

Journal union celebrates a year off the job with a party

The one-year anniversary is only days away (today is Day 363)

The Syndicat des travailleurs de l’information du Journal de Montréal held a press conference yesterday to advance the upcoming one-year anniversary of their lockout. I was working so I couldn’t make it, but there’s plenty of coverage in The Gazette, Presse Canadienne, Radio-Canada, Le Devoir, Metro (which has video of the press conference), and – to be fair – Quebecor-owned Argent does an acceptable job of getting both sides.

The STIJM also announced that they’re holding a party on Sunday – the one-year anniversary – at La Tulipe. Performers include Richard Desjardins, Tricot Machine, Louise Forestier et El Motor, Loco Locass and Jean-Sébastien Lavoie. Tickets are $20 and available only at the box office (assuming they’re not already sold out).

| Montreal, Radio

PJ Stock joins CHOM morning show

PJ Stock

James Mennie has the story for The Gazette that P.J. Stock, formerly of the Team 990 and best known as a Hockey Night in Canada analyst, is going to be a morning man at CHOM.

Kind of.

The first news about Stock going to CHOM came from Pat Hickey back in December, when Stock left The Team 990 because of what was apparently more work and travel than he could handle (he left his regular TV segment on the CBMT newscast for the same reason). Back then, the idea was to do a five-minute phone-in once a day.

But the departure of Ted Bird changed that. So instead, Stock tells Mennie, he’ll be on for two hours a day (7am to 9am) Monday to Thursday.

The irony is that Bird was instrumental in getting Stock onto CHOM in the first place, convincing both sides that it was a good idea. Obviously, it wasn’t supposed to be as a replacement.

Still, Bird was gracious in an email to me about Stock joining his former morning team:

To his credit, PJ called me this past weekend to make sure that I was through at CHOM and that he wasn’t undermining me in any way.  He’s a class act and a decent and funny guy, and he’ll do well as long as they let him be himself and don’t try to recreate him as something he’s not, which is what programmers who’ve never sat in the chair and don’t understand or appreciate the craft have a habit of doing.

The big question is what CHOM is going to do with Stock. Is he going to talk about hockey or music? I’ve heard a couple of people complain that CHOM already talks too much about the game, and this certainly won’t change that. Will he join in the usual cliché morning show banter? Will it be “Chantal, Bad Pete and PJ”? Or will he be more of a supporting cast member and less of a star?

What is clear is that if Stock has two hours four mornings a week to sit in a studio on Fort St. while rock music is playing, then he would have had more than enough time for hockey analysis at CKGM 990 on Greene Ave. So it’s not just a question of having too much work.

I couldn’t reach Stock for comment, so you’ll just have to fill in the blanks there with your imagination.

Mennie says Stock’s first shift will be Feb. 1. Stock repeated that on the CHOM morning show the next day, but Pete Marier kept saying Feb. 2. Feb. 1, notably, is the day after Stock’s contract at CKGM expires. UPDATE: Astral’s press release, which I assume to be a definitive word on the subject, says Stock begins Feb. 3.

UPDATE: Listen to Stock’s phone-in on Thursday’s CHOM morning show (MP3). Stock will take over the CHOM “sports department”, which sounds like it will still be Chantal and Bad Pete but that Stock will do the morning sports news currently being done by CJAD’s Abe Hefter.

| Business, In the news, Media, Montreal

I, for one, welcome our new consortium overlords

Over the past few months, rumours had been circulating around the newsroom that some local rich guys were interested in buying a part of the Canwest newspaper chain, including The Gazette.

Today, those rumours prove true. A consortium led by Jerry Grafstein, Raymond Heard and Beryl Wajsman announced it will be submitting a bid to buy The Gazette, the Ottawa Citizen and the National Post, pending due dilligence.

The coverage – Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, CBC, Reuters, Editor & Publisher, Financial Post – all say the same thing, quoting liberally from the news release and saying the three consortium leaders believe in local control of local newspapers.

No price has been mentioned, nor are the other financial backers named.

All three have media cred: Grafstein, a recently retired senator, founded Citytv in Toronto. Heard was managing editor of the Montreal Star and then worked as news director at Global TV in the 80s. Wajsman is the editor of The Suburban and publisher of The Métropolitain. The Globe’s Jane Taber has analysis of their political leanings, in case anyone really cares.

Unions (and unionized employees) look favourably at the central idea of this bid (Lise Lareau of the Canadian Media Guild calls it good news) because it seems to reject a lot of Canwest’s anti-union moves, like centralization and outsourcing, and it’s making all the right noises about local control of local newspapers.

There’s also the unsaid implication that these three care more about respect than profit. (Like sports teams, media outlets tend to be more about ego than the bottom line.)

Looking at Wajsman’s newspapers, there’s at least some reason for optimism. The Suburban is big for a community paper, and while it’s not pure as the white snow, it’s not filled with press releases and it does actually employ journalists. The Métropolitain, meanwhile, is more of a think-tank than anything else, and is clearly not motivated by profit.

But looking at those newspapers also leaves some worried. Wajsman’s editorials are a bit much for even some staunch federalists, and the papers have some clear editorial biases when it comes to things like the Israeli-Palestinian issue (something the Suburban doesn’t have to deal with much but which The Gazette would have to deal with on a daily basis).

Many will also focus on Wajsman’s political past. One person reminded me of his alleged connection to the adscam scandal, others have already created a Facebook group to protest his bid because of his pro-Israel, pro-business, anti-union stances.

Though I disagree with most of what he writes in Suburban editorials (and most of the opinions written in The Métropolitain), I’m tempted to ask how a right-wing, pro-Israel owner will somehow be different than Canwest. And if “progressive anglos” don’t want their paper to fall in his hands, they’re more than welcome to submit a bid of their own.

