Locked-out Quebecor journalists start new weekly

Reporters from Le Journal de Montreal, who have been locked out since Jan. 2009, have started a new newspaper, Rue Frontenac. The province has appointed a mediator, but part of the issue is the leftist bias of the reporters fighting against the right wing views of Pierre Karl Peladeau, who’s trying to leverage the right wing (and barely noticed) Sun TV onto all our cable bills, since no one in their right mind (pun intended) takes seriously anything the Sun chain has to offer in its editorial pages.

CBC, Sept. 3 2010

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Harper/PKP plan to establish Tory media

It sounds like a Liberal paranoid fantasy, but Sun Media has appointed former Harper spinmeister Kory Teneycke as the Sun’s senior political editor. Mr. Teneycke is also slated to head the new Fox North, assuming Pierre Karl Peledeau gets CRTC approval for it. So far, the spirit of free enterprise asked CRTC to be mandatory on basic cable, forcing subscription on the majority of Canadians who do not define themselves as Conservative. Mercifully, the CRTC disagreed. J-source speculates on whether Harper will intervene/override the CRTC, so we can all have the pleasure of hearing the Tory party line all day long. I think I’ll switch to satellite.

J-source, August 23 2010

Quebecor, CTV in CRTC tangle

Quebecor is trying to get the CRTC to whack CTV over its choice of programming (not Canadian enough) on the latter’s A channel affiliates, the ones that mainly show movies and satisfy CRTC Canadian content by loading up on local news. Not that it’s a bad thing, but CRTC is looking for more Canadian drama, comedy etc. than just news. More likely corporate posturing than anything else, but with TV ad revenue down significantly this year, all options are being explored to ram the enemy.

Sun media, July 12 2010

Sun “expands” by firing three reporters

For al the blah blah coming out about a Fox North right wing television channel that will be foisted onto us as part of a basic  cable package, the Sun quietly let go three experienced reporters from Ottawa. The ongoing CanWest soap opera has overshadowed the fact that the Sun chain is far more vulnerable, essentially being propped up by Videotron cable. I wonder how long Quebecor shareholders are going to support a money losing newspaper chain as part of the company.

J-Source, June 18 2010

Fox News North to be foisted on cable subscribers

Not as much attention is being paid to how Pierre Karl Peladeau plans to organize and finance his conservative all news tv network: he wants CRTC to classify it Category 1, so that it is mandatory in every cable package. With content that will reflect that of Sun newspapers, which consumers are rejecting in droves, this new beast would never take off unless it was heavily subsidized by we, the hapless cable subscribers. How about this CRTC: scrap all categories, and let subscribers subscribe only to those channels they want. You want the 500 channel universe, you got it. However, the reality is that most TV viewers watch six to eight channels regularly, and this would kill a lot of overspecialized tv channels. On the other hand, would anyone seriously miss Fisshing TV?

Financial Post, June 16 2010

Quebecor folds Canoe into Sun papers

Quebecor announced today in a news release replete with corporate jargon that Canoe is moving into the Sun newspaper chain. From this will emerge synergies, multidisciplinary teams, launching from multiple platforms and so on. I wish they just admitted they had a bad model and are working to fix it. As for launching from multiple platforms, I vaguely recall Conrad Black saying that the new Hollinger was going to do that after the sale of Southam to the Aspers. Since then, the only launching from multiple platforms Lord Black has been doing is launching appeals from his Florida prison cell.

Marketwire, May 13 2009