National Post axes summer Monday edition

CanWest announced today that it would cancel its Monday edition for nine weeks over the summer, from July to early Sept. while saying they won’t do the same for the other CanWest dailies. Traditionally for all newspapers, Monday is the lightest day for ads (and for news), so it makes some sense economically. Summer is [...]

NATO tries to change Canadian media policy in Afghanistan

CP/Canoe reports that NATO, apparently spurred on by the U.S. military model in Iraq, is trying to change the decentralized media policy the Canadian army has used in Kandahar with great success. Notwithstanding the political divisions and debate about the justice or appropriateness of our role in Afghanistan, nevertheless support for our Army is solid [...]

U.S. bill proposes non-profit status for American newspapers

In a bid to rescue U.S. newspapers, Senator Benjamin Cardin is proposing a bill that would allow newspapers to give themeselves the same status as non-profits. They would be taxed for educational purposes, not business purposes, which would put them on the same playing field as public broadcasting. They can cover anything, but not endorse [...]

CTV takes dead aim at CRTC

I’m not sure if it’s the best thing to do, to rip your regulator when you’re trying to get them to make a change in your favor, but CTV’s Ivan Fecan did just that yesterday, expressing five years of frustration at the specialty channels making great profits because of carriage fees, while the over the [...]

Some good news for CanWest

Andrew Willis of the Globe and Mail (which provides far more objective coverage of CanWest’s financial crisis than CanWest does) notes that one option for the chain, which would be advantageous for consumers, and disastrous for the Aspers and current manager, is to have a vulture fund buy it for pennies on the dollar, take [...]

New media taking a financial hit too

While New Media tend to gloat over the financial troubles of MainStreamMedia, it turns out that they are just as vulnerable to the root cause of the current media crisis: seriously reduced advertising dollars. Slate.com notes that YouTube, one of the most heavily trafficked sites on the web (Susan Boyle is up to 50 million [...]

Obama’s PR/media skills come under attack

Well, the backlash has begun, with the Daily Beast being the first non partisan attack on President Obama’s love affair with the media (more likely the media’s love affair with the Obama’s, all represented by the idiot, massive coverage of the Obama’s new dog, a breed I’d never heard about before.) It all reminds me [...]

Susan Boyle demonstrates MSM/NM co-dependency

It’s been about nine days and counting, but Susan Boyle’s clip from the British “reality” show Britain has Talent has so far had about 50 million hits. Prior to the New Media, you would have to rely on heavily copyrighted reruns from the  original TV show. Now, the show posts it to YouTube, it goes [...]

Gomery blasts feds on lack of transparency

Former Adscam Commissioner John Gomery took aim at the federal government for delays, denials, obstructions and outright refusal to respond to Freedom of Information requests, noting that the system is so backlogged that complaints to the Information Commissioner’s Office can take up to two years (and this from a government that promised greater transparency when [...]

AP estimates 5,900 newsroom jobs cut from US dailies in 2008

From an annual survey of its members.  This year’s tally counted 46,700 newsroom jobs, down from a 1990 peak of 56,900. And the news in 2009 has all been bad in the US, with major papers closing or declaring bankruptcy. And we still have to hear from CanWest nad the Sun chain whether they will [...]