REVOLVING DOOR:

Jean-Pierre Blais is the new assistant deputy minister at Public Services and Procurement Canada. Blais will serve as ADM at the receiver general and pension branch. He concluded his five-year term as CRTC chair this past June.

Mary Ann Turcke, former president of Bell Media, is the newest Chief Operating Officer of the NFL. Turcke is currently president of NFL Media and will expand her role to lead the Marketing, Communications, HR, International, and Events and Technology departments. She succeeds Tod Leiwecke who held the COO post for three seasons.

The Athletic has hired Fan 590 (CJCL-AM) Toronto contributor Richard Deitsch away from Sports Illustrated. Deitsch confirmed the news on Twitter, saying he’ll be continuing to cover sports media.

Steve Anthony’s last day on CP24 will be Mar. 29. In a Facebook post, the former MuchMusic host writes “after 9 years as a host on CP24 Breakfast, and 25 of almost 40 years waking up at around 3 a.m. to be a ‘broadcaster’, I am stepping away from being on TV and radio. Tanya Humphrey-Anthony and I have been working towards this for a while. We have a bunch of businesses and projects that we have been nurturing, and are now ready to devote much more time into. So that’s the story. I can’t say you won’t SEE me around. But I can’t say where or when if you do.” Watch his announcement on CP24 here.

Michel Cormier, directeur de l’information at Radio-Canada, has announced his retirement as of July 31. Cormier took on the role in 2012. He began his career at Radio-Canada Moncton, where he was originally from, then went on to become a reporter in Montreal, and a correspondent in Ottawa and Quebec City. He was then appointed foreign correspondent, and spent 11 years in Moscow, Paris, Beijing and Afghanistan.

Sam Cooper is joining the Global News Online Investigative Team, based in Ottawa. Cooper has been an investigative reporter for Postmedia at the Vancouver Sun and The Province, since 2009.

Alex Cooke, who currently produces the Sheldon Macleod Show on News 95.7 (CJNI-FM) Halifax, is joining the Canadian Press Atlantic bureau in Halifax as a weekend reporter/editor. Her last day with Rogers Radio is Mar. 28.

Jeremy Keefe is returning to his home province as Global Halifax’s newest videojournalist. Keefe has spent the last nine years in Alberta, B.C., and New Brunswick.

Laura Mackenzie is the new head of Screen Nova Scotia, replacing the outgoing Erika Beatty. Mackenzie was formerly the lead on the Atlantic Film Festival’s Strategic Partners financing and co-production market and has been a programming consultant with the Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA).

Rob Brown, who has been chief engineer at Corus Radio Vancouver since Jan. 2014 and prior to that Corus Guelph and Kitchener, is moving to the Jim Pattison station cluster in Winnipeg.

Pete Potipcoe has announced he’s leaving 97.9 Rock (CKYX-FM) Fort McMurray with his last on-air shift on Apr. 13. Potipcoe hasn’t revealed where he’s landing, but says he’ll be back on-air soon somewhere in Alberta. He’d been in Fort McMurray the last four years.

Craig T. Power is leaving mornings at 98 The Beach (CFPS-FM) Port Elgin, ON for CKBW-AM Bridgewater, NS. Power will be the new morning news anchor starting next month. He’d been with Bayshore Broadcasting since Jan. 2017.

RADIO/AUDIO/PODCAST:

The Zach Sang Worldwide Countdown will make its Canadian debut on Rogers’ KiSS radio stations across the country this Saturday. Described as ‘the next evolution of the countdown’ and hosted by Hollywood-based Zach Sang, the weekly three-hour program is built for Canada and features hits from around the globe. It will be heard from 5 – 8 p.m. (local time) on KiSS Toronto (CKIS-FM), Vancouver (CKKS-FM), Edmonton (CHBN-FM), Ottawa (CISS-FM), Kingston (WLYK-FM), and Victoria (CHTT-FM). Distributed in Canada and overseas by Momentum Media Networks, the program will also be available to additional CHR and Hot AC stations.

