By David Farrell
Canada Post celebrates a century of radio broadcasting in Canada
A pair of stamps issued May 20, celebrate the broadcast of the first Canadian radio program. On that evening in May 20, 1920, Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of Canada station XWA – for Experimental Wireless Apparatus – broadcast the first Canadian radio program to a Royal Society of Canada gathering at Ottawa’s Château Laurier. The closed broadcast included a live performance by soprano Dorothy Lutton, delivered from the Marconi factory studios in Montréal. – Canada Post
Ghomeshi’s back
And this time, he has unnamed investors and the support of a prominent member of the Iranian-Canadian community. – Jonathan Goldsbie, Canadaland
It was the most explosive story of the past century. And the media got it wrong
The story of Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia was a hoax. So, where are the acknowledgements of this calamitous fiasco?
... All the journalists who bought into this fable, and they were the majority, were wrong. They were dead wrong. The collusion story has proven to be a hoax. It has collapsed. It is not just Monty Python’s famed dead parrot — (E’s kicked the bucket, ‘e’s shuffled off ‘is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!) — it is a whole flock of dead parrots. It is as dead, as Dickens declared of Marley, as a doornail. – Rex Murphy, National Post
Analyst predicts TV ad spend is to take a major hit
Major advertisers like Pepsi and GM are looking to pull out of upfront advertising contracts in Q3, according to the Wall Street Journal. That would leave the space even worse for wear after a rough H1: eMarketer's pre-pandemic forecast predicted TV ad spend would increase by 2% in 2020, but we now anticipate a drop of between 22% and 29% for H1 2020. – Nina Goetzen, Business Insider
US ad market tanks 35% in April
Sequentially, the total value of the U.S. Ad Market Tracker -- an index representing total volume of advertising buys made in the U.S. -- fell 30% from March, and 35% from February, which was the last "normal" month of U.S. ad demand prior to the effects of the pandemic on ad spending. – Joe Mandese, Media Daily News
Spotify’s $100M+ Joe Rogan deal redefines its podcast strategy
Spotify has spent approximately $600m on podcast-related acquisitions in the past 18 months, including its buys of Anchor FM ($154M), Gimlet Media ($195M) and Parcast ($55M) last year, plus Bill Simmons’ sports podcast The Ringer (up to $196M) in Q1 2020.
The $100m Joe Rogan deal, which isn’t an acquisition but a licensing deal, reportedly takes this podcast spend up towards the three-quarters-of-a-billion dollar mark. –– Tim Ingham, Music Business Worldwide
Dear Media Cofounder Michael Bosstick aims to amplify female voices with $8M Series A
With more than 40 podcasts by top female voices on its roster and over 150 million episode downloads to date, the funding will be used to grow Dear Media's talent slate, create original IP and build brands across social and digital platforms. – Karin Eldor, Forbes
What the US media’s most powerful execs were paid in 2019
The new light casts unflattering shadows on some of the chiefs in our group. Take Bob Iger. The Disney executive chairman’s $47.5 million package made him our highest-paid chief for 2019. It would take 911 years for average Disney employees — a group that includes low paid theme park workers — to make as much as he did last year. But his company ranked 858 among the 922 that JUST Capital analyzed in paying workers a living wage, 893 in charging fair prices for its products or services and 908 in paying the CEO fairly in relation to workers. Fox, which paid Rupert Murdoch $42.2 million in 2019, ranked 882 among all companies in the diversity and inclusiveness of its workplace. – David Lieberman & Brent Lang, Variety
Atlantic Media cuts nearly 20% of US staff
Atlantic Media, owner of The Atlantic magazine, is the latest media and news organization to suffer the brunt of the pandemic’s impact following job cuts at Vice Media Group, The Economist Group and Quartz Media Inc. last week. – Arriana McLymore, Reuters
Unarmed ‘black man’ doesn’t mean what you think it means
A search of the archive reveals that NPR has used the phrase 82 times in the past year. Five of those were headlines, 26 were in newscasts read at the top of the hour. And most of those references — 65 to be exact — occurred since Arbery was killed in February. In that same time period, "unarmed white man" does not appear anywhere in NPR's coverage. Most of the time, when a journalist writes or says, "unarmed black man," she is using the phrase as code … – Kelly McBride, NPR
Nearly half of the accounts tweeting about coronavirus are likely bots
Researchers culled through more than 200 million tweets discussing the virus since January and found that about 45% were sent by accounts that behave more like computerized robots than humans.
It is too early to say conclusively which individuals or groups are behind the bot accounts, but researchers said the tweets appeared aimed at sowing division in America. – Bobby Allyn, NPR
Aiming for novelty in coronavirus coverage, journalists end up sensationalizing the trivial and untrue
When a clear beginning, middle, and resolution are not discernible, the demand for any morsel of new information can confuse, rather than clarify, the story.
Journalists rushing to amplify any small update can mistakenly inflate its importance with sensational headlines or hyperbolic broadcast framing. – Michael J. Socolow, NiemanLab
Covid chuckles
India goes in to lockdown and suddenly the Canadian Revenue Agency is no longer calling with a warrant for my arrest.
- All of a sudden having a mask, rubber gloves, duct tape, plastic sheeting and rope in the trunk is OK.
- Since those beauty salons closed, selfies dropped like the stock market.
– Every few days it would be smart to put your jeans on to make sure they still fit. Pajamas and sweats will have you believe all is well.
