Tag Archives: Dominic Arpin

| Radio

NRJ shuffles its lineup, brings in Dominic Arpin as morning man

The changes at NRJ this fall are going beyond the departure of Les Grandes Gueules.

Bell Media announced today the morning and noon show lineups are also changing as of Aug. 24. Here’s how it breaks down:

Mornings, 5:30-9am: The morning team of five (or six depending who you count) gets pared down to three. Dominic Arpin, the host of TVA’s Vlog and one of Quebec’s most followed people on Twitter, moves over from competitor 98.5, where he was a contributor. Arpin makes the announcement this morning on his blog. He’s joined by Anaïs Favron, who remains on the morning show, and Maxim Martin. Journalist Étienne Phénix and sports reporter Martin Lemay also remain with the morning show, although they don’t get a mention in the press release. François Morency and Philippe Bond move to other shows.

Lunch, 11:30am-1pm: Claudine Prévost gets replaced by Morency, who says the noon time will fit in better with his schedule with standup shows at night. He’s joined by Marie-Claude Savard, whose previous jobs have included TVA and Radio X.

Afternoon drive, 4-6pm: As previously leaked, Éric Salvail will take over the afternoon show, thanks to a special Véronique-Cloutier-like arrangement that sees a studio built in his office so he doesn’t have to commute back and forth to Papineau Ave. every day. Philippe Bond will be a contributor to his show, moving from mornings. The afternoon drive slot will face strong competition from TV stars including Cloutier at Rythme FM and Marina Orsini at Rouge. Salvail replaces Les Grandes Gueules, which just signed off after 20 years at the station.

Bell Media is no doubt hoping that the dramatic lineup change does something to boost the station’s ratings. The latest report showed it falling below direct competitor CKOI, and its 6.6% overall share among francophones wasn’t much higher than the anglo stations, Virgin and The Beat.

 

| TV

TVA renews Vlog for third season

Dominic Arpin

If Dominic Arpin looks happy here, it’s because I’ve taken a file photo and used it out of context as filler art to tell you that TVA has renewed his weekly web video clips show Vlog for a third season, days after it aired its second season finale. Arpin says he’s got a deal for 10 episodes so far, not including the four special-topic episodes that will air over the next few weeks.

Vlog premiered in 2007 as a half-hour show with Arpin and Geneviève Borne that screened 30-second clips from popular videos online. It took me a while to warm up to it, especially because it seemed to leech off other people’s creative content without offering much in return (the show still isn’t downloadable or streamable after it airs). Its erratic schedule following Occupation Double (and against RadCan’s powerhouse Tout le monde en parle) didn’t help its ratings, which eventually led to its cancellation.

But Arpin refused to give in. He launched his own website and began work on an online video guide, and eight months after it was cancelled, TVA brought Vlog back to life in a retooled form. Gone were his co-host and the all-white sets and giant flat-screen TVs. Instead, he’d introduce the videos webcam-style from his fake apartment. The show was also moved to Thursday nights (and eventually Friday nights) at a fixed time.

Apparently that was enough. Vlog is here to stay, and Arpin doesn’t have to worry about going back to reporting.

| Blogosphere, Navel-gazing, Photos

My photo on a T-shirt

Dominic Arpin on a T-shirt (Bombe.tv)

Dominic Arpin on a T-shirt (Bombe.tv)

I was just reading a post on Dominic Arpin’s blog about how he noticed a picture of himself in a video on Bombe.tv (click on “Les infos”). It’s silly, but we bloggers are a vain group sometimes, we love talking about how other people are talking about us.

It’s cute, a picture of Arpin being made into a T-shirt. But something seemed familiar about the picture. It looked similar to one I’d taken of him at a YULblog meet last year.

The original photo from my blog

The original photo from my blog

In fact, it’s the same photo, apparently taken through a Google Image search. Needless to say, they’ll be hearing from my lawyers soon.

Oh wait, I don’t have any lawyers.

Well that’s ok. My outrage is tongue-in-cheek anyway. People can do what they want with my stuff for personal use (you know, build a shrine to me or something). So long as they’re not selling them I’m OK with it. But would some credit have hurt? At the very least they could have asked me for a high-resolution version instead of taking the 450-pixel wide one on my blog.

I could have even given them the non-cropped version:

The Dominic Arpin original

The Dominic Arpin original

Of course, it’s really Arpin that makes the photo with his adorable little smile there.

Maybe I should make some T-shirts out of it. I could make a career out of printing T-shirts of Quebec blogger celebrities.

| TV, Video

I love you too, smoke-free TV people

CFCF's Rob Lurie, at his most smokalicious

CFCF's Rob Lurie, at his most smokalicious

A smorgasbord of government organizations and nonprofits is sponsoring Quebec’s anti-smoking week next week, and part of the campaign features videos with TV personalities giving heart-felt thank-yous to loved ones who helped them quit smoking, while sitting on the floor of the same living room. Each video ends with “je t’aime” (or “I love you”) in a serious, look-you-in-the-eyes way that seems to walk the line between tear-inducing and creepy (though maybe I’m overly sensitive in this regard).

Included in that list is token anglo CFCF’s Rob Lurie (above), TVA’s Dominic Arpin (who writes a blog post about the experience shooting this piece), RDS’s Pierre Houde and Jacques Demers, and a bunch of other people equally split between the media partners (they even got the two guys left at TQS).

Kidding aside, they’re pretty gut-wrenching videos, designed to make people uncomfortable and get them to talk to their parents, kids, siblings, spouses and other loved ones about quitting smoking.

| Blogosphere, Media, On the Net, Technology

Arpin launches WebTVHebdo

Dominic Arpin, the former TVA journalist, popular blogger and now host (again) of his own TV show about videos on the web, has finally launched a project called WebTVHebdo, which is a guide to web-based television shows. It’s a project he started a while ago with lackey Patrick Dion.

It covers international sensations like Ask a Ninja, but focuses on Quebec-based series like Le Cas Roberge and Les Recycleurs.

In a world where these things are popping up all over the place, a need quickly emerges to provide a reference, and Arpin and Dion have jumped on that void decisively.

| TV

En primeur: TVA to resurrect Vlog

Those of you who follow Dominic Arpin via Facebook already know this, but for the benefit of the less-connected: TVA is bringing back Vlog, its weekly roundup of hot web videos, more than nine months after it aired its last episode, supposedly for good

Vlog was cancelled due to disappointing ratings, though it got screwed by the network and was never really given a chance over its handful of episodes. Not only was it slotted against Tout le monde en parle, but it followed Occupation double, which would almost always run long and push the show back. That wouldn’t have been a problem if the audiences for the two shows were the same, but they weren’t, and people tuning in at 9:30 to watch a show about Internet videos instead saw some stupid reality show about sexy people living together, with no clue when their show would come on.

When it was cancelled, there was talk about an online-only version coming earlier this year to Quebecor’s new Canoe.tv website. But for reasons that Arpin promises to explain on his blog by next week when the fall schedule comes out, the network decided to try again to put it back on the air.

Arpin says they’re working on a new format (perhaps going into more depth about featured videos, to deal with some criticism that they’re exploiting them almost to the level of copyright infringement). Details will come about the new format, but the main difference is that Arpin is going solo. Former cohost Geneviève Borne already has a new gig at Belle et Bum on Télé-Québec.

Vlog Season 2 premieres Thursday, Sept. 28 at 9:30 p.m. on TVA.

I hate it already.

UPDATE: Arpin gives some details in a video on his blog. He mentions something about the format being more like a YouTube video blog, with him looking into a camera.