Media Beat: August 03, 2020

Bruce Allen: Reality Check

By David Farrell

Bruce Allen: Reality Check

CRTC orders radio station CJMS 1040 to shut down

The country station, based in St-Constant, just south of Montreal, had a long history of failing to meet the requirements of its licence ever since it launched in 1999. Since then, five times the commission renewed the station’s licence for a short term, citing compliance issues mainly related to filing reports and recordings with the commission. – Montreal Gazette

Canada got better. The United States got Trump

,,, In raw terms: On July 22, the 37.5 million people of Canada recorded 543 new coronavirus cases and eight fatalities. That same day, the 328 million people of the United States reported a staggering 69,730 new cases and 1,136 deaths.

When you arrive in Canada, you instantly understand the basic cause of the disparity.

It’s not the health-care system, exactly—although that has coped better, too. A close friend in Los Angeles combatting cancer this week began to experience COVID-19-like symptoms. Her cancer treatment had to pause while she awaited first a test (a two-day delay) then the results (God knows how long). Meanwhile, my two Canadian nephews took the precaution of a COVID-19 test before coming to visit us in the country. They got the test on a walk-in basis. The results arrived a few hours later: all clear. – David Frum, The Atlantic

The music industry steers clear of Facebook ad boycott

While more than 1,000 companies are pausing Facebook spending due to the platform’s policies around hate speech, the music industry has mostly ignored the boycott — or even increased its ad buys. – Elias Leight, Rolling Stone

Microsoft confirms TikTok deal is brewing

Microsoft confirmed in a statement that it is not only in talks to buy US operations for the video social media platform TikTok, but also in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The tight deadline comes after a report that US president Donald Trump only agreed to allow Microsoft to negotiate the acquisition if it could secure a deal in 45 days. – Lianna Brinded, Yahoo News

Is Sarah Cooper the reason Trump wants to ban TikTok?

Cooper, of course, is the actress and comedian who has come to Internet fame by posting videos of her lip-syncing Trump's speeches and interviews to hilarious effect, whether it's him denying he retreated to the White House bunker because of a threat posed by protestors, dodging a question about what his favourite Bible phrases are, or, most memorably, recreating his now-famous “People, woman, man, camera, TV” interview. – Stuart Emmrich, Vogue

SiriusXM revenue down; CEO calls company “resilient”

The audio company saw ad revenue fall 34% in the quarter, though it said it compensated for this through “substantial” expense savings.

“Despite the incredible economic stresses brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, our self-pay net subscriber additions grew by nearly 200,000 over the first quarter of the year, and we reported improved churn of just 1.6% per month with rising ARPU,” said CEO Jim Meyer. – Paul McLane, RadioWorld

James Murdoch resigns from News Corp over 'certain editorial content' in news outlets

Rupert Murdoch's son James has resigned from News Corp's board of directors, saying he disagreed with some of the editorial and strategic decisions made by the company. – ABC News (Australia) & The Hollywood Reporter

‘This is a new phase’: Europe shifts tactics to limit tech’s power

European Union leaders are pursuing a new law to make it illegal for Amazon and Apple to give their own products preferential treatment over those of rivals that are sold on their online stores. – Adam Satariano, The New York Times (subscription)

Australia unveils its plan to make Facebook and Google pay for news

The new rules, which need to be passed by Australia’s Parliament, would require digital platforms to take part in negotiations with media companies over payment, Australia’s competition regulator said Friday. If the media companies and the platforms can’t reach an agreement during three months of talks, an independent arbitrator would pick a compensation plan from one of the sides. The decision would be binding. – Mike Cherney, WSJ

Day after Congress grilling, Big Tech stocks add US$250B in market cap

A day after their leaders faced five hours of interrogation in Congress over allegations their power and influence is out of control, four of the biggest American tech companies saw their combined market value swell by US$250 billion thanks to earnings that shocked even Wall Street.

Shares of Amazon.com Inc., Facebook Inc., Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc. built on already-torrid rallies after each reported earnings or revenue that crushed analyst estimates. Combined, the companies put up sales of US$200 billion in the three months ended in June, with Amazon reporting a record quarter. – Sarah Ponczek, BNN Bloomberg

Former President Obama's eulogy for John Lewis

Former President Barack Obama paid tribute to Representative John Lewis at his funeral last Thursday, and called on lawmakers to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. The full transcript can be found by linking to the headline.

Is dining out dead?

Food-and-hospitality services in Canada employ 1.2 million people, and the sector’s revenue of about $90 billion represents an estimated 5 percent of our GDP. When independent restaurants fail at the scale now being predicted—as many as 85 percent, according to a report commissioned by the Independent Restaurant Coalition, a US counterpart to Canada’s Save Hospitality, an alliance of independent restaurateurs formed in response to covid-19—they don’t just take down their owners but their employees, suppliers, farmers, and landlords, along with the value of commercial rent and adjacent residential real estate. Because how much is your house really worth in that trendy neighbourhood, the one with all the cool places to eat and drink, when half those places are boarded up? Restaurants are a load-bearing pillar of our culture and economy. – Corey Mintz, TheWalrus

Olivia de Havilland, the last lioness of the Hollywood studio system

…She peppered our conversation with memories of Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, and waxed sentimental about Paris, where she had lived for more than fifty years. She was spending her days working on her memoir. The book, which never emerged during her lifetime, was to be her second. Her first, Every Frenchman Has One, came out in 1962, nearly a decade after de Havilland relocated to Paris, where she moved into the town house on Rue Bénouville … That book was a series of disconnected, fish-out-of-water essays about an American diva in Paris, in which she complained about her French maid, who never scrubbed the bathtub, and marvelled that a woman in France could be considered attractive without big breasts. (“I know just as well as you do that back home in the States if a girl’s got a delicate, elfin 32 she has no choice but to commit suicide,” she wrote. “At the Lido, if you’ve got a delicate, elfin 32, you’ve got a job.”) … – Rachel Syme, The New Yorker