Radio station 107.5 Le Poisson in Ste-Anne-de-la-Pérade is ending its Saturday evening show made up entirely of fart sounds after its program director admitted that it wasn’t the kind of success he was hoping for.

“My son’s proposal sounded so innovative,” said Paul Natrillé, who has been at the helm of the station’s programming for seven years. “When we launched it last fall, he was really excited about the possibilities. But since then his interest has waned a bit, and we don’t think it’s the best fit for the station anymore.”

Natrillé’s son Thomas said he had fond memories of the show, but it was time to move on anyway. He has several interviews with morning shows in Quebec City.

107.5 will fill the discontinued hour’s time slot with its usual music programming of classical and easy listening music.

Saying she’s hyperventilating at even the thought of it, CRTC junior legal affairs staffer Janet Phehknaim just can’t bring herself to comprehend why her colleagues aren’t jumping over themselves about how exciting the notice of consultation to be issued next Tuesday is going to be.

The notice, related to an application received for a new low-power radio station in Dryden, Ontario, and a corporate reorganization at Vista Radio, will be posted to the commission’s website at 11am on Tuesday. Phehknaim said she assumed the announcement would be pushed back to 4pm to avoid any market impact, and that media advisories would be issued on Monday to invite journalists to a press conference.

“The CRTC is an exciting place to work and there are announcements almost every day that affect people’s lives, so you can imagine what this will mean to the people at Dryden and the accountants at Vista,” Phehknaim said.

“Personally, I’m planning a viewing party at work for when the application goes live. It’ll be a potluck, but my colleagues are being slow in getting back to me with what they’re going to bring.”

Saying he felt humiliated and distraught, Quebec talk show guest Fanny Nonspavré has filed a lawsuit in Quebec superior court against the producers of Tout le monde en parle saying she is owed the infinite thanks she was promised by host Guy A. Lepage at the end of her recent interview, and not the very finite thanks she says she was actually given.

“This is a show that is watched by a million people every week, and the host has a reputation as an honourable man, so when he says ‘merci infiniment d’être parmi nous ce soir’ I take him at his word that his thanks will be infinite,” the statement of claim says. “To later discover, when the cameras were turned off, that Lepage’s thanks were severely limited seems to be a blatant contract breach to me.”

Nonspavré said she didn’t expect Lepage to follow her until the end of days repeating the word “merci” over and over again until one of them dies, but the least he could do if he was serious about offering unlimited thanks is to do her a favour once in a while on demand.

“I don’t want to be greedy about this,” she said. “I’m not doing this for me, but for the next person who will be told one thing on the air and another when the cameras aren’t looking. Mr. Lepage needs to stay true to his word when he says something, and if he doesn’t want to be locked into limitless commitments, he should choose his words more carefully.”

Quebec finance minister Carlos Leitão says he is ready to begin receiving feedback from the province’s political and economic journalists who have by now had plenty of time to read the draft of the first chapter of his new novel, which he included at the back of the 800-page budget plan.

Titled “Prosperity of the heart,” Leitão’s novel, about an economist by day who spends his nights fighting crime and making the world a better place while finding love in an unexpected way, is not quite ready for mass publication, the finance minister said, and he’s still looking for a publisher for it, but he thinks the story is very original and he has an outline for a dozen chapters, each one better than the last.

“There definitely will be an accumulated surplus of warm feelings after finishing this novel,” Leitão joked on Saturday. “And though I plan to keep my day job for now, I can’t discount the possibility that I’ll turn full-time to fiction writing if this takes off as well as I hope it does.”

Saying it will keep looking for ways to innovate in the production and presentation of local news, Global announced in a message to its staff this week that it will further streamline its operations by only covering local breaking news events that are scheduled at least 24 hours in advance.

“Our efficiency experts found that in newsrooms across the country we have reporters and videojournalists who are just sitting in the office waiting for things to happen, and that’s incredibly inefficient,” explained Global News vice-president May Didupp. “So starting April 1, we’ll only cover fires, car crashes, natural disasters and surprise announcements where the newsroom has been informed at least 24 hours in advance of the event to take place.”

Didupp said she expected that competitors’ newsrooms would follow in that policy, and that once everyone else is on board breaking news will have no choice but to play ball. She reminded police departments that information can be provided under embargo.

