RADIO/AUDIO/PODCAST:

The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council says use of the English F-Word in French-language programming is acceptable, if it’s used infrequently and not as an insult towards a particular person. The CBSC decision examined broadcasts on 96.9 FM (CKOI-FM) Montreal from Jan. and Mar. 2017, concluding the station did not violate the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ (CAB) Code of Ethics when it broadcast an excerpt in English of a speech by Madonna at the Women’s March on Washington in which she used the f-word. On Mar. 25, the station also broadcast an English clip from a Green Day concert in which the band’s lead singer, Billie Joe Armstrong, used the f-word.  Both broadcasts occurred during the afternoon, and a listener complained about the coarse language. The CBSC French-Language Panel determined “using the word ‘fuck’ in French does not have the same vulgar connotation as it does in English.”

The Mill St. Mixtape with Human Kebab premiered Nov. 4 on Toronto’s 102.1 The Edge (CFNY-FM). The hour-long Saturday night alt rock remix show, featuring DJ Human Kebab from Toronto band USS, will also air on Live 105 (CKHY-FM) Halifax and 98.9 The Drive (CKLC-FM) Kingston.

The CRTC has approved a new rebroadcast transmitter in McAdam, NB to improve the signal of CBC Radio One (CBZF-FM) Fredericton in the region. The new transmitter will operate at 95.5 MHz (channel 238LP) with an effective radiated power of 50 watts and an effective height of antenna of 29.4 metres. It will replace the low-power AM transmitter CBAX McAdam, and will be installed on the same tower.

Harvard Broadcasting’s 15th Annual Children’s Hospital Radiothon raised $450,578 over Nov. 1-2, bringing the running total close to $5-million raised for the Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital in Saskatoon, which is set to open in 2019.

93.1 RED FM (CKYE-FM) Gurupurab Radiothon raised $625,000 for Surrey Memorial Hospital on Nov. 3. The funds will support Surrey Memorial’s newly-expanded Coronary Care Unit.

CKSW 570 Radio (CKSW-AM) Swift Current broadcast the Dr. Noble Irwin Regional Healthcare Foundation Pharmasave Radiothon on Nov. 2-3, raising a total of $82,815. CKSW was joined by hospital staff, a dozen local bands/artists and Premier Brad Wall, among other special guests.

Don, Bas and Colin Jamieson, a group of brothers who left their mark on broadcasting, media and politics in Newfoundland and Labrador, are being honoured with a scholarship in their memory. The project is being spearheaded by the grandson of Don Jamieson, a CJON-TV broadcaster and minister in Pierre Trudeau’s cabinet in the 1960s and 70s. The $1,500 scholarship would be offered to post-secondary students focusing on communications, journalism and political science. The family hopes to raise $42,000 through sales of Jamieson’s memoirs, Christmas album, and donations.

Newcap Radio has evolved its 93-5 The Move (CFXJ-FM) Toronto brand to include the tagline “Toronto’s Hits. Toronto’s Throwbacks.” The station’s revamped playlist will reflect music dominating streaming service charts like Kendrick Lamar, J.Cole, Yo Gotti, Khalid, Post Malone and French Montana. Home-grown acts like Drake, The Weeknd, Tory Lanez, PARTYNEXTDOOR, Jessie Reyez and Alessia Cara will also be prominently featured. Since its launch in 2016, The Move had featured 90s to now selections, which Newcap says will continue to complement the contemporary playlist.

Benztown has issued its annual call for voiceover talent as it gets set to  release the fourth annual Benztown 50 List of Radio’s Biggest Imaging Voices in the U.S. and Canada. The Benztown 50 list will be based on several criteria, including number of radio station affiliates, station size and market. Benztown has partnered with P1 Media Group to compile and analyze industry data that will be the foundation for the distinction. The list is currently in development and will be released to the industry in early February. Voice talent can apply for the Benztown 50 from now through Dec. 1 at: benztown.com/50.

TV/FILM/VIDEO:

CBC launched its updated version of The National on Monday night, featuring four hosts, broadcasting from three cities. Adrienne Arsenault and Ian Hanomansing are based in Toronto, Rosemary Barton in Ottawa and Andrew Chang in Vancouver. The relaunch includes National-branded stories airing throughout the day on CBC News Network and online, in addition to an increased digital presence with podcasts and a daily digital newsletter penned by former Maclean’s correspondent Jonathon Gatehouse. The new set includes items paying homage to the show’s history including Peter Mansbridge’s TV and a pair of Knowlton Nash’s glasses.

