By David Farrell
Telling it as he sees it: At 93, billionaire Jimmy Pattison isn’t slowing down
Legendary Canadian entrepreneur Jim Pattison joins BNN Bloomberg's Jon Erlichman for a wide-ranging interview on the outlook for business and the economy. On the topic of the federal election, Pattison says, "I think the Conservatives are heading in the right direction" and that he likes their "general tone."
Rogers responds to rivals opposing its proposed takeover of Shaw Communications
In a document filed with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission late Thursday, Rogers says that acquiring Shaw would allow it to compete more effectively with Telus and BCE’s Bell Canada, as well as with foreign streaming giants such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney Plus.
The rival telecoms argue that if Rogers is permitted to acquire Shaw’s broadcasting distribution business – which includes a satellite TV service called Shaw Direct and cable networks in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Northern Ontario – it would control 47 percent of the English-language broadcasting distribution market. – Alexandra Posadzki, The Globe and Mail
Canada’s pointless pandemic election and its implications for copyright, content industries and digital platforms
As a ploy to gain a majority, Trudeau’s election call was a massive miscalculation as his polling numbers dissipated during the campaign. By election day, the status quo was looking like a good outcome for the Liberals. Trudeau will now need to continue to govern with the support of at least one other party, depending on the issue of the day. The new-yet-old configuration of government in Ottawa will have implications for many stakeholders, including copyright interests and content industries, as well as those closely linked with content distribution such as the digital and high-tech industries. -Hugh Stephens’ Blog
Booster shots could rake in billions for some vaccine makers
No one knows yet how many people will get the extra shots. But Morningstar analyst Karen Andersen expects boosters alone to bring in about $26 billion in global sales next year for Pfizer and BioNTech and around $14 billion for Moderna if they are endorsed for nearly all Americans.
Those companies also may gain business from people who got other vaccines initially. – Tom Murphy, Associated Press
Looking back at the legacy of alternative weeklies
The Georgia Straight's sibling publication, Toronto's NOW Magazine, is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year so for this week’s episode of the NOW What podcast I thought I’d step back and consider the larger impact of alt weeklies on journalism and arts coverage over the years. – Norman Wilner, The Georgia Straight
"Scoop! There it is" aside, sometimes famous songs DON'T help TV ads
What makes the GEICO/Tag Team commercial special is that the song parody is actually good. Unfortunately, advertising is littered with a long history of hilariously bad ads far below the standard of the music they use. – AccuRadio
Unlocking radio’s true value with on-demand news segments
For a while now, I’ve been saying in radio conferences that the way we make radio needs to change away from “the primacy of live”: that we might want to consider a different way of making the audio that doesn’t simply place live radio first and leave on-demand to just bits hacked out of live radio. If we produce pieces of radio as great-sounding pre-produced segments of audio that can be played out on the radio, but also work well in on-demand contexts, too, then we can get the best out of all the platforms we’re on, not just one of them. Steven Goldstein’s blog this week is a good one: “Unlocking local radio’s digital future is not about repurposing the same terrestrial signal”. That’s a much more erudite way of saying part of what I’ve been trying to say. – James Cridland, Radio Futurologist
Stop The Hate
According to product review site, Rave, the three most hated brands in the world are 1) Sony, 2) Tesla, and 3) Uber. The most hated fast-food brand is KFC.
Rave based this nonsense on the ratio of bad tweets to good tweets, which they call the "hate rate." Is there another industry in the world that promulgates more idiotic "research" than marketing? Bob Hoffman,The Ad Contrarian
