By David Farrell
BC names feature in the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal
The international data mining scandal has many ties to B.C., including to a company called AggregateIQ – CBC News
CRTC application aims to offer new pay-audio service
A company called "3305670 Nova Scotia" (which is part of Ethnic Channels group, located in Markham) has applied to the CRTC for a new national pay audio service, featuring 68 different channels.
What would they do? According to the CRTC release:
"The applicant proposes to devote approximately 43% of its programming to content category 2 (Popular Music) music selections derived from a variety of genres, including pop, rock, dance and easy listening.
The remainder of the programming would include oldies (7%); instrumental (11%); specialty music, including classical, world, jazz, blues and opera (36%); and programming directed to children (3%).
In addition to English- and French-language channels, the service will offer a minimum of nine third-language channels." – (Via Radio Active/Sowny Board)
Finalists announced for the 69th National Newspaper Awards
The Globe and Mail leads all entrants in the 69th National Newspaper Awards competition with 18 nominations.
The Toronto Star has 12 nominations and La Presse has eight in the competition, which is open to daily newspapers, news agencies and online news sites approved for entry by the NNA Board of Governors.
The Edmonton Journal and Winnipeg Free Press each have three nominations, while the Canadian Press, the London Free Press, the National Post, the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal, the Ottawa Citizen and the Vancouver Sun/Province have two each. Seven other organizations received one nomination each.
There are 63 nominations in 21 categories, selected from 881 entries for work published in 2017.
Canadian whistleblower at centre of privacy scandal testifies in UK
Canadian computer expert Christopher Wylie on Tuesday told the media committee of the British parliament that he “absolutely” believed AggregateIQ drew on Cambridge Analytica’s databases for its work on the official Vote Leave campaign. – The Star
Tofino’s Tuff City Radio silenced by failure to pay rent
Tuff City Radio, which usually broadcasts at CHMZ 90.1 FM, has been off the air since Feb. 15.
Station manager Cameron Dennison released a statement to Tofino business owners on March 20, 2018, that said the transmission was shut off because McBride Communications failed to pay its landlord, the CBC, for the use of the tower space located on Barr Mountain. – Tofino/Ucluelet Westerly News
CRTC revokes 21 basic international telecom service licenses
Most of the license-revoked companies are VOIP providers – Mobile Syrup
Google Search starts rolling out mobile-first indexing
The bigger picture here is that Google wants to “encourage webmasters to make their content mobile-friendly.” Even if the mobile-first indexing does not affect ranking right now, Google still evaluates all content in its index to determine how mobile-friendly it is.
Google already ranks “mobile-friendly” sites higher and negatively grades mobile interstitials. In July, Google’s search engine will start ranking faster mobile pages higher as well. – Venture Beat
Spotify expects its paid subscriber ratio to hit 46% by the end of 2018
In its filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last month, Spotify revealed that it had 159 million monthly average users (MAUs) as of December 31, 2017, of which 71 million subscribe to a $10 monthly ad-free plan. In effect, 44 percent of its users are now on a paid plan. By the end of this year, Spotify projects that it will have between 198 million and 208 million MAUs, of which 92 million to 96 million are paying. – Venture Beat
SoundMachine, Napster partner for music streaming service aimed at businesses
SoundMachine has partnered with Napster to create a new premium music subscription for retailers and companies of all sizes. Business Premium powered by Napster blends SoundMachine’s scheduling and management features with Napster’s music programming tech and catalogue.
Nielsen Podcasting Insights: A marketer’s guide to podcasting
Podcasting continues to evolve as it engages and entertains growing audiences. And avid podcast fans can play a crucial role for marketers and advertisers looking to identify what’s next for this burgeoning medium. Nielsen’s first-quarter 2018 Podcast Report defines “avid podcast fans” as those with the highest scores in Nielsen’s Fanlinks Survey asking households to rate their interest in various genres of podcasts. In Fall of 2016, 13 million homes identified as “avid fans.” In Fall of 2017, the number of homes who consider themselves “avid fans” surged to 16 million. This growing level of engagement means more opportunities for advertisers and marketers to connect with their audiences.
Will investors see a return in this ‘golden age’ of podcasts?
The problem is building a large enough roster of content and sufficient features to make a paid subscription service worth the money. Just as with news content during the first internet bubble in the late 1990s, users now have a strong expectation that podcasts should be free. To change that attitude will require a delicate balancing act: aggregating lots of premium content and building features that people want to pay for, while taking into account the fact that people expect most podcasts to be freely available on all of the major podcast apps. – Forbes
Stakeholders Continue to Analyze Early Results of FM Switch-off in Norway
Three months after the national FMs were shut down, a listener survey shows the new digital stations have up to one-third of all radio listening – RMB
BBC Director of Radio and Music Says Analog FM Shutdown Would Be “Premature”
The Beeb's Bob Shennan wants to keep FM radio for the foreseeable future – RMB
65 percent of the Indian population will now have access to FM radio...
MUMBAI: Here is the first 2018 good news for FM lovers. As of now, the FM radio network covers 52 percent population and soon it will be expanded to 65 percent population in the country – RMB
The way you listen to music is in jeopardy. Here’s how Pandora plans to survive
Elizabeth Moody, Pandora’s vice president of global content licensing, has been navigating the changing music landscape for more than a decade while working at a litany of streaming services such as YouTube, Myspace Music, BitTorrent, Kazaa, Rdio, MOG, and Imeem. Digital Trends spoke with Moody about what needs to change for music streaming services to become profitable, if Pandora could ever become a record label itself to cut licensing costs, and how music streaming compares to streaming video.
Getting away with murder
Impunity in the killings of journalists can be an intractable cycle stretching over a decade or more, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists' 10th annual Global Impunity Index, a ranking of countries where journalists are murdered and their killers go free. Seven countries on this year's index have been listed every year since the index launched a decade ago--including Somalia, which is the worst country for unsolved murders for the third year in a row.
US PR firm secretly placing articles in Conservative-leaning publications
Does anybody care that much about contact lenses? Well, big corporations like Costco and online retailers like 1-800 Contacts sure do. And a BuzzFeed News investigation has linked the authors of at least some of the wave of contact lens op-eds to a stealth corporate propaganda campaign that saw a Washington, DC, public relations firm place articles for its clients — often without the knowledge of the editors who published advocacy for everything from payday lenders to online gambling. – BuzzFeed