Russell Peters makes his debut in his first scripted leading TV series role in The Indian Detective on Nov. 23 on CTV. The show’s cast also includes William Shatner, Christina Cole (Casino Royale, SUITS), Hamza Haq (mother!, QUANTICO), and Bollywood star Anupam Kher (The Big Sick, Silver Linings Playbook). Shot in Cape Town, Toronto, and Mumbai, the four-part, one-hour, comedy-drama follows Toronto cop Doug D’Mello (Peters) as he becomes embroiled in a murder case while visiting his father in Mumbai.  

Kelly Clarkson will host the first-ever iHeartRadio Jingle Ball North broadcast on CTV Dec. 17. The two-hour special will be taped at iHeartRadio Canada’s second annual Jingle Ball event at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre on Dec. 9, which is already sold out. The holiday concert features performances from Clarkson, as well as Backstreet Boys, Cardi B, Fergie, Fifth Harmony, Noah Cyrus, Post Malone, Jessie Reyez, Ria Mae and Virginia to Vegas.

Portfolio Entertainment has added the CBC Kids-commissioned animated mystery-adventure series Addison to its distribution catalogue. From executive producer Charles Bishop of Halifax’s Six Eleven Media, the series follows the seven-year-old title character, a female inventor, who loves to solve mysteries. Portfolio has acquired the worldwide rights to the series outside of Canada, with season one (20 x 11’) currently available and season two (30 x 11’) beginning production in early 2018.

Cineplex and the National Football League (NFL) have announced a three-year sponsorship agreement that will bring Sunday Night Football and the Super Bowl live to Cineplex theatres across Canada. In addition to the cinema broadcast, the agreement also includes access to NFL brands and trademarks, and event sponsorship and marketing opportunities. Premiering in-theatre as NFL Sundays at Cineplex on Nov. 12, NFL games will be broadcast live to 15 theatres across Canada initially and expand to 50 locations for Super Bowl LII. Tickets will be $5. As part of the partnership, WorldGaming, Cineplex’s eSports division, will execute a series of online and offline Madden tournaments for NFL fans across Canada.

Global will pause at 11 a.m. on Remembrance Day across its television channels, radio stations, online and social media platforms. The network will air Canada Remembers, anchored by Global National’s Dawna Friesen, featuring special coverage of the annual Remembrance Day service from the National War Memorial in Ottawa. In addition, Global stations in Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver will provide commercial-free coverage of local Remembrance Day services. Canada Remembers will also be livestreamed on Globalnews.ca, Facebook Live and Periscope (Twitter).

CTV News special Remembrance Day 2017 will air, beginning at 10:30 a.m. ET, on Nov. 11 on CTV, CTV Two, CTV News Channel, and livestreamed on CTVNews.ca, CTV.ca, the CTV GO app, and the CTV News GO app. Helmed by Lisa Laflamme from Ottawa’s National War Memorial, the 90-minute broadcast will also feature CTV News’ Chief Political Commentator Craig Oliver; veterans advocate Master Cpl. (ret’) Paul Franklin, who served in Afghanistan and lost both legs in a roadside suicide bombing; and award-winning author and historian Charlotte Gray. CTV London Bureau Chief Paul Workman will report live from Belgium, where there are commemorations of the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Passchendaele. Viewers in Toronto (CP24) and Vancouver will also be able to tune in to live coverage of local ceremonies.

CTV has unveiled the 30 artists who’ll be featured on the inaugural season of its forthcoming music competition series The Launch. Hand-picked from more than 10,000 emerging Canadian performers, the artists were selected following an international casting call and extensive A&R and review process. The series follows the performers as they vy for the chance to record a new original song written by a world famous songwriter/producer and be mentored by a panel of music industry legends. You can read more at CTV.ca/TheLaunch.

Lisa Rose Snow, Reem Morsi, and Aubrey Arnason are the successful candidates for the third round of the 2xMore Directors Lab. They’ll be taken through prep, production and post-production on three episodes of Sinking Ship Entertainment’s Dino Dan franchise, Dino Dana, in the lead up to directing an episode of their own. Launched at Prime Time in 2016, 2xMore is part of a multi-tiered initiative by Women in View to double the number of women directing Canadian media.

