Media Beat: February 13, 2019

By David Farrell

Feds love advertising on foreign social media platforms

While the feds promise to pump up protection of homegrown media, the mandarins in Ottawa are throwing buckets of money at Facebook and Twitter to have their messages heard. – The Canadian Press

Bell Media secures media partnership on Rolling Stones concert

On Monday, we reported that Republic Live will bring The Rolling Stones into Burl’s Creek Event Grounds in Oro-Medonte, ON, on Saturday, June 29, marking the final stop on the North American leg of the No Filter tour and the only Canadian show for The Stones.

The single show is expected to attract as many as 70,000 ticketed fans. Tix on sale Feb. 15 via Ticketmaster. What we failed to add is that Bell Media is the official media partner of ‘Canada Rocks with The Rolling Stones’ concert, which begs the question: How does the multimedia colossus plan to market the event? I’m sure more news about this will be forthcoming.

NYT’s digital ad revenue exceeded print in Q4

Digital advertising surpassed print advertising for the first time in the fourth quarter, jumping 23 percent to $103 million. Print advertising fell 10 percent, to $88 million. The company also generated more than $709 million in digital revenue last year, growing at a pace that suggests it will meet its stated goal of $800 million in digital sales by the end of 2020. – Jaclyn Peiser, The New York Times

RIP

Josef “Joe” Schlesinger, who narrowly escaped the Nazis as a young boy growing up in the former Czechoslovakia and ended up becoming one of Canada's most respected journalists, has died after a lengthy illness.

He was 90 years old.

As a foreign correspondent for the CBC, Schlesinger covered some of the most significant news events of the latter part of the 20th century and early 2000s.

He bore witness to historical events from Vietnam to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the first Gulf War, and he did so in his inimitable way, with his accented English, his gimlet eye for detail and the elan of a born storyteller. – CBC