Updated @ 5:10 p.m
Monday August 30th was Michel Arpin‘s last day as Vice chairman, broadcasting at the CRTC. He joins the Arts and Sciences Faculty of the Montreal University, department of Communication as a visiting professor…
The Wall Street Journal reports Amazon Inc. is trying to create a service that offers paying subscribers unlimited access over the Internet to some television shows and movies, as it tries to take on Netflix and grab a bigger slice of the online TV business. The subscription service would be viewable on the Web, or through devices that play TV shows and movies Amazon already sells on an individual basis…
CBC plans to revamp and rename its late-night talk show The Hour as it enters its 7th season this September. Beginning Sept. 20, the show will be called George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight, the Corp. announced today…
Statistics Canada reports operating revenues among private radio broadcasters fell 5.2% last year, their first annual decline since 1993. Revenues totalled $1.5b in 2009 but ad revenues fell 5.5%.
StatsCan blames the economic downturn for the industry’s decline, as private radio profits came in at 17.9% cents for every dollar of revenue before interest and taxes — the worst performance since 2002. The industry’s profitability had steadily increased over the previous 10 years. Operating revenues increased in the potash-rich Saskatchewan by 6.7% and in Quebec by 1.1, but declined in all other regions. Unsurprisingly, Ontario led the country in profitability and Alberta radio broadcasters registered the worst result for that province since 1998…
Johnny Reid, Luke Doucet, Eels, Papa Roach and Heart among acts with new albums out today. A deeper list can be found on the Tuesday Guide blog here
The Experience Hendrix tour – featuring  Billy Cox, Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo, Steve Vai with Living Colour and others - is set to make a 2nd 2010 run in 19 venues in NA. Canadian dates as follows: Toronto, Sony Centre for the Performing Arts, Oct. 29; QC’s Grand Theatre de Quebc on the 29th; Montreal’s Place des Arts on the 30th and Ottawa’s NAT on Nov. 1. Sony Legacy plans another slate of reissues and deluxe packages in advance of the tour kick-off on Oct. 26 in Pittsburgh, PA…
New US satellite carrier statutory licence fees have been posted by the Copyright Board and can be found here
Event organizers of the Canadian Country Music Awards today announced Blue Rodeo, Edmonton-born actress and songstress Jill Hennessy, multi-nominated The Higgins, and one of this year’s Female Artist of the Year nominees, Carolyn Dawn Johnson have been added as performers to the televised show, staged at Edmonton’s Rexall Place on Sept. 12. Gord Bamford, Paul Brandt, Dean Brody, George Canyon, Terri Clark, Doc Walker, Corb Lund, One More Girl and Johnny Reid are also set to appear…
Chart up-dates for Radio 3 and DMDS…
Socan announces 5Â Echo Award nominees…
Miranda Lambert and Lady Antebellum emerged as the early leaders when the nominations for the 44th annual CMA Awards, announced this morning at the recently flooded Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. This year’s Awards show takes place Nov. 10 at the Bridgestone Arena in Mjuic City…
Organizers behind the 9th annual Music Therapy Ride have announced that a percentage of funds raised from this year will go to the Nimbus School of Recording Arts in order to build an in-house recording studio at BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver
Broadcast – Canadian Michael Riley, the GM  of Radio Disney, is named the new president of the ABC Family channel. The 40 year-old BC native joined Disney 2 years ago from Time Warner’s Turner Broadcasting…
Digital News — The CRTC yesterday ruled that large telecoms are obliged to make existing Internet access services available to alternate ISPs at speeds that match those offered to their own retail customers. The regulator also set a 10% cap on mark-ups for re-selling high-speed access; however, these benefits come as a blow to Telus and Bell which had hoped to divert finite bandwidth to pumping up TV content to gain market share over cable competitors’ Shaw and Rogers…
Naguib Sawiris, the billionaire scion of Egypt’s most prominent business family has made himself wealthy by setting up shop in Iraq and North Korea. The banker behind Wind Mobile is less enthused about doing business here, however. In fact, Sawiris thinks Canada a telecom backwater compared with the emerging markets in which he usually operates [G&M]…
Digital music service Zaptunes’ offer of a 30-day free trial to customers that commit their credit cards is raising red flags. According to Digital Music News, the alleged 8m-strong song catalogue includes unlicensed Beatles tracks that make the enterprise sound altogether phishy…
Responding to consumer complaints that 30-second song samples are too short to make purchasing decision on, iTunes is expanding audio previews to 60-seconds, a move that automatically triggers licensing fees…
Executives at News Corp are engaged in a hot debate over Apple’s push to discount pricing for TV shows online. Some worry that offering 99-cent episode rentals will cut into lucrative DVD sales and pull viewers away from watching network TV, thereby eroding a $20b advertising market. Others, including News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch, want to cement a relationship with Apple’s powerful chief executive, Steve Jobs, and reap benefits for other divisions within the company, namely newspapers [LA Times]
Copyright – The patent battle between small Canadian tech company i4i and software giant Microsoft Corp could be headed all the way to the United States Supreme Court [CBC]…
German collection society GEMA’s legal challenge to prevent YouTube from making 75 compositions available online has failed. The case relates to the expiry of GEMA’s licence with YouTube back in March 2009. GEMA had demanded new deal terms based on YouTube’s financial performance but neither side could reach an agreement
Social Media — MySpace now allows users to synchronize their updates with Facebook
Talent – “’I’m not doing this to be famous or earn money – definitely the wrong field to choose for that – but when people show up for a gig, it makes me so happy†– Actress turned songstress Jill Hennessy [G&M]…
Canadian folk crooner Stan Rogers’s most famous anthem celebrated the Northwest Passage. He. died young, leaving behind a son, Nathan, who grew up to be a folksinger and who, in a curious twist of fate, had to be rescued along with about 200 other passengers and crew from a cruise ship that ran aground in the Northwest Passage late last week [National Post]…
A growing band of rich old rockers is creating a stink about how the Internet is ruining the music biz, their sex lives and undoing their pension plans. MusicVoid’s Wayne Rosso oinks them in an article headlined ‘Pardon Me, Mr. Goebells’
Review – Richard Thompson employs a variety of writing approaches to his subject material, which includes corporate greed, hollow egoism, unrequited love and new awareness born of regret. Most of the dreams in Dream Attic are more like nightmares — but those are often the most revealing, if enigmatic, messages the subconscious chooses to send our way – Randy Lewis, LA Times
Obits – Opening in 1934, Detroit jazz club Baker’s Keyboard Lounge is looking for a buyer while its current owner files for bankruptcy. The asking price is $450k but the declining prosperity of Motor City and the golden age of jazz long faded limits redemptive options…
First published as the Oxford English Dictionary in 1928, the OED print edition is to be retired. The 20-thick volume set with its 291,500 entries  using 59m words takes up 22,000 pages, weighs 150lbs and retails for $1,165. Publisher, Oxford U. Press reports it is discontinuing the hardbound edition in favour of the more affordable 540Mb online-edition that sells for $295. An iPhone app is available as well for $20 [Daily Mail]…
Canadian production exec Ian McDougall, former head of production at Alliance-Atlantis where his work was honoured with 12 Emmys, aged 65…
Performer and recording industry veteran Leila Ann Greenstone, aged 76. Greenstone worked at Western Recorders in Hollywood in the 1960s and scheduled sessions for acts such as the Beach Boys, the Mamas & the Papas, Frank Sinatra and Andy Williams