Women In Animation (WIA) will be launching a Vancouver chapter in January. The Canadian arm of the nonprofit will be committed toward achieving its 50/50 by 2025 initiative, which aims for gender parity in the animation sector. It will be headed by a governing board including Molly Mason-Boule of Electronic Arts Worldwide Studios, Animal Logic COO Sharon Taylor, and Michelle Grady, senior VP of production at Sony Pictures Imageworks.

ONLINE/DIGITAL:

Quebec will impose a provincial tax on Netflix whether Ottawa likes it or not, according to a letter obtained by La Presse. In the Nov. 7 letter, Quebec Min. of Finance Carlos Leitão, advises his federal counterpart Bill Morneau of his intention to impose the QST on subscriptions to the American streaming giant. The letter suggests Ottawa review its position. Leitão states “The status quo is no longer possible. Our sales taxes must adapt to the realities of the XXIth century, so is the fairness and legitimacy of our tax systems.” Thus far, Ottawa has refused to levy taxes on broadband internet providers, arguing against another tax on the middle class.

The Canada Media Fund has spearheaded the launch of a YouTube channel featuring memorable Canadian film and TV content. Encore+ offers over 300 videos across 100 feature films and television series in both official languages, with new titles to be added weekly. Among the top titles featured are Da Vinci’s Inquest, Degrassi High, Due South, Little Mosque on the Prairie, Mr. Dressup, New Waterford Girl and The Littlest Hobo. The channel is managed by service-provider Broadband TV (BBTV) and supported by Google Canada, Bell Media, Deluxe Toronto and Telefilm Canada.

Rebel Media is back in the headlines after a terse exchange between the alt right online site’s B.C. bureau chief Christopher Wilson and federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna. At the closing news conference of the environment ministers’ meeting in Vancouver on Friday, McKenna demanded that Rebel stop calling her “climate Barbie.” From there it digressed into a bitter exchange with Wilson accusing the minister of banning Rebel reporters from a climate conference.

Amazon.ca has debuted the new Fire TV Stick Basic Edition in Canada and 100 other countries, a streaming media player that provides access to movies, TV shows, apps, games and content from Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Spotify and YouTube. Customers have the ability to set their default language as French, Spanish, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, German, or English. The portable device connects to an HDTV’s HDMI port and also offers 8 GB of storage and 1 GB of memory.

Twitter has expanded its 140 character limit to 280, after launching a test rollout in September. The platform says while many people Tweeted the new full 280 limit for the first few days, once the novelty wore off behaviour normalized. Only five per cent of Tweets sent were longer than 140 characters and only two per cent were over 190 characters. As a result, the timeline reading experience shouldn’t substantially change. Overall, Twitter says people in the higher character limit experiment felt more satisfied with how they expressed themselves.

Google will not have to comply with a Supreme Court of Canada order compelling it to remove certain results from its search engine in the U.S., following a decision by a California court. The decision says the SCOC ruling “threatens free speech on the global internet” by forcing intermediaries to remove links to third-party material and undermines Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. B.C.-based Equustek Solutions Inc. brought about the original action in 2011 and won an injunction, later upheld by the B.C. Court of Appeal, forcing Google to remove search results related to networking tech company Datalink Technologies Gateways Inc., which Equustek accused of infringing on its intellectual property.

GENERAL:

OAB‘s 2017 Connection Conference and Gala Awards are getting underway this morning, Thursday Nov. 9, in Toronto. If you hurry, you might catch the Sales Session starting at 8:00 a.m. featuring RAB‘s Brandeis C. Hall who will reveal What Top Sellers Do. Audience Insight‘s Jeff Vidler will present Understanding Generation X (25-54) – A Focus Group. Gary L. Miles will posthumously be recognized with the OAB‘s Ontario Hall of Fame Awardat The Gala Awards Luncheon at 12:30 p.m. The Executive Town Hall moderated by Maureen Holloway will feature industry leaders Julie Adam (Rogers Radio), Elmer Hildebrand (Golden West Broadcasting), Michele Pauchuk, David Phillips (nLogic), and Chris Sisam (Corus Radio). See the entire program here.

