the np: --30-- ?

Maybe. If the court say so. (cbc.ca) You hate to speak ill of the dead, and there are going to be a lot of journalists looking for work when this thing flames out, but I want to see what happens when the neo-con hacks in the editorial department realize that they're casualties in a free-market system. They never thought that this day would happen to them.

Your cable bill is about to go up $10 a month …

… thanks to the CRTC (Inside the CBC). With this, the federal government has successfully forced the Canadian public to subsidize the business stupidity of Canwest and Bell Globemedia.

Bill Brioux (TV Feeds My Family) provides Satan in the details.

"One shocking little detail buried in the fine print in today's CRTC funding announcement: after all that whining from broadcasters--yes, those same "Save Local TV" guys--about how all those local news costs are breaking their business models, the CRTC has lowered the minimum local programming levels to 14 hours a week in big cities and just seven hours a week in "non-metropolitan markets." That is an hour a day. So here is more money--go out and do less."

An hour less local TV. Hmm. Are some of these guys about to get layoff notices? (CTV Regina)

Friends in High Places

You know how the National Post always keeps harping on how the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is unfairly encroaching on their territory because of its subsidy?

Pot, meet kettle. What color is it? (TorStar)

Tip of the lynch lid to Warren Kinsella

More on the CanWest Death March

Bill Stovin's blog posts what has been the gossip around the journalistic water cooler in Regina: the L-P (or at least CanWest Global, its owners) is too broke to bring in its usual seven student journalists at half-pay (the U of R pays the other half). They're not the only media outlet to suffer hard times, but after seeing the latest L-P TV Times that ran with only one ad (from Old Fashioned Foods, who should REALLY be advertising with prairie dog) in the whole thing, I just wonder how much longer the paper will go on. I still think that the paper is profitable -- at least for now, because it seems to me that Regina's business tendencies run about five years behind the rest of the world's -- but if it's going to survive in the long term, it's got to be run in a way that the management isn't beholden to a future shorter than the next business quarter, and believes that people read newspapers -- not just look at the ads.

Canwest wants out of local television?

Canadian Media Guild president Lise Lareau has her own blog, and has taken the time to take a look at what CTV Globemedia and Canwest Global want to do with their networks during the latest round of CRTC hearings. In short, local programming and Canadian content will be toast if they have their way.

Which leads to the inevitable question: If Canwest Global or CTV Globemedia doesn't care about our community, then why should we care about what happens to Canwest Global?

Media Pundits: Mark This Day On Your Calendar

CanWest's deadline to negotiate their way out of the path of an oncoming multi-billion dollar debt train has been extended to March 11. Bankruptcy looms, will our hero escape?

Stay tuned, true believers! (Toronto Star)