By David Farrell
Survey: Radio owns ‘lion’s share' of audio listening in Canada
AM/FM radio continues to be the largest source of audio listening for Canadians, according to the most recent Radio on the Move survey from Signal Hill Insights and Radio Connects.
Consistent with time spent listening in spring 2022, AM/FM’s share of time spent with audio was at 39%, according to an online panel survey of 3,114 Canadians, 18+. Podcasts (7%) and free ad-supported music streaming (6%) were each down one point, while paid music streaming was up one point (14%). Signal Hill’s Jeff Vidler breaks out the facts in the webinar below.
Galaxy Broadband to battle Elon Musk for remote internet service in Canada
A new player will soon offer access to high-speed internet in remote and rural communities: Ontario’s Galaxy Broadband has just announced it is teaming up with U.K.-based OneWeb in a $50 million U.S. multi-year deal to provide low-orbit satellite internet service in direct competition with Musk’s Starlink. Rollout of the service is already underway in Nunavut… – Clarrie Feinstein, Toronto Star
The Last Tango: Shaw at the altar waiting for Rogers
Rogers Communications Inc and Shaw Communications Inc said earlier this week that they have extended the deadline for their $26 billion merger from the close of January to Feb. 17 as the companies await government approval.
The deal requires the final approval from Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne for the transfer of spectrum licenses held by Shaw’s Freedom Mobile unit to Quebecor Inc’s Videotron.
The best advocate for Rogers’ deals is rival Telus
… Telus documents disclosed during court hearings this fall show the Vancouver-based company’s tactics ranged from writing NDP leader Jagmeet Singh’s speaking notes against the deals to considering mobilizing opposition from western alienation activists and “meme factories” such as Canada Proud. – Andrew Willis, The Globe and Mail
Lisa LaFlamme is just getting started
… LaFlamme, calmly sailing above the wreckage, has her eyes on other horizons. She is an advocate for women in her industry, but equally important—possibly more important—is her advocacy for women around the world. “So much of my focus is on the women and girls who are oppressed—like in Afghanistan, Iran, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the countries that are very close to me,” she says. “That is where our energy needs to be directed.”
If you ask LaFlamme which stories struck a particular emotional chord, she mentions being in a tent in Northern Iraq with a group of Yazidi women, one of whom showed her most treasured possession: a photo on her iPhone of her daughter, who was being held as a sex slave by ISIS forces. Those are the stories, overlooked by the rest of the world, she still wants to tell. – Elizabeth Renzetti, Chatelaine
It ain’t over
… A medium won't die if the content contained therein is what the public wants. That's obvious, and in the past, that meant doing music testing and focus groups. Today, it's about that plus looking at the competition and determining what you can offer that others can't or won't. Radio should be concentrating on personality and demonstrable engagement, which means doing a lot more than shutting up and playing the hits or doing the same kind of talk radio that you were doing 40 years ago or having an intern or corporate "digital editor" posting generic gossip on Facebook. For podcasting, it means finding topic and audience niches that are underserved, amping up the personality and entertainment factors, and curbing the urge to spend a lot more on production than revenue will cover. Quality content may not be everything, but it's the basis for everything. You can't make money for long if nobody wants to listen to or watch what you do… – Perry Simon, All Access
From Pamela (Anderson), with love
Ladysmith, B.C.’s hometown glamour puss debuted a nearly two-hour dishy Netflix almost tell-all doc on debuted Jan. 31. Here’s the trailer.
Notable
– Open-source code runs on every computer on the planet—and keeps America’s critical infrastructure going. This has the US military concerned – MIT Technology Review
– Google has shared a new AI research project called MusicLM that uses AI to make music, and it’s the latest AI to make artists scared for their jobs. – Brad Bennett, Mobile Syrup