There are other obstacles to Grafstein and Co.’s plan, even if they have the money. The biggest is that Canwest (and the banks arranging for the chain’s sale) want Canwest Publications sold as a unit. That centralized services include websites, customer service, advertising, page layout and Canwest News Service. Undoing that might be difficult and expensive (but it might also mean hiring more journalists, programmers and copy editors, which would clearly work in my favour).

And there might be other bids. The Globe is convinced Paul Godfrey is putting one together with his own financial backers. Other names being bandied about include Torstar, Quebecor, Transcontinenal, FP Newspapers and that guy Joe at the end of the bar.

| Montreal, Radio

Mark Bergman hiring own replacement at CJFM

A year ago, Mark Bergman launched Virgin Radio 96 on air. Now he da boss.

Mark Bergman, who hosts the afternoon drive-time show on CJFM (Mix 96 Virgin Radio 96) but was recently promoted to interim program director at the station, is hanging up the mic and hiring his own replacement.

But he won’t disappear forever, he tells me:

Radio is a passion of mine (I’d have to be crazy to be in this biz, if it wasn’t).

I started off handing out bumper stickers, then tech work, then overnight shows, evenings, drive, and now the next step for me is programming the entire station. It’s ways been a goal to program… But yes, I will still be around on-air here and there.

Bergman, who I’m told spends his days alone in his office crying, with occasional screams of “Chantal! Why did you leave me?“, is accepting applications for a permanent weekday 4-7pm host until Jan. 31. Requirements are three years of on-air experience, the kind of energy and perkiness that you’d expect from a music radio announcer, and “fashion sense of Lady Gaga”, which I find an odd requirement because every time I see someone from that station they’re wearing a standard-issue Virgin Radio T-shirt.

Continue reading →

| Blogosphere, Media, Montreal

Bird’s blogging

Ted Bird (if I have to explain who he is you clearly haven’t been reading this blog) has begun blogging in addition to his Twitter activity.

The blog is essentially an extension of his popular “Bird Droppings” radio thing, and features comments on stuff, particularly sports.

The baby Hitler front and centre on the blog’s homepage should give you an idea of how little self-censorship is involved here.

I must say, though, it’s just not the same without the voice…

Gazette West Island columnist Huntley Addie also talks about Bird this week.

| In the news, Media, Montreal

It’s all about the Bordens: Cough ’em up for Haiti

So Haiti’s in trouble. Like, a crapload of trouble. And the world is coming together to do whatever they can. Food and supplies aren’t particularly useful because of the high cost of transporting and distributing them. Instead, the thing charities and relief organizations need is money.

In a perfect world, a massive international relief organization would simply respond, making use of a hefty budget to set up some emergency shelters while everyone’s homes are rebuilt using insurance money. Of course, that’s not the case (partially because international aid tends not to win many elections), so regular people are being asked to open their wallets and help out.

While the most obvious thing to do would be to give to the Red Cross, various groups are organizing fundraisers or other schemes to try to squeeze even more money out of us.

After a few minutes of searching, here’s what I’ve found is happening in Montreal over the next week and a half:

Feel free to suggest others in the comments below. Agenda Public has a list of similar events across Quebec.

Text it and forget it

For those of you who are too fucking lazy to punch your credit card number securely into a website and prefer to have your cellphone company bill you based on a fee for a text message you’ve sent to some unverified five-digit number you heard about through your friend’s Twitter, there are plenty of options for that, though few work in Canada (that “90999” thing you heard about on the Colbert report doesn’t work here – something CTV didn’t relay to its viewers when it rebroadcasted the show on two of its networks). The cellphone companies accept $5 to 45678, and Plan Canada at 30333 (in both cases text “HAITI”). But maybe I just made that up, or copied the number down wrong.

Really, just give it to the Red Cross. Don’t trust your friends, don’t trust people on the street, don’t trust celebrities, don’t trust businesses and don’t trust anyone saying your money goes toward Haiti relief.

Journalists: Donate your overtime

The earthquake in Haiti, ironically, had a positive impact on my bottom line. The paper was expanded in size to fit all the extra news coverage, and I was called in for an unscheduled shift on Thursday night. Rather than profit off the misery, I’m donating my salary for that shift to the Red Cross.

I know there are plenty of journalists and other media types who read this blog, and plenty of them are working more than they usually do because of this craziness. I’d encourage you to do the same – you’re not losing money, you’re working harder doing what you love, and it’s for a good cause.

| Media, Montreal, Web design

Journal de Montréal launches website, nobody notices

I came across it in a search – an article the Journal de Montréal wrote that was entirely based off an article from La Presse. I was surprised to find a new website for the Journal, one that looks just about identical to the one for the Journal de Québec and similar to the one for 24H, not to mention the Toronto Sun and the rest of Sun Media.

The fact that the Journal is producing little journalism of note (what with their journalists being locked out and all) is probably a big reason. The fact that the website is so forgettable is another (I’m not even going to bother with a review), as is public support for Rue Frontenac, the website setup by those locked-out workers.

Nevertheless, this is significant. The Journal had been prevented from launching a proper website because of clauses in its labour contract that gave the union some say in it. Employees started Rue Frontenac in part to show that they’re not opposed to having an online presence and a website – they just want one unique to the Journal and not some cookie-cutter site that gets lost in the giant Canoe web.

So much for that.

The Journal also setup a Twitter account (@LeJournaldeMtl), which apparently quickly followed and then unfollowed a bunch of people, resulting in it getting suspended for spammy-like activity.