Route vers la victoire, the RDS documentary showing how the Canadiens would have won their 25th Stanley Cup this season if they’d only moved Alex Galchenyuk from the wing to centre last year like you told them to, is set to air just before the first game of the NHL playoffs later this month.

The hour-long documentary, which includes player interviews and simulated game footage showing the projected run to the sacred chalice, presents “as accurate a projection as our best experts could create of the path taken if only Michel Therrien and Claude Julien had listened to common sense and moved Chucky to centre where he belongs,” RDS said in a statement.

RDS expects the documentary to have higher ratings in Quebec than the Maple Leafs or Jets or whichever other English Canada team makes it to the playoffs.

A man who yelled an obscenity behind a TV reporter while she was filming a standup shot for a report on gun violence in schools says he is profoundly disappointed after seeing the finished report on the 6pm newscast and finding he was cut during the editing process.

“I waited five minutes to get the perfect timing for it,” said Todd Aldushbaig. “And her delivery during that shot was perfect. I feel like she chose another more mediocre version just so she could cut me out of the story.”

The reporter apologized for having to cut the man out of the story. “Unfortunately, as journalists we must often make tough decisions on what to keep in our reports to meet the time constraints of a television newscast,” she said. “But I will keep Mr. Aldushbaig in mind for the next time I need a source about women’s reproductive health.”

Two months after whistleblowers came forward to complain about the environment in its customer sales department, Rogers is again denying it is pushing its agents into getting clients to sign up for services they don’t want, and also you should sign up for Rogers NHL Live before the playoffs start because for only $75 you can watch all of the NHL playoffs wherever you want, and they can totally put that order in for you right now if you’d like.

“We take our customer trust seriously and would never compromise that by selling our valued customers something they didn’t want,” Rogers VP of customer care Doan Gevakrapp. “And did you know that with a Share Everything plan with Rogers you get NHL Live for free? That’s a $75 savings! How about I make that change for you right now, you can cancel at any time, ok?”

Rogers says it has spoken with some rogue customer care agents who claim they were encouraged to sign people up for things they knew they’d never use, but you’re definitely going to use Rogers NHL Live to watch your favourite team in the upcoming playoffs, and it includes the rest of the regular season as well, so how about we just go ahead and add that to your account.

“You put your trust in Rogers, and we want to be worthy of that trust,” Gevakrapp said. “And did you know you can get a free no obligation subscription to Maclean’s and Chatelaine for three months? What do you have to lose? Let’s get that signed up as well, I’ll just need your credit card please.”

Struggling print journalists won another concession from the federal government this week when it agreed to change Canada’s criminal code making it illegal to hold press conferences without offering free coffee and donuts.

“Journalism is a serious business and our time is valuable,” explained Guelph Sun editor A.P. Reelfuel. “We can’t have our journalists going to press conferences, especially early in the morning, and showing up to find there are no donuts, croissants or even crackers on a table for them to chew on.”

Reelfuel said he expects the move to be the first in a series of measures to regulate how journalists are treated during press conferences, eventually expanding into a full journalist’s bill of rights. Other rights that would be enshrined through changes to the criminal code or less severe regulatory changes would include free parking, a minimum amount of high-resolution (HD or better) B-roll, and always having little placards in front of people showing the proper spelling of their name and title.

“We expect to see most of these new rules in place within the next year,” Reelfuel said. “In the meantime we’re counting on voluntary early compliance among all the companies and institutions we do business with.”

Ronald Nuttriel of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., says he regrets having to take the extreme step of reporting Canadian TV actor Erica Bryk’s Twitter account, but that he had no choice after noticing that she failed to like a complimentary tweet he sent her three days ago, even though she was clearly active on the social media platform since then and liked several other tweets from fans.

“I thought I was doing something nice,” Nuttriel said about sending a tweet on Thursday congratulating Bryk on her new Canadian cop drama and noting she “looked great today” in a TV interview. “But no retweets or likes, nothing. Meanwhile she likes seventeen tweets sent after mine, including four that are just links to news stories and one that’s just a thumbs up. What kind of message does that send?”

Nuttriel said the non-liking is affecting how he is viewing the award-winning actor as a person, and added that she may be overrated anyway. He said he is thinking of calling her a bitch.

Bryk did not respond to a tweet seeking comment. Which is so typical of her.