The CRTC’s meddling ways
By Frank Moher
I like a good government intervention as much as the next failed banker, but the current CRTC meddling with the internet should send chills down the spine of anyone who uses the instrument — like, say, you.
The commissioners are looking into the question of whether or not internet service providers should have to [...]
A Frank appreciation
By Frank Moher
Your feckless Media blogger has been off cheating with his other mistress — theatre, of all things — which is why this section has been quiet as a dying newsroom lately. While I was away, Canada lost one of its few genuine sources of shit-disturbance, Frank magazine. Its folding was duly reported but [...]
Tweeting Gustav
By Frank Moher
I followed Hurricane Gustav not on CNN, not on the newspaper websites (and certainly not on the newspapers themselves), but via Twitter. What, you may ask, is Twitter? Twitter is a service that allows you to post messages to the web of up to 140 characters. Initially the idea was to tell the [...]
Lockdown
By Frank Moher
The recent Supreme Court of Canada decision in favour of Vancouver broadcaster Rafe Mair was a big step forward for Canadian journalists and their readers. Mair had been sued by a “Christian-values advocate” who thought he’d defamed her, but the Court ruled 9-0 that “an overly solicitous regard for personal reputation” should not [...]
Don’t let the music play
By Frank Moher
Until I attended the recent CRTC hearing in Vancouver, I had no idea how much time is spent deciding which sort of music serves the greater public good: Triple A, smooth jazz, adult urban, or alternative rock.
Or world beat, or indie, or oldies, or R&B;, or active AC, or traditional AC, or gospel, [...]
None for you, Mr. Canadian
By Frank Moher
I have lately begun to feel that I am ten again, and living in Edmonton in 1965. In those days, we had two TV stations, CFRN and the local CBC outlet. It was also in that year that I first travelled to California with my family to visit our American cousins. Besides Disneyland, [...]
TelevisionWithoutAnOffButton
By Frank Moher
The news that Disney had snapped up the Kelowna-based website Club Penguin in a deal worth $700 million US (which, if I’m not mistaken, would be enough to buy the city of Kelowna itself) diverted attention from another Canadian internet-success buy-out story this year: the sale of televisionwithoutpity.com to the US Cable TV [...]