TV / Film / Video
According to the CBC, a cross platform audience of 11.7 million Canadians watched or listened to some part of the August 20 “The Tragically Hip: A National Celebration concert.” The TV broadcast averaged four million viewers. The commercial-free presentation was aired on radio, TV and via website, apps, YouTube and Facebook.
Are the U.S. Super Bowl commercials an integral element of the event? The CRTC thinks so and has ordered the removal of simultaneous substitution on the Super Bowl game, effective January 1. Canadians will be able to see the commercials broadcast on U.S. television stations carried in Canada. The decision doesn’t apply to pre-and post-game components. BCE and the NFL have challenged the simsub ban in the Federal Court of Appeal. The Court is expected to rule in the next few months.
The Stand Up To Cancer Canada (SU2C Canada) broadcast returns on Friday, Sept. 9 to raise funds to accelerate the course of cancer research in Canada. Featuring Canadian content for the second year in a row, the special will air on CBC, City, CTV and Global as well as AMI, Bloomberg TV Canada, CHCH, CHEK, Fight Network, Hollywood Suite, Joytv, NTV and TLN. Celine Dion, Ben Affleck, Matthew McConaughey, Emma Stone, Anna Kendrick, Eric Stonestreet and SU2C Co-Founder Katie Couric are scheduled to appear.
Netflix, CBC and Northwood Entertainment are teaming up to stream the television series Anne, based on Lucy Maud Montgomery’s classic novel Anne of Green Gables. CBC greenlit the eight-episode series earlier this year. The show will be broadcast in Canada on CBC in 2017. Production starts in Ontario next month.
Discovery will offer its first-ever preview Oct. 20-Nov. 30 to entice new viewers. The channel’s fall line-up includes its first original Canadian scripted drama Frontier, starring Jason Momoa, who played Khal Drogo on Game of Thrones.
Global has renewed original series Private Eyes following a successful first season. The series from Entertainment One (eOne) has received an 18 episode order with production set to begin in Toronto this fall.
Sign-Offs
Arthur Hiller, 92 in Los Angeles. Born in Edmonton, Hiller worked at CBC Toronto in the early ‘50s, then left for the U.S. where he began directing films in the late ‘50s. In a 50-year career, he directed 33 films with Love Story being the most successful after earning seven Academy Award nominations. Hiller served as president of the Directors Guild of America from 1989-93 and of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences from 1993-97.
Radio / Audio / Podcast
In an unprecedented display of unity, all political parties in the National Assembly of Quebec have agreed not to be interviewed by Nathalie Normandeau when she returns to BLVD 102.1 (CFEL-FM) in Quebec City this fall. Normandeau is the former deputy premier of Quebec who currently faces several corruption-related criminal charges.
StatCan reports that 2015 operating revenues for private radio edged downward for the second year in a row to $1.6 billion, down 0.5 per cent from 2014. Local advertising was down 1.0 per cent to $1.1 billion, accounting for 66.7 per cent all revenues, while national and network advertising was up 0.9 per cent, accounting for 31.7 per cent of total revenues. The Atlantic provinces posted the strongest increase in profit margins while private operators in Alberta were the most profitable, with a profit margin of 22.5 per cent. Read the complete report here.
A three-hour-weekly syndicated weekend news and current affairs program hosted by CTV News Channel anchor Todd van der Heyden has been launched in its fifth market at 580 CFRA Ottawa. Viewpoints with Todd van der Heyden was originally launched on Montreal’s CJAD 800 in 2011 and can also be heard on Newstalk 610 CKTB St. Catharines, Newstalk 1290 CJBK London and CFAX 1070 Victoria.
CJLL-FM Ottawa wants the CRTC’s permission to reduce the minimum percentage of third language programming the station must air weekly from 92 per cent to 70 per cent. The owner of the station, Radio 1540 Limited, said in its application that the proposed change would better reflect the needs of the maturing multicultural community. As well, CJLL wants a requirement that the over-and-above Canadian Content Development contribution of $5,000 annually be deleted. Interventions/comments are due no later than Sept. 19.
Tomorrow (Friday) at 7 p.m. 101.9 DAWG FM (CIDG-FM) Ottawa will move frequency and rebrand as Rebel 101.7 with (Darryl) Kornicky in the Morning debuting on Monday. CHIP-FM Fort-Coulonge, which now has that frequency, will trade for 101.9. Owner Torres Media had CRTC approval to bump power to 19,500 watts from 5,500 based on it acquiring a new transmitter site. That deal fell through. As a result, CIDG-FM will remain at its present transmitter site (at 5,500 watts) until a new location is found. The CRTC granted approval in July to drop special interest music.
