Shushma Datt, the multicultural broadcasting trailblazer behind Vancouver’s Sp!ce Radio, was named the B.C. Association of Broadcasters (BCAB) Broadcaster of the Year at the organization’s annual conference in Vancouver this week. The Broadcast Performer of the Year award went to longtime The Zone (CJZN-FM) Victoria morning show duo of Jason Lamb and Dylan Willows. Willows, who had been with Pattison Media for 19 years, stepped away from the station in March following a recurrence of a rare ocular cancer he battled 20 years ago. Tchadas Leo of CHEK News, who hosts the station’s first-ever podcast Our Native Land, was named the Broadcast Performer of Tomorrow. Read more here. More BCAB coverage to come.
BCE operating revenues were $6,011 million in Q1, down 0.7% compared to Q1 2023, reflecting 0.6% lower service revenue due to a year-over-year decline at Bell Media, partly offset by growth at Bell Communication and Technology Services (Bell CTS), as well as a decrease in product revenue. Adjusted EBITDA grew 1.1% to $2,565 million, reflecting a 1.7% increase at Bell CTS, partly offset by an 11.4% decrease at Bell Media. Total digital revenues grew 33%, the result of strong growth in digital advertising fuelled by Bell Media’s programmatic advertising marketplace where growing customer usage of its strategic audience management (SAM) TV sales tool drove a significant increase in ad bookings in the quarter, as well as by ad-supported subscription tiers on Crave and Addressable TV. Ad revenue was up 1.6%, due to increased year-over-year sales for Super Bowl LVIII, strong growth in digital advertising and improved out-of-home and radio performance. Bell says that result was achieved despite continued soft overall traditional broadcast TV advertiser demand, due to unfavourable economic conditions and delays in the delivery of new scripted content due to last year’s Hollywood writers’ strike.
TVA Group has reported its consolidated financial results for Q1 2024, including $129,161,000 in revenues, a 5.1% decrease compared with the first quarter of 2023. TVA recorded $21,259,000 in negative adjusted EBITDA for the Broadcasting segment, a $1,547,000 favourable variance mainly due to savings in content costs, a decrease in CRTC Part II licence fees and savings stemming from the implementation of reorganization plans that slightly offset decreased ad revenues.
The Canadian Journalism Foundation (CJF) has announced Dominique Gené, Démar Grant, Zuhra Jibril, Daysha Loppie and Aajah Sauter as recipients of the Black Journalism Fellowship Program, in partnership with CBC/Radio-Canada, CTV News, The Globe and Mail and the Investigative Journalism Bureau (IJB). The five fellows will receive mentoring and training in video and audio editing, writing, research and investigative reporting and will write, produce or contribute to an article/series during their fellowship, which will be considered for publication/broadcast by the media partner organizations.
World Press Freedom Canada (WPFC) has announced Winnipeg’s Melissa Martin as the 2024 winner of the Press Freedom Prize, while Robyn Doolittle of The Globe and Mail is awarded the Career Achievement Award. Martin took a leave from the Winnipeg Free Press last year to spend a year in Ukraine, chronicling the impact of war on civilians on her Substack platform, under constant threat to her own safety. Doolittle has for many years been one of Canada’s most tenacious and impactful investigative reporters at The Globe and Mail and previously the Toronto Star. The inaugural WPFC Student Achievement Award goes to Charles Séguin and Naomie Duckett-Zamor from the student paper at L’Université du Québec à Montréal for articles on lack of democracy at the student associations.