Canadaland has come out with a new branded podcast called DDx. Partnering with clinical knowledge sharing app Figure1, the podcast explores how doctors think. Canadaland’s Jesse Brown Tweets “the 1st reviewer says it’s ‘like the New York Times diagnosis column meets This American Life.” Check it out here.

Newfoundland Capital Corporation Limited (Newcap) has announced financial results for the fourth quarter ending Dec. 31, 2017. Revenue was $47.4 million, a $0.5 million or a one per cent increase over Q4 2016. Annual revenue of $169.9 million was $0.3 million higher than last year. Growth in the quarter and year-to date was primarily due to higher revenue in the company’s Ontario broadcasting operations that benefited from ratings success, combined with the acquisition of stations in Kamloops, which offset declines in Alberta and Newfoundland & Labrador due to the challenging economic environment in those regions.

MIX 107 (CKFT-FM) Fort Saskatchewan held its fifth annual Care for the Heart Radiothon, raising more than $23,000 for the Karol Maschmeyer Practice Readiness Centre, which allows physicians and emergency personnel to train on highly-sophisticated dummies to advance skills and techniques.  Over the last five years, the radiothon has raised more than $110,000.

SIGN-OFFS:

John Baglieri, 35, on Mar. 8 in Toronto, of cancer. After graduating from Seneca College in Toronto, Baglieri started as a reporter with CTV Prince Albert in 2010 where he also anchored the noon newscast. He joined CTV Saskatoon the next year. Baglieri’s instincts and appetite for chasing a story and his interest in investigative journalism was inherited in part from his grandfather John, who owned weekly newspaper The Sarnia Gazette in Sarnia, ON. He had been battling cancer the last two years.

Larry Gavin, Mar. 3 at Kingston General Hospital. With an interest in radio from a young age, Gavin started building crystal sets as a boy and then got a part-time job on weekends with a TV repairman. He went on to attend DeVry Technical Institute at the age of 16 and ended up as an assistant to the disc jockeys at CKOC Hamilton, sorting and filing music. He eventually moved up to overnight DJ and then into news. From there, he took full-time reporting jobs at stations in Niagara Falls, Barrie and Calgary. In 1969, he made the leap to Sudbury where he got his feet wet in television as news director at CKSO Radio & TV and eventually MCTV. In 1988, he took up the regional manager’s role at CHRO Ottawa, which he retired from in 1995. Following his retirement from broadcasting, he founded and grew closed captioning business Closed Caption Services, which has served nearly all of the major Canadian networks. A celebration of life will take place on Sat., May 19 at the Gan Inn in Gananoque, ON. If you have any memories to share with the family, please contact [email protected].

TV/FILM/VIDEO:

The Canadian Creative Industries Code of Conduct has been unveiled in response to the recent flood of sexual misconduct allegations. ACTRA, the Directors Guild of Canada (DGC), the Canadian Media Guild (CMG), and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) are among the groups that have signed on to the code described as a commitment to “shift the culture to prevent and respond to harassment including sexual harassment, discrimination, bullying and violence and to ensure every workplace is one where safety, respect and professionalism are the norm.” Read more here.

Boon Dog Professional Services latest data crunch indicates Canada’s publicly-traded television service providers, combined, lost almost 20 per cent fewer TV subscribers in 2017 than they did in 2016, bucking the trend of accelerating TV cord-cutting. However, Boon Dog predicts the positive turn is probably temporary. Combined, the big TV service providers lost an estimated 166,000 TV subscribers in fiscal 2017, down from 205,000 the previous year. Boon Dog’s Mario Mota says Shaw Cable’s launch of its BlueSky TV service, based on Comcast’s X1 IPTV platform, can take significant credit for the boost. Boon Dog estimates that roughly 11.2 million households subscribed to a traditional TV service at the end of 2017, which means the 166,000 customers lost last year represent about two per cent of the total market.

