By David Farrell
What Was Said
I had a call this morning to let me know that one of the volunteers at co-op radio had decided to pre-empt my show and do one of his own. To be honest, it was pretty good and heartfelt. A little rough around the edges, but I've had the same comments for most of my career. He clearly needed the time more than I did.
This reminded me of the old days when things were more “fluid,” and Dave Marsden would say to me at CHOM FM, “mind If I do another hour? I’m feeling really good and wanna pull together a few more sets.” Or John Donabie at CHUM FM saying, “this Band interview is going to go long ok?” Then there was Mulli, Marshall and Pratt at the Fox pulling a prank that kept me dancing for an hour and late for my shift.
More recently Jody Vance said: "Gord Downie was my Elvis" and played all his/their songs she wanted to. I love this stuff. I’ll tell ya, community radio has a heart. And yes, it is messy and a little rough around the edges. Much like we used to be! – Don Shafer, LinkedIn
Disney’s new video streaming service is coming to Canada in November for $8.99 a month
Walt Disney Co. said on Monday it will launch its Disney+ video streaming service in Canada and the Netherlands on Nov. 12, the same date as its previously announced United States launch. – Reuters
BCE: CRTC wholesale decision impacting investment in rural broadband networks
Following the CRTC's August 15 decision to significantly lower the wholesale rates that third-party Internet resellers pay to access network infrastructure built by providers like Bell, the company today announced the estimated $100-million impact of the CRTC's order will reduce the scope of Bell's broadband Internet buildout for smaller towns and rural communities by 20%, or approximately 200,000 households.
"The CRTC's decision transfers capital from providers like Bell who are building Canada's modern broadband networks to wholesale resellers that invest little to nothing – and there's no assurance or requirement from the CRTC that any of it will be dedicated to network buildouts or otherwise passed on to Canadian consumers," said Mirko Bibic, Bell's Chief Operating Officer. "Putting this kind of unexpected and retroactive tax on capital investment is not the way to ensure the continued development of Canada's Internet infrastructure."
In 2018, Bell announced the rollout of its new Wireless Home Internet (WHI) service to bring high-speed Internet access to houses, farms and small businesses in areas that are difficult for providers to reach with fibre or traditional cable Internet access. Bell's original WHI rollout plan to serve 800,000 small-town households in Manitoba, Ontario, Québec and Atlantic Canada was expanded to more than 1.2 million locations following the federal government's introduction of the Accelerated Investment Incentive in November 2018. Bell has already rolled out WHI service to more than 130 small communities in Ontario and Québec. – BCE news release
Canada’s Competition Bureau broadband study mostly positive
The report’s conclusion suggests that technological advancements could exacerbate the “existential challenge” faced by facilities-based providers as they struggle to justify the costs of updating and maintaining physical infrastructure in the face of new infrastructure-light, wireless competition. – Victoria Hale & Michael Laskey, Stikeman Elliott
Election 2019: What Canada is doing to prevent foreign interference
Because the threat of election meddling can come from both domestic and foreign actors, the efficacy of some of the government’s tools to combat such interference may be limited. The two main barriers to the efficacy of legislative efforts to quell election interference by foreign state actors and non-state actors are jurisdiction and enforcement. – McCarthy Tetrault
Telecommunications services price indexes: Q4 2018
The cable, satellite and other program distribution services price index declined 3.2%, compared with the same quarter in 2017. Both cable, satellite and other program distribution services, and the fixed telecommunications services (except Internet access) price indexes declined in the fourth quarter of 2018, compared with the same quarter of 2016. This decrease is consistent with an observed reduction in the number of household subscriptions for both of these services, as reported in the "Subscriptions & Expenditures 2013-2017" section of the CRTC's 2019CMR. – StatsCanada
Canada’s political parties won’t say what they know about you
Despite several political privacy scandals in recent years, there’s no Canadian federal law allowing individuals to find out what political parties know about them, and how. – Andrew MacLeod, The Tyee
The Score expands US sports gambling presence
On the heels of a successful deal to enter the Pennsylvania sports gambling market, Canada’s theScore wants to see how well it can perform in New Jersey. It’s not a bad move, given the fact that the Garden State continues to give Nevada a run for its money, and theScore has now received approval from regulators to introduce its sports gambling app to “a select group of sports bettors” in New Jersey. – Eric Gibbs, CalvinAyre.com
Quebec government says it will invest $5M in a French-language newspaper chain that sought bankruptcy protection Monday
Le Groupe Capitales Médias owns daily newspapers in some of Quebec's largest markets, including Quebec City's Le Soleil, Le Droit of Gatineau-Ottawa and Trois-Rivières's Le Nouvelliste. he Quebec government says it will invest $5 million in a French-language newspaper chain that sought bankruptcy protection Monday.
Le Groupe Capitales Médias owns daily newspapers in some of Quebec's largest markets, including Quebec City's Le Soleil, Le Droit of Gatineau-Ottawa and Trois-Rivières's Le Nouvelliste. – CBC News
Compass looks to Canada for its first launch partner
It’s been five weeks since we announced that the first Compass Experiment site was coming to Youngstown, Ohio and since then, we’ve been hard at work building that idea into a plan.
… In seeking a partner for our first experiment in Youngstown, we looked North of the Great Lakes and found kindred spirits in Village Media.