The CRTC has approved an application by Halifax’s French-language community radio station CKRH-FM to reduce the minimum spoken word content from 15 per cent to five per cent each week. The licence amendment is good for two years provides Coopérative Radio-Halifax-Métro limitée time to implement a recovery plan for the station. The station launched in 2007.
The Voice 97.7 FM (CIDO-FM) in Creston, BC has gone silent. The low-power community station which received its broadcasting licence in February 2005 had applied with the CRTC to renew their broadcasting licence which was due to expire August 31. But the CRTC got word on August 3 that the Creston Community Radio Society had closed the station and would not be seeking to renew the licence.
R.B. Communications Ltd. has received CRTC approval to change the authorized contours of CKYY-FM Welland by increasing its average effective radiated power (ERP) from 564 to 763 watts (maximum ERP from 3,100 to 4,250 watts). All other technical parameters remain unchanged.
General
JUNO Award-winning singer-songwriter Brett Kissel will receive the 2016 Allan Slaight Honour from Canada’s Walk of Fame. The Alberta native will be presented with the honour Oct. 6 in Toronto alongside this year’s inductees: Jeanne Beker, Fashion Entrepreneur, Television Personality, Journalist; Darryl Sittler, Hockey Player, NHL; Corey Hart, Musician; Deepa Mehta, Filmmaker; Jason Priestley, Actor, Director and Al Waxman, Actor, Director (Cineplex Legends Inductee).
Online Channels
The Canadian Music Reproduction Rights Agency (CMRRA) has signed a licensing deal with YouTube which allows the CMRRA to collect royalties on YouTube’s advertising revenue and subscription revenues on its subscription services distributed over Google devices. The deal partially paves the way for full-on deployment of YouTube video subscription in Canada.
Feature: From Local News Voice To Voice Of The Industry
Somewhere in that droopy-eyed no-man’s land between the dead of night and dawn, I would look up, past the spinning discs, to the digital clock on the wall. On cue, I’d leap up enthusiastically, bound out of the control room, down the hall past creative and engineering to the newsroom, where, if I timed it just right, the fax machine would be spitting out essential reading on the broadcast industry. Suddenly I was not alone while all my colleagues slept, I was transformed instantly, immersed in an entire community of cosmopolitan people with fast paced careers in far-flung places making big moves and leading exciting lives.
As the night guy, I was the first person in the station every Thursday to lay my eyes on Howard Christensen’s new publication for the Canadian industry – Broadcast Dialogue.
Half a continent away, somewhere in the concrete canyons of the big smoke, Howard Christensen was likely taking a brief pause, knowing that in a few hours he would begin the weekly gathering, reporting, writing, and producing cycle all over again.
And so it was for 24 years. Save for bi-annual breaks and one family emergency, Broadcast Dialogue never failed to arrive in inboxes and mailboxes of broadcasters across the country. On several occasions, Howard and Ingrid (who joined in the family business along the way) even managed to publish Broadcast Dialogue from cruise ships despite spotty internet connections.
Whatever it took, they kept the industry connected and informed. Almost 25 years later came the announcement of their retirement and an outpouring of accolades and well wishes followed from loyal subscribers.
Toronto born and bred, Howard made his world debut during one of the worst snowstorms in the city’s history. His father needed to shovel their street all the way to a major intersection so that he could take his mother to the streetcar since no cabs were running. Taxis couldn’t get out and the snow was up to the streetcar windows.
Growing up in the vicinity of Yonge and St. Clair, Howard remembers fondly venturing three blocks south to the CHUM building at 1331 Yonge, pressing his nose against the glass and exclaiming, “Wow! Really Cool.” Of course he would have no way of knowing that he would later work in those very hallowed halls of 1050 CHUM Toronto.
In fact, it wasn’t until age 24 that Howard felt compelled to respond to a job ad in the Toronto Star, which earned him his first exposure to broadcasting in the sales arena. But it wasn’t long before hanging out with the news guys made him realize that he should be working in the newsroom instead. Their sense of gallows humour and way of sizing up the world appealed to Howard. He had found his calling and was on his way.