According to the CRTC’s annual Communications Monitoring Report for the Broadcasting Sector, 2016 revenues ($17.85 billion) decreased by 0.5 per cent relative to 2015. Total television revenues increased 1.7 per cent. The discretionary and on-demand sector was the main source of growth, with reported revenue of $4.4 billion and a PBIT margin of 21 per cent in 2016, a $126-million increase year-over-year. CBC conventional television also contributed to television revenue growth, reporting $1,185 million in revenue, a $78-million increase over 2015. The report says overall, private commercial radio stations are profitable, reporting $1,551 million in revenues and a profitability margin of 18.6 per cent. Revenues for CBC/SRC’s radio unit have steadily declined from $326 million in 2012 to $291 million in 2016. Country and contemporary music formats continue to garner the largest national listener share. Read the full report here.

Steve Vogelsang is facing another bank robbery charge in connection with a robbery in Saskatoon on July 31. The former CTV Winnipeg sports broadcaster and Red River College journalism instructor is currently being held in Medicine Hat, AB in connection with two other bank robberies last month. Regina Police also allege he robbed three banks there in July and October.

TVO will introduce two new Ontario Hubs in Sudbury and Kingston by Jan. 2018 to expand its in-depth regional journalism across the province. Funded with support from The Barry and Laurie Green Family Charitable Trust and Goldie Feldman, the new Northeastern and Eastern hubs join the Northwestern and Southwestern Hubs that launched this fall in Thunder Bay and London. TVO will hire two additional journalists to develop current affairs articles and videos for tvo.org, and segments for TVO’s The Agenda with Steve Paikin every Friday.

TVA Group Inc. recorded a net loss attributable to shareholders in the amount of $15.3 million or $0.35 per share in the third quarter of 2017, compared with $32.5 million or $0.75 per share in the same quarter of 2016. Third quarter highlights include $19,902,000 in adjusted operating income in the Broadcasting & Production segment, a favourable variance of $8,653,000 mainly because of an increase in TVA Sports subscription revenue growth, as well as higher operating revenues at TVA Network; the Magazines segment had adjusted operating income of $3,189,000, an unfavourable variance of $2,523,000 mainly because of a decrease in operating revenues; the Film Production & Audiovisual Services segment saw $9,844,000 in adjusted operating income, a favourable variance of $6,112,000 because of increased income from soundstage and equipment rental. TVA Group’s total market share increased by 3.1 points to 37.1 per cent in the third quarter of 2017, compared with 34 per cent in the same period of 2016.

Cogeco has released its financial results for the fourth quarter ended Aug. 31, 2017. Revenue increased by $6.5 million, or 1.1 per cent, to reach $578.5 million, driven by growth of 1.4 per cent in the Communications segment. Adjusted EBITDA decreased by $6.9 million, or 2.7 per cent, to reach $251.4 million compared to the same period of fiscal 2016. The numbers reflect a decrease in revenue combined with one-time favorable impact last year of $3.3 million in non-recurring media activities.

CBC/Radio-Canada is releasing a hardcover collection of profiles and portraits the public broadcaster received from Canadians in every province and territory to mark Canada 150. What’s Your Story? – A Canada 2017 Yearbook is available at Indigo, Chapters, Coles and independent booksellers for $29.99. A free downloadable, digital version will also be made available in early December.

Newzapalooza: Battle of the Media Bands returned to Toronto’s Opera House on Nov. 3 featuring seven bands, made up of staffers from CBC, Chatelaine, Thomson Reuters, CTV, National Post, BNN, The Canadian Press and Huffington Post, taking to the stage to raise money for the Children’s Aid Foundation of Canada. The event raised around $13,000, bringing the total over the event’s 13 years to $180,000. While NP’s Conrad Black Sabbath took home the trophy for a third year in a row, honourable mention goes to CTV’s Highway to Bell featuring Lisa LaFlamme on lead vocals. Watch here.

The Canadian Media Guild (CMG) has released an open letter to Corus Entertainment as efforts to negotiate a collective agreement that started in March drag on.

BCE Inc. has announced it will acquire AlarmForce Industries Inc. in a transaction valued at approximately $166 million. A statement from BCE president and CEO George Cope says acquiring the home security and monitoring company is the “natural next step for Bell” as it pursues growth and innovation opportunities for the connected home. Bell currently provides residential and business security and monitoring in Atlantic Canada and Manitoba through Bell Aliant NextGen Home Security and AAA Security, a Bell MTS company. 

Distributel Communications Limited has received CRTC approval to acquire 100 per cent of IPTV service provider Zazeen Inc. Zazeen TV is currently available in all major markets in Ontario and Quebec. In conjunction with the move, the company is adding telecommunications veteran Bradley J. Fisher to its Executive Team as Chief Revenue Officer.