Village Media started as a single hyperlocal news site in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario and has grown into a network of small, community news sites that spread across Canada. – Mandy Jenkins, The Compass Experiment
Australia is taking on the digital behemoths of Facebook and Google, while the rest of the world watches closely. But will Canada follow?
After an 18-month landmark study, the final report from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission on regulating big platforms and to encourage media competition was released in July. It didn’t get a lot of attention outside the country initially, but it is a watershed moment for consumers in the digital era as global regulators are examining whether it provides a blueprint for the future. – Tony Wong, The Star
Open or closed: Who will control the paid-podcast experience, podcasters or tech companies?
The PodPass proposal is a response to the pre-existing trends in the podcast industry, not an attempt to engineer a new direction. “We don’t need to incentivize or create [the direct-monetization] phenomenon. We are just proposing a way to make it more effective,” says Jake Shapiro, CEO of RadioPublic. – Caroline Crampton, Nieman Lab
Tucker Carlson returns as advertisers flee
Since December 2018, Carlson has lost over 70 paid advertisers. Over the past 11 days, at least five advertisers — HelloFresh, Nestle, SteinMart, Calm and SoFi — have removed their ads from Tucker Carlson’s show, and many more have quietly distanced themselves. One major Fox News advertiser, Long John Silver’s, was so frustrated that it removed its ads from the network entirely. – Media Matters
Furious Trump blasts Fox News Poll: ‘I don’t believe it’
“Overall, 56 percent of voters disapprove of Trump’s performance, up from 51 percent in July,” Fox News reported. “Record numbers of men (53 percent), white men (46 percent), and independents (64 percent) disapprove. His disapproval rating has only been higher once: 57 percent in October 2017.” – Cody Fenwick, The National Memo
5G phones come with sticker shock
About 10 million 5G handsets are expected to ship this year, reaching 74 million units in 2022 and 425 million in 2023, according to IHS.
The good news is that prices of 5G phones should drop to between US$700 and $800 within the next few years, according to the study. – Chuck Martin, Media Post
CNN increasingly sees itself as subject to threats after incidents involving Cuomo, Lemon, Ryan
Some CNN correspondents travel with security when reporting at Trump’s rallies. The network has also reminded its employees about security concerns but hasn’t said anything specific internally in the wake of the Cuomo, Ryan and Lemon episodes.
A CNN executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly, called the Lemon suit “a shakedown” and pointed a finger at the president for giving people license to attack journalists. – Paul Farhi & Sarah Ellison, The Washington Post
Cord cutting will decelerate in Q3
Satellite carriers, which lost customers at a rate of 10.2% in the second quarter, may be done hurting themselves, analyst Craig Moffett says. Perhaps the best argument for a reduced loss rate, he noted, is that “eventually, the customers who most wanted to leave will have left.” – Daniel Frankel, Multichannel News
Facebook coffee shops are here, and the app city is next
Free coffee, loaner bikes, and public events: These are some of the amenities that tech brands and banks offer at a new generation of retail spaces. – Mark Wilson, Fast Company
6 accessories for on-the-go multimedia content
These days, you don’t need more than a phone to produce excellent multimedia content. You can shoot video, record audio, edit and publish all from your small device. To make your stories professional and well put together, though, you’re going to want to invest in some extra gear and accessories. – Taylor Mulcahey, ijnet
Google testing monetization tool enabling YouTubers to host virtual events with fans
The events-centric product is called Fundo, Variety reports, and would allow creators to invite fans to virtual meet-and-greets and other online events for a fee. For instance, infotainment vlogger Jessii Vee (1.4 million subscribers) and Roblox creator KreekCraft (753,000 subscribers) have used the service to host live video chats with subscribers. (KeekCraft sold tickets for $10 apiece). – Geoff Weiss, Tubefilter
The rise and fall of the most dangerous publisher in America
A contract killer, a two-bit swindler and a former Republican politician. What do they all have in common? They were all convicted criminals, and they all learned how to commit their crimes from instruction books available from Paladin Press’ catalog. If there ever was a university for prospective criminals to learn the trade, titles from Paladin would certainly be marked as “required reading.” – Nicholas Greyson Ward, MEL
How the CIA made Google
Insurge Intelligence breaks the exclusive story of how the United States intelligence community funded, nurtured and incubated Google as part of a drive to dominate the world through control of information. Seed-funded by the NSA and CIA, Google was merely the first among a plethora of private sector start-ups co-opted by US intelligence to retain ‘information superiority.’
The origins of this ingenious strategy trace back to a secret Pentagon-sponsored group, that for the last two decades has functioned as a bridge between the US government and elites across the business, industry, finance, corporate, and media sectors. The group has allowed some of the most powerful special interests in corporate America to systematically circumvent democratic accountability and the rule of law to influence government policies, as well as public opinion in the US and around the world. The results have been catastrophic: NSA mass surveillance, a permanent state of global war, and a new initiative to transform the US military into Skynet. – Nafeez Ahmed, M
Why I 'married' a cartoon character
There is a word in Japanese for people who are obsessed with video games and anime - otaku. An increasing number of otaku now say they have fallen in love with anime characters and given up on the idea of real-world romance. – Stephanie Hegarty, BBC News
Stephen Fry explains the ‘$20T secret’ endgame behind Brexit supporters
How will wealthy Brexiteers profit from Brexit? The surprising truth about the world's most secretive tax network for the wealthy.