Media Technology Monitor’s latest TV Distribution Report indicates the majority of Canadians still subscribe to a paid TV service. According to the report, three-quarters of Anglophones continue to subscribe – by far the most popular way of getting TV content. It also finds Fibre Optic (IPTV) is the only subscription service still experiencing growth. On another note, MTM says while Off-Air TV has largely been replaced by alternative service delivery methods, a small segment of Anglophones continue to use Off-Air reception

David Suzuki is getting a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame. The longtime environmental activist and host of CBC’s The Nature of Things will be honoured on Mar. 23 as the Walk of Fame’s first Hometown Star. A plaque will be installed at the CBC plaza in downtown Vancouver with the unveiling ceremony to take place Mar. 23 at 1:30 p.m. at 700 Hamilton Street.

The Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television honoured the best in Canadian film and television at the 2018 Canadian Screen Awards on Sunday night. Maud Lewis biopic Maudie took home Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, while star Sally Hawkins earned the Best Actress prize and co-star Ethan Hawke Best Supporting Actor. Aisling Walsh, who directed the Irish-Canadian co-production was named Best Director. On the TV side, Kim’s Convenience, History’s Vikings, Alias Grace and Anne were among the series recognized. Find the complete list of winners here.

CTV original series The Detail joins the network’s mid-season schedule Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/MT on CTV and CTV GO, beginning Mar. 25. Headlining the series are U.K. talent Angela Griffin (Coronation Street), Shenae Grimes-Beech (Degrassi: The Next Generation) and Wendy Crewson (Saving Hope, Room). Episodes of the show will be available to CraveTV subscribers the day before their broadcast premieres.   

TSN is set to deliver multiplatform coverage of NCAA® MARCH MADNESS®. Live coverage begins Mar. 15 at noon ET on TSN, culminating with the championship game, live from San Antonio on Apr. 2 on TSN1. Coverage will also be available for live streaming via TSN.ca/Live and the TSN GO app. Nabil Karim and Kate Beirness will host from the TSN Studio, alongside basketball analysts Leo Rautins, Sam Mitchell and Jack Armstrong. Sportscentre is also set to cover the tournament from all angles, with breaking news, daily highlights and game analysis.

The CRTC has approved applications by Ethnic Channels Group Limited to distribute Portuguese channels TVI FIÇCAO, TVI24, RTP3, RTP Açores Internacional and Jamaican TV channel Mello TV in Canada.

Cogeco’s YourTV helped raise $254,229 during the 30-hour Brockville Palliative Care Telethon last month, setting a new record. The telethon, which originates from the Brockville Arts Centre with a mix of local musical entertainment, interviews and testimonials, is broadcast live on YourTV and hosted by local radio personality Bruce Wylie. Over its 35 year history, the telethon has now raised $3.75 million dollars for Hospice Palliative Care services in Brockville and surrounding area.

The Canadian Academy of Arts and Sciences (CARAS) has confirmed Diana Krall, Shawn Hook and Nunavut indie roots band The Jerry Cans will perform at the 2018 JUNO Awards on Mar. 25, broadcast live at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET on CBC, CBC Radio and cbcmusic.ca/junos. Eight-time JUNO Award winners Barenaked Ladies will also come together for a one-time special performance alongside former member and co-founder Steven Page as they celebrate their induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. The show will also feature a tribute to Gord Downie with Sarah Harmer, Dallas Green (City and Colour) and keyboardist Kevin Hearn (Barenaked Ladies). Hearn worked with Downie on his critically acclaimed album Secret Path.

Carter, the new 10-episode, one-hour drama starring Jerry O’Connell, Sydney Poitier Heartsong and Kristian Bruun as a crime-solving trio, will debut May 15 on Bravo. The series, shot in North Bay, ON, will stream on CraveTV following its broadcast run. O’Connell plays a TV detective, who returns to his hometown and finds himself playing real-life detective with childhood friends, no-nonsense police veteran Sam Shaw (Heartsong) and streetwise, coffee truck owner Dave Leigh (Brunn).

