By David Farrell
Rogers shuts down CityNews Ottawa radio station, lays off newsroom staff
The outlet will maintain an online presence supported by two digital reporters, allowing audiences to get news, traffic and weather updates through the CityNews Ottawa website and its social media channels. – Sammy Hudes, The Canadian Press
Bell Media and Fox Entertainment Global announce new licensing, distribution pact
Bell Media and Fox Entertainment Global have struck a new licensing and distribution pact that sees the companies partner to support original Canadian productions for Bell Media platforms, including CTV and Crave, and FOX in the U.S.
The deal encompasses English-language scripted drama and comedies, unscripted competition, and docuseries, with CTV or Crave acting as the commissioning broadcaster. – Connie Thiessen, Broadcast Dialogue
Beware of value traps at fallen angels such as Corus Entertainment
… The fact that Corus faces significant headwinds shouldn’t be news to anyone. Private equity investors and rival broadcasters figured it out five years ago when the Shaw family-controlled company conducted a strategic review and failed to attract a buyer.
Potential Corus owners looked at the future of conventional television and decided their capital was better spent elsewhere. – Andrew Willis, The Globe and Mail
Social media postings on war are tricky territory for employers and employees
Employers are fiercely tethered to their own views on this war. Their views are clouding their legal judgment and causing operational turmoil. They are issuing internal and external statements that demoralize and sometimes isolate their employees. They are obsessively monitoring employee social media accounts and are encouraging other employees to spy on their colleagues as well (this can be seen as harassment). Most concerningly, they are moving quickly to fire before considering other options. – Muneeza Sheikh, Toronto Star
Tug-of-war over N.B.A. rights provides a glimpse of media’s future
The companies holding the rights to show N.B.A. games — Disney, which owns ESPN and ABC, and Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of TNT — are collectively paying the league $24 billion over nine years for that privilege. But their contracts expire after next season, and the N.B.A. hopes to more than double the money it receives for rights in the next deal, according to several people familiar with the league’s expectations… – Kevin Draper & Benjamin Mullin, The New York Times
Radio’s honestly the last thing we talk about
Radio's impact on the breaking music process has diminished and is no longer the tip of the promotional spear. The sequencing of the marketing strategy has changed. Now the proof of a project's efficacy starts with streaming results (the new data), and if a song makes the cut, the marketing campaign makes its way to radio – but well down the chain of events.
There's no question that radio still matters. It's just at a different point on the curve. – Fred Jacobs, Jacobs Media
Seven takeaways on global press freedom from the recent Thomson Reuters Trust Conference
On 19 October, hundreds of delegates congregated once more in central London for the Trust Conference, an annual event organised by the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Speakers included journalists, media workers, lawyers and human rights advocates such as Sebastien Lai, Jodie Ginsberg, Charlie Beckett, Rana Rahimpour and our Director Rasmus Nielsen. Here are seven takeaways from the conference on the situation of journalism worldwide. – Marina Adami, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism
BBC World Service announces emergency radio service for Gaza
BBC News Arabic will provide listeners in Gaza with the latest information and developments and safety advice on where to access shelter, food and water supplies. – BBC Media Centre
Thomson Reuters is planning to invest more than US$100 million a year in generative AI
The plans to invest in AI came as the company reported a third-quarter profit of US$367 million, up from US$228 million in the same quarter last year. – The Canadian Press
Putting a price on war and peace
What is the price of peace?
Or, put another way, how much better off would we all be in a world where armed conflict was avoided?
Around $14.4 trillion in 2019, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), which crunched the numbers. That’s about $5 a day for every person on the planet.
To give some context, 689 million people - more than 9% of the world’s population - live on less than $1.90 a day, according to World Bank figures… – Douglas Broom, World Economic Forum (Feb. 2021)
– FYI acknowledges Nieman Lab as a source for some of the stories in this column.