During his career, Howard worked at CHAM Hamilton, CKJD Sarnia, and CHYM Kitchener. For 9 months during Howard’s gig at CHYM, he did overnights at CHUM Toronto on weekends but never made the on-air mistake of confusing the two. Later, he moved to CFRB Toronto, CJAD Montreal, and CKVR-TV Barrie.
Howard joined Broadcast News in Toronto in 1977 as a reporter/editor. When network newscasts were launched, Howard was one of the six original newscasters who helped take BN into a new era of Canadian news audio delivery.
Howard took every excuse to have fun on the job. During the talk-up to BN (now Canadian Press) newscasts – when there was a double-tone to indicate 10 seconds before the newscast began – he’d often start-up the network about a minute early and just talk for 40 seconds or so to whoever was out there. One time, on Grey Cup night, he bet a dollar that the east would win and that if anyone wanted in on the action to call him at BN after the newscast. He got quite a few calls, too. As it turned out, the east lost so he had to write quite a few cheques. Doing his bookkeeping about a month later, there was still a $1 cheque that hadn’t been cashed so he called the guy. The Alberta broadcaster said, “Are you kidding? A cheque from Howard Christensen? I couldn’t cash it. I framed it!” The other guys must have needed the dollar.
In 1981, then BN GM Bob Trimbee made Howard an executive assistant, and later promoted him to general executive. He had responsibility for Eastern Canada while Jerry Fairbridge was General Executive – Western Canada. Their respective areas of responsibility were defined by the Ontario/Manitoba border. It was during this time that Howard visited in-person the many stations and people that would later form his readership base.
Howard married Ingrid in 1984, whom he met while she was still living in her native Germany. She was introduced to Toronto radio listeners when Howard and his friend, the late Tom Rivers, then doing mornings at CFTR, made her a victim of his feature, The Call of the Day. Tom pretended to be from Immigration Canada and told Ingrid during a transatlantic telephone call that Howard’s third divorce hadn’t been finalized yet. Of course, he had never been married before. Hilarity ensued. And thus began a romantic and (later on) business partnership that has lasted 32 years.
Howard launched Broadcast Dialogue in 1992 as a weekly faxed newsletter and signed up his peers to subscriptions one-by-one, achieving a critical mass of readers surprisingly quickly. In 1998, Howard and his former colleague from his BN days, Barry Hamelin, began with a clean sheet and created the magazine. In January 2013, anticipating tectonic changes within the industry, Howard combined both iterations of Broadcast Dialogue into one weekly e-publication.
In the meantime, Ingrid joined the business playing the role of producer, to which she brought an extraordinary level of focus, organization, determination, and passion. Howard was the reporter and writer, applying his talent for spotting the story and communicating it with precision and brevity. Their complimentary working dynamic allowed them to collaborate, yet engage in spirited discussions on occasion about which stories should make the final cut and find a place in the Weekly Briefing. Ingrid proved incredibly proactive and efficient in tracking people moves within the industry and keeping subscriber information up-to-date, by every means available (including but not limited to stalking). The result is perhaps the industry’s most accurate, up-to-date subscriber and supplier database.
Together, Howard and Ingrid earned the recognition of their peers, with prestigious awards from the Central Canada Broadcast Engineers (CCBE), the Western Association of Broadcast Engineers (WABE), the Atlantic Association of Broadcasters (AAB), the Ontario Association of Broadcasters (OAB), the Western Association of Broadcasters (WAB), the British Columbia Association of Broadcasters (BCAB) and the Radio-Television Digital News Association (RTDNA), to name a few.
A consummate newsman, Howard is serious when he has to be but also loves to socialize and have fun – a fact to which everyone who has spent time with him at industry events will attest. Ingrid, as ever, is his high spirited and fun loving bookend. Fun promises to be a central theme to their “quasi” retirement, when time permits of course.
Howard and Ingrid published their last issue of the Weekly Briefing on June 30, 2016.
And true to their commitment to us all, they have and will continue to mentor the team that will carry their work forward.
Their legacy is one of passion, credibility, integrity, and trust. But most of all they fostered a sense of connectedness in the industry with every issue.
Thank you Howard and Ingrid for connecting Canada’s media and creating an amazing platform for what’s next. We go forward because of you. Somewhere out there, there’s an aspiring young broadcaster sitting in the dark who is depending on it.
Let the dialogue begin… anew.