Original Digital Content: Is this the future of Television? On this week’s Broadcast Dialogue podcast, publisher Shawn Smith talks to Mike McShane, the Director of Business and Partnerships at Bell Media. McShane oversees Much Studios, which was created in 2015 to harness the vision of YouTube creators to fuel a new digital strategy for the brand and keep up with audience appetite for short-form digital content.

ONLINE/DIGITAL:

Facebook has inked a deal with Major League Baseball for exclusive rights to stream 25 afternoon games in the U.S. Terms of the deal, which is the first time a major U.S. league has agreed to stream games exclusively on the social platform, were not disclosed. In addition to exclusive streaming rights for 47 college basketball games this year, Facebook has struck deals with Fox Sports to stream the UEFA Champions League and with Univision to broadcast live games from Mexico’s top soccer league. It streamed 20 non-exclusive MLB games last season.

Apple Inc. is acquiring digital magazine service Texture, which Rogers Communications has had a stake in since 2013. The deal means the end of Rogers’ ownership in the service, which is also partly owned by Condé Nast, Hearst Corp., New York-based equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Meredith Corp. Texture will continue to carry Rogers Media publications like Maclean’s, Chatelaine, Today’s Parent and Hello! Canada.

Twitter has funded a study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that finds false information on the social media network travels six times faster than the truth and reaches more people. MIT looked at more than 126,000 stories tweeted millions of times between 2006 and the end of 2016, calculating that the average false story takes about 10 hours to reach 1,500 Twitter users, versus about 60 hours for the truth. On average, false information reaches 35 per cent more people. While true news stories were retweeted to reach about 1,000 people, the top one per cent of fake news reached as many as 100,000 users.

GENERAL:

Journalists for Human Rights (JHR) celebrated International Women’s Day 2018 by launching its Gender Impact Report. The report documents JHR’s work towards gender equality, with a focus on programming in South Sudan, Syria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It finds women are still radically underrepresented in media. Globally, the percentage of women reporting the news is 37 per cent – a figure that hasn’t changed since 2010.  Women hold just 27 per cent of media management positions, worldwide.

Cogeco Connexion has been named Company of the Year for 2018 by Women in Communications and Technology. The award honours the Canadian company that has made the most significant contribution to industry practices in equity and diversity, creating a workplace that supports women’s advancement. The award will be officially presented at the Women in Communications and Technology’s Annual Awards Gala on Apr. 16, in Gatineau.

The RTDNA has announced its regional finalists including the Central Region, with winners to be announced at the regional awards ceremony Apr. 14 in Toronto; West Region, with winners will be announced at the regional awards ceremony on Apr. 21 in Vancouver; Prairie Region, with winners to be announced Apr. 21 in Regina; and East Region, with winners to be announced Apr. 21 in Dartmouth, NS.

Eastlink has expanded its wireless service further into New Brunswick, announcing its launch in Saint John. Eastlink Wireless first launched in Nova Scotia in 2013, and expanded into Moncton in the summer of 2016.

Bell has announced that Lucky Mobile, its new low- cost prepaid wireless service, is now available in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Launched initially in Ontario, Alberta and B.C. in December, Lucky Mobile prepaid plans start at just $20 for unlimited local talk with no long-term commitment.

Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) Canada has announced a combined investment of $38 million to help bring or improve high-speed Internet to 33 rural and remote communities in B.C. The funding, which is in addition to a $45.4 million announcement in January, will benefit 33 communities, 13 of which are Indigenous communities. Shaw Communications will build the majority of the fibre backbone, receiving $11.73 million from the federal government and $9.01 million from the Government of British Columbia to connect a total of 16 communities, while projects will also be carried out by CityWest Cable & Telephone Corporation, Gwaii Communications and the Sts’ailes Band.