CIBL-FM Montreal employees are mobilizing to try to save the French-language community radio station. All 13 of the station’s employees were laid off last Friday, with the station’s board of directors saying it’s financially impossible for it to continue. Opened in 1980, CIBL has been a springboard for the careers of a number of Quebec media personalities including Marie-France Bazzo, Bruno Blanchet, Jean-René Dufort, Monique Giroux, Philippe Renaud, and others.
The CRTC has approved Klondike Broadcasting’s application for a broadcasting licence to operate an English-language commercial FM station in Whitehorse to replace its AM station CKRW. The new FM station will operate at 96.1 MHz (channel 241B) with an effective radiated power of 4,400 watts. It will maintain the Adult Contemporary music format currently offered on the AM station.
The National NewsMedia Council has dismissed a conflict of interest complaint related to a Sept. 2016 Canadaland podcast. The complaint was lodged by Blacklock’s Reporter managing editor Tom Korski, who submitted that the Paywall ‘Blackmail’ episode featuring discussion between host Jesse Brown and Dr. Michael Geist of the University of Ottawa about a federal copyright case involving Blacklock’s, contained a concealed conflict of interest. According to an FOI request sought by Korski, Geist had sent an email to the University Library in Nov. 2015, suggesting it cancel a contract with Blacklock’s. Korski suggested Geist “had surreptitiously organized a boycott of their family business a year prior to the podcast, then posed as a dispassionate legal expert in criticizing the company.” Canadaland said it had no reason to know about the email and had nothing to conceal. In dismissing the complaint, the NNC noted Prof. Geist’s email was addressed to one person and no evidence of a wider boycott was offered.
TVO’s The Agenda with Steve Paikin podcast is now available on Amazon Alexa. TVO has partnered with VoiceX Labs to make the current affairs program a free Alexa skill. It can be accessed within Alexa’s Flash Briefing, a service that provides an overview of the latest news and other content.
