Here’s my latest update on local media stuff:
- CKUA is celebrating 90 years on the air – it’s first air date was November 21, 1927. “After starting as a University of Alberta extension service for farmers, CKUA now has 16 FM transmitters from Fort McMurray to Lethbridge, with 250,000 weekly listeners.” The Faculty of Extension is hosting a live CKUA broadcast from the atrium of Enterprise Square from 6am to 12pm on Tuesday.
- Bell Media is laying off employees at radio and TV stations across the country. An estimated 50 jobs are being eliminated in this latest round of cuts. Here in Edmonton, TSN 1260’s Wil Fraser appears to be a casualty of the cuts. He used to co-host the morning show with Dustin Nielson. “All the best…started together in 2002” tweeted Jason Gregor.
- Peter Weissbach, former on-air host and program director at CJCA Edmonton, passed away from cancer on November 11. “The launch of 630 CHED as a news/talk format and the signing off of CJCA coincided under his watch,” tweeted Scott Johnston.
- From Vintage Edmonton: CJCA Fabulous 40 Survey from November 14, 1965.
- CBC Edmonton’s Rod Kurtz, host of Radio Active, lost a bet with CBC Calgary’s Doug Dirks and had to sing the Calgary Stampeders’ fight son on-air.
- The Alberta Podcast Network has launched a new roundup “of what the members and affiliates of the Alberta Podcast Network, powered by ATB, have been putting into the world lately.”
- Elise Stolte and David Staples are launching “a city/urban related podcast” and they’re looking for a name for it.
- Episode 78 of the Seen and Heard in Edmonton podcast features Meredith Bratland, “a writer and traveller who has turned her curiosity about people from elsewhere into a podcast called Migration Patterns.”
- Chad Huculak reminds us that it has been two years since the Edmonton Sun moved from its old building.
- The National Film Board of Canada is looking for a Producer for the NFB North West Studio here in Edmonton. The deadline to apply is November 24.
- 92.5 Fresh FM flipped over to its all-Christmas format on Saturday.
- Postmedia writers continue the speculation that 630 CHED’s Ryan Jespersen is a potential leadership candidate for the Alberta Party.
- iMEDIA has announced its dates for 2018: the conference will take place at MacEwan on March 9 and 10.
Premier Notley speaks at AAMDC conference, photo by Premier of Alberta
And here is some slightly less local media stuff:
- In a recent report, the CRTC said “that last year, almost half of Canadians subscribed to some sort of online video service, such as Netflix, CraveTV and others.” And: “Among those between 18 and 34 years old, almost two-thirds subscribe to such a service.”
- They say it started before Jeff Bezos came along, but increasingly the Washington Post is a software company, offering its Arc Publishing system to other publications as a service.
- BuzzFeed writes about podfasters, “a subset of podcast obsessives who listen to upward of 50 episodes a week, by…listening extremely fast.” I like to watch videos and listen to some podcasts at 1.5x, but that’s about my limit. Many of these folks listen at speeds of 2x or higher!
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!
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