Media Beat: May 11, 2018

By David Farrell

Radio Sleepytime brings bedtime stories for Syria's bereft children

Canadian Brigitte Alepin’s brainchild Radio-Dodo is a bilingual radio station with stories, songs and segments to help Syria’s scattered kids get to sleep – The Guardian

La Presse's move to non-profit model signals 'historic' evolution for Canada's newspapers

For Edward Greenspon, former editor-in-chief of the Globe and Mail and author of a federal government-commissioned study earlier this year on news in the digital age, it marked a "historic day in the evolution of Canadian newspapers."

"It's an admission that the profit model doesn't work anymore…” – Benjamin Shingler, CBC News

Torstar posts a $14.5M Q1 loss

In its outlook for 2018, Torstar said it’s planning between $11 million and $13 million of operating expenses related to transformation efforts, of which only $1.4 million were recorded in the first quarter. – David Paddon, The Canadian Press

Bell organizes NB flood relief radiothon

Six Bell Media radio stations in New Brunswick teamed up to air a flood relief radiothon Thursday, May 10, to raise funds for the Canadian Red Cross disaster relief campaign in the sodden province that so far has displaced 1,000 people from their homes.

CTV partners with Netflix for SCTV reunion

The reunion special is set to make its debut in 2019. Under the partnership, Netflix will premiere the title globally in all territories, except Canada, where it will premiere exclusively on CTV. Following CTV's airing, the SCTV comedy special will be available only on Netflix in Canada and worldwide. – Press release

Daniel Caesar triumphs at Canadian Radio Music Awards

The Oshawa-born neo-soul singer and songwriter added two CRMAs to his mantle - FACTOR Breakthrough Artist of the Year and Nielsen Talent Development Story of the Year - at the Wednesday, May 9, edition of the awards show, now in its 21st year. – Nick Krewen, FYI

Music industry org protests CMW panel

The executive director of an organization that advocates for women in the music industry will step down from a panel discussion at Canadian Music Week to protest the lack of diversity on the panel – Lynn Saxberg, Postmedia

Canada’s new cell phone plans ‘suck’?

Critics are panning the lower-cost, data-only wireless plan proposals submitted by Bell, Rogers and Telus to the CRTC after the regulator told them they had one month to come up with cheaper plans that would be available nationwide – Kieran Delamont, Vice News

Gerry Forbes joins Matt Cundill on the ‘Sound Off Podcast’

This week I had a chance to speak with Gerry Forbes who recently retired from CJAY 92 in Calgary. We talked about some of those legendary stunts, growing up Forbes, being a little brother to Marty Forbes, what makes a great program director and working with up and coming talent on his show. We also spent a few moments talking about what makes Calgary such a great city and running with the likes of Bret Hart and Doug Flutie.

CHEX TV broadcasting veteran Graham Hart retires after 45 years

Born in Nova Scotia, he came to Ontario to pursue a career in radio. In 1973, while working at a station in Chatham, he was approached by CHEX to come to Peterborough and make the move to television, to read the news, sports and weather. He said he’d stay for a year, but it stretched to 45 years. – Steve Guthrie, Global News

You can’t handle the truth about Facebook ads, Harvard study shows

The research team tested what would happen if targeted ads were automatically accompanied with explanations of the targeting process, rather than requiring curious users to find the right button. The results are stark and telling – The Intercept

Comcast prepares $60B bid to gatecrash Disney-Fox deal

The jockeying between Disney and Comcast for more media assets makes sense. American consumers are cutting their cable subscriptions and spending more time online with services like Netflix, so legacy companies are looking for ways to scale their business and build influence.

Why Liberty Media has excelled buying so-called ‘troubled brands’

Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei sounds a little tetchy when asked about the sharp drop in his company’s stock price over the past six months.

Liberty, he says, has “performed as well, if not better than anybody” — with shareholder returns up an average of 25% a year — in the 13 years since Maffei left his job as Oracle’s CFO to help John Malone run his burgeoning media empire.

He has a point. By gambling on fixer-uppers, instead of the trophy properties that most moguls covet, Maffei, 57, has emerged from Malone’s shadow to become an industry powerhouse.

In addition to running holding company Liberty, Maffei is chairman of Sirius-XM, Pandora Media, Live Nation Entertainment (which owns Ticketmaster), Liberty TripAdvisor and Qurate Retail — the recently rebranded owner of QVC, HSN and Zulily. He’s a director of Charter Communications, the No. 2 cable operator (Liberty is the largest stockholder), and online real estate service Zillow.

He’s still dealing. Maffei could dominate music as he angles to control iHeartMedia – David Lieberman, Variety

John Cleese, left red-faced after bill to curb UK press freedom fails

The Minister of Silly Talk had vowed to leave Britain if the Leveson inquiry intended to restrict press freedom was unable to win support from MPs. The Monty Python actor has since rethought his plans to move, tweeting out: “Only one problem: our cats like it here.” – The Sun

Christiane Amanpour: Why I have hope for journalists

Despite the horror of what happened in Kabul, and ever-tightening censorship all over the globe, I know journalists everywhere will continue to pick up their gear, go out, and cover the important stories -- even if it means they could become targets – CNN