Media Beat: November 16, 2018

By David Farrell

The Influentials, as named by Toronto Life

Randy Lennox's career ascendancy flies like an eagle. His latest accolade is being named in Toronto Life's 2018 Influentials list. Hey, Doug Ford cops first place, but when you are the big bruiser in Canada's biggest city, it's hard not to give the man his due. Like Donald Trump, he can't be avoided, or overlooked. Lennox makes the list as Canada's top name media star, and why not? Bell Media's president is one of media's biggest stars, and he has the cash to back his plays. He's a non-traditionalist with vision and understands the synergy that plays in the multimedia game today. Below is what Toronto Life has to say about him, and below that we've added a few words of our own.

"While much of traditional broadcast media retrenches, Lennox, the shot-caller at Canada’s media giant, has gone on a spending spree. He snapped up a stake in Pinewood Studios and Just for Laughs, partnered with Lionsgate to bring the premium pay TV service Starz to Canada and, when Rogers dumped Vice, scooped up the Viceland library. He also launched the BNN Bloomberg channel and welcomed Michael Bloomberg to Toronto for the festivities. Lennox was one of the primary forces behind the Martin Scorsese–directed SCTV retrospective, which will air in 2019. Friends in high places: Bono, Sting, Shawn Mendes and Kiefer Sutherland."

And we add, he’s the guy who brought the iHeart brand to Canada, teamed up with Michael Cohl and a few other heavy hitters to bring Bat Out of Hell to the stage in Edinburgh, London, New York, and Toronto, and wrote a sizeable cheque to fund the creation of The Launch. His Rolodex is platinum, and the stars just love him.

Corus nabs former Mindshare Canada director

Corus' SVP of marketing and social digital agency reveals why Darcy MacNeil was the ideal choice to head its social content studio. – Media in Canada

Bell offers limited time discount for new Crave TV subscribers

According to a company press release, Bell is offering a 50% off promo that runs through until December 10 that proffers a discount for new customers for their first four months on a monthly subscription or an annual subscription for the price of nine.

DHX Media reports $2.4M loss

The children's entertainment company says it lost $2.4 million compared with a profit of $8.1 million a year ago, due to a larger non-controlling interest in Peanuts and a non-cash write-down in deferred financing charges. – CP

Steve Faguy’s latest Media News Digest

President Trump, CNN Correspondent Jim Acosta and @NBCNews Correspondent @PeterAlexander engage in tense exchanges in a post-election news conference. pic.twitter.com/WUlXemGn7y — NBC News (@NBCNews) November 7, 2018 There was a whole thing about CNN's Jim Acosta and Donald Trump getting into a thing at a press conference that led to Acosta's White […] – Fagstein blog

Strike looms at Globe and Mail

Unionized workers at The Globe and Mail could be on strike by midnight Wednesday as they seek pension protection and an end to a pay gap between male and female employees.

The 320 Unifor Local 87-M members, including reporters, editors, circulation/operations and advertising sales staff, have been negotiating with the Globe for six months.  Talks have been stalled for the past two months with virtually no movement from the employer, who is also demanding a two-year wage freeze and an increase in employee benefit premiums. – Unifor press release

YouTube named sponsor of ABC’s ‘New Year’s Eve TV show

YouTube Music has reached a multi-year agreement with dick clark productions to be the presenting sponsor of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest.

The agreement follows YouTube TV’s deals to be the sponsor of high-profile sporting events on TV including the World Series and the NBA Finals. – Broadcast & Cable

Radioplayer intros new touch touchscreen dashboard

The ‘hybrid’ prototype is multiplatform, able to play DAB digital radio, FM, and Internet radio streams. But unlike most modern car radios, the Reference Radio shows a single list of stations across all those platforms. There’s no need to select different sources like DAB, FM, or Internet first – the driver just taps a station logo to play it, and the system does the rest. – Radio Today