Media Beat: August 07, 2019

By David Farrell

Polling data and copyright: Who will win the next election?

The fact that each pollster has their own “secret sauce” to try and improve the accuracy of results is an important differentiator. The innovations and techniques that they use to filter out discrepancies and reduce the margin of error becomes their own intellectual property (IP), and that IP can be protected by copyright. This brings me to the nub of the issue being played out in Canada in a dispute between the public broadcaster, CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) and some political pollsters with regard to the use of their polls to predict the forthcoming October election. – Hugh Stephens Blog

Rogers turns to viewers to support Omni channel’s existence

With more than three decades of experience and demonstrated commitment serving Canada’s multilingual and multicultural communities, the CRTC decided in favour of OMNI’s 9(1)(h) licence bid – a vote of confidence of our expertise and capacity to continue delivering the exceptional ethnic programming Canadian viewers deserve.

Some of our competitors have appealed and are challenging the CRTC’s decision. We are strongly defending our win and need your help. The future of OMNI depends on your continued support. You can do this by adding your voice to our campaign using the letter-and-social buttons below. Please join us again as we rally to defend the future of OMNI Television! – Rogers online petition

Stop trying to stuff the internet in our decades-old regulatory policies

What the nation needs at this time is not a new telecommunications policy or a new broadcasting policy to give the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) fresh tools. It needs an entirely new communications policy and infrastructure that at its heart is an internet policy. – Peter Menzies, Financial Post

Accusation: Radio still involved in payola

In addition to direct payments to people in programming positions, industry veterans say that money passing from record labels or artists to radio stations for the purpose of influencing playlists often takes a subtler, more circuitous route. Payments are fuzzily described as promotional, and funneled through independent promoters who are frequently compared to “consultants” or “lobbyists” for hire. – Elias Leight, Rolling Stone