Radio-Canada Television’s general manager, Mario Clément, is leaving the Corporation.

In a brief news release, Radio-Canada said the “decision was reached by mutual agreement between Mr. Clément and Radio-Canada management.”

Mario Clément joined Radio-Canada as General Manager of Programs in May 2003. He later became General Manager of Télévision de Radio-Canada in November 2006. Mario is “a passionate devotee to the cause of public television,” Radio-Canada said.

Clément’s departure will not result in changes to the TV schedule, the structure and content of the 2008–2009 season have been decided for several weeks now.

The head of French services, Sylvain Lafrance, I will assume Mr. Clément’s duties until a new General Manager is appointed.

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	Email this	Posted at 2:19 pm (05 Jun 2008)

Star Choice has decided to drop yet another channel in its lineup in addition to CBC Saskatchewan — it has now dropped RDI, the CBC French news channel, in all Anglophone markets.

The CBC launched another formal complaint with the CRTC this week. RDI is on a very small list of channels that all providers are required to carry with their basic package, and the CBC argues that Star Choice is now in violation of its broadcast licence.

Earlier this week, five local news channels, including CBC Saskatchewan, were replaced by specialty channels like MuchMusic and Teletoon Retro by Star Choice.

Perhaps they got rid of RDI because they needed room for the Golf Channel?

	1 Comment »	See also: Radio-Canada, Saskatchewan, The CRTC
	Email this	Posted at 11:06 am (16 May 2008)

Easy come, easy go.

After all of the happy stories in the last little while about the CBC website being unblocked in China, a CBC employee was not amused to learn that the Radio-Canada site has now been blocked in China again.

Cedric Sam, an Internet Analyst for Radio-Canada, posted an article about this on his own blog in French. Here is a translated summary of the article:

“For six months, the website of Radio-Canada was blocked to internet users in Continental China. A week after Hubert Lacroix sent a letter to the Chinese Ambassador regarding this situation, the Chinese were allowed to view Radio-Canada.ca and CBC.ca.

“While on a trip in the Chinese province of Guangdong, I noticed that while in Shenzhen Radio-Canada.ca was not accessible. A “server not responding” message appeared when I tried to access both the portal site and the news site, while CBC.ca was accessible.

“Two friends in Beijing confirmed with me the next morning that the Radio-Canada website was not available there either.”

	5 Comments »	See also: CBC.ca web site, Other Internet, Radio-Canada
	Email this	Posted at 1:52 pm (09 May 2008)

The CRTC this morning approved the CBC application to operate a transmitter at Whistler B.C. to rebroadcast the programming of its national French-language network service, La Première Chaîne. The new transmitter will operate at 103.1 FM with an average effective radiated power of 240 watts. The Commission received one intervention in support of this application.

	Add Comment »	See also: Asides, Radio-Canada, Transmission, Vancouver
	Email this	Posted at 11:58 am (24 Jan 2008)

CBC Radio 2 and Espace musique is working on a really cool sounding broadcast celebrating the life of Glenn Gould. It’s a 10-day event from September 25 through to October 4. (The dates are significant; September 25 would have marked Gould’s 75th birthday, while October 4 marks the 25th anniversary of his death.)

But I think the really cool part of the project will be a live broadcast from six different cities — each city hosting its own pianist doing a variation of Gould’s music.

While the concert is going on, photos sent in by Canadians will be mixed live by a visual DJ. You can send in your photos here.

I was in Montreal earlier this week and I chatted with Hugues Sweeney, one of the CBC/Radio-Canada people working on the project. (In the video, I misspelled Hugues’ first name. Agh.)

	3 Comments »	See also: CBC Radio 2, Canada Live, Radio-Canada, Specials
	Email this	Posted at 7:24 am (14 Sep 2007)

Virginie, the daily evening soap opera on Radio-Canada, has recruited Quebec premier Jean Charest to do a quick video clip to welcome users to the site.

Politicans have done cameos on programs like the Rick Mercer Report, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, and CTV’s Corner Gas, but this is the first time I’ve heard of a politician acting in a kind of promotional capacity for a show.

Virginie airs Monday to Thursday on Radio-Canada French TV. It is produced externally.

What do you think? Is having a politician appear in this manner a good thing? Improper? Maybe you couldn’t care less?

	5 Comments »	See also: Radio-Canada
	Email this	Posted at 11:52 am (12 Sep 2007)