Media Monday Edmonton: Update #24

Here is my latest update on local media stuff:

• Don’t miss Kikki Planet’s feature on Ryan Jespersen and Kari Skelton – Movember’s Power Couple. Great write-up, and great photos by Jimmy Jeong too. Here’s a short excerpt: “The schedule this young “power couple” keeps is unimaginable to most of us, and yet in addition to the somewhat inhumane hours required by their jobs, the duo are always willing to support a local charity via public appearances, championing a cause, and charity event hosting.”
• Here is Todd Babiak’s last column as a staff writer at the Edmonton Journal. He tweeted about his departure on November 2: “A passionate thanks to everyone who has followed my regular columns in the @edmontonjournal over the years. I’ve been very lucky. #sucky” Todd will continue to contribute to The Journal as a freelancer, but will devote most of his time to Story Engine.
• As I mentioned in my list of unfunded growth projects included as part of the 2012-14 Capital Budget documents, CKUA is looking for a $5 million grant from the City of Edmonton to help it move into the rebuilt Alberta Hotel.
• Avenue Edmonton’s August issue is going to focus on Edmonton’s Best Neighbourhoods. You can help by completing their survey. Which neighbourhood do you think is best?
• Among the latest inductees into the Hockey Hall of Fame was Edmonton’s own Terry Jones. Here’s a great profile at NHL.com. And here’s an ode to Terry by Cam Cole.
• Edmonton native John Roberts has returned to our city as the new Program Director at Capital FM. He fills one of the positions that opened up when Patrick Cardinal moved to Astral in August.
• Duane English shared his final forecast for Global Edmonton on Friday. He’s off to BC.
• The Canadian Innovation Exchange (CIX) has partnered with Edmonton’s own Empire Avenue to create a virtual stock exchange for Canada’s top digital media and ICT companies. It’s great to see a locally founded social media play gaining traction elsewhere in the country!
• Here is Karen’s Edmonton New Media Roundup from last week. Watch for her next update!
• Following a successful field trial over a 350km network between Calgary and Edmonton, Shaw has launched the nation’s first 100 Gigabit per second fibre-optic network. That’s ten times faster than Shaw’s existing fibre-optic network! You can learn more about the new packages here.
• Today was the kickoff for the Christmas Bureau’s annual campaign, and that meant gingerbread house decorating for the local media! The Journal has a gallery of the gingerbread houses here. CBC’s house won “most festive”. Here’s a look at the Up! 99.3 team. Here’s the always shameless BT Edmonton gingerbread house. Here’s the SONiC 102.9 house. Nice branding on The Unknown Studio’s house! I’m sad I couldn’t be there today, but it looks like everyone had a great time!
• Think back to February 4, 2011. That’s the day CFMG-FM switched from EZ Rock to Virgin Radio. What was your first thought? For many Edmontonians, it was probably something like “what about the Christmas music?!” Well fear not, Lite 95.7 has got you covered! They switched to 100% Christmas music at noon on Saturday and will continue like that for the rest of the holiday season.

• But wait, they aren’t the only ones with Christmas music! You can also get 100% Christmas music at up! 99.3 FM – they also switched over the weekend, and will be playing nothing but until Box Day. And talk about taking it to the next level – their website even features a Christmas fireplace Ustream!

• This is a long read, but it’s worth it. Michael Shapiro, writing for the Columbia Journalism Review, examines how The San Jose Mercury News nearly seized the future. Lots of great lessons and takeaways from this, for all of us, but especially those of you working at mainstream media organizations that might be finding it difficult to embrace change.
• A new report that examines how mainstream media outlets use Twitter made the rounds today. Though I find the sample size (3600 tweets over the course of a week) ridiculously small, I am not terribly surprised that the central finding is mainstream media outlets use Twitter primarily to promote their own stuff.
• Social Media Breakfast #12 is coming up on Friday, November 25.
• And since there are just 12 tickets remaining as I write this, I better give you the heads up on CTV Edmonton’s Charity Tweetup, taking place on November 29. You’ll get to tour the  studios, meet the personalities, and witness a live CTV evening newscast. Very cool idea – I hope they do it again!
• This Venn diagram comes from the latest Edmonton Journal newsletter, and shows that according to the Fall 2010-11 NADbank results, “there are only 37,200 people who visit the Sun’s site exclusively each week.” It seems specifically calling out the Edmonton Sun isn’t common practice for The Journal, so I thought that was interesting.

  

• Lots of great information in Marty Forbes’ column from October 31. He notes that NOW 102.3 recently received its 1-millionth text message since debuting just 18 months ago.

You can follow Edmonton media news on Twitter using the hashtag #yegmedia. For a great overview of the global media landscape, check out Mediagazer.

So, what have I missed? What’s new and interesting in the world of Edmonton media? Let me know!

You can see past Media Monday Edmonton entries here.