Plusieurs suggestions pour de courts séjours sont mises de l’avant à Toronto, Ottawa, Montréal et Halifax. Chaque destination est présentée par l’œil curieux d’Annie-Soleil Proteau. Les vacances débutent à bord du train et ces capsules nous font vivre l’expérience VIA Rail. Diffusées depuis le 16 juin dernier, elles sont aussi disponibles sur le site Web de l’émission ici.

Bon visionnement, et bonnes vacances à tous!

CTV is #1: we heard/saw it on screen at least 25 times during the one hour presentation (yes we counted!). Instead of sticking to the ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ motto, CTV decided to invest in #1 shows today, in order to maintain their #1 position in the future.  While we applaud the effort in pursuing this strategy and understand the imposition of US programming, we are left feeling lukewarm as to the potential success of their new acquisitions. Further, their modifications in top 20 programming slots lead us to wonder: will they remain a strong #1 for a 10^th year in a row, or will Global close in on the gap on a national scale? Also, with Rogers (Citytv) coming in with a strong fall programming schedule which includes the top ranked show out of the US upfronts, The Event, there’s definite potential for market share shifting.

Let’s start with the sure bets – there’s no question – CTV has a lot of them. They include: Grey’s Anatomy, The Amazing Race, Desperate Housewives, Law & Order: SVU, Criminal Minds, The Mentalist & Dancing with the Stars. What about CSI and American Idol, you might be wondering? We would have included the CSI franchise in this list had it not been for major alterations in its programming slots. Mondays certainly won’t be the same without Horatio, admit it, you love his cheesy lines! CSI: Miami moves to Sunday night following Desperate Housewives, CSI: NY moves to Friday nights and CSI changes timeslots to Thursday 7pm.  Regrettably, the appointment viewing that the CSIs had built is no more because CTV is at the mercy of US simulcast.  Will American Idol continue to grow despite the loss of America’s favourite villain?  Only time will tell, but rest assured you can get your Simon fix on The X Factor in the fall of 2011 (yet another singing competition). And for the gazillions of you that miss seeing Paula on the tube, you will be able to catch her on Got to Dance in 2011 as well (yes, another dance show).

Let’s continue with the many new series on CTV, 11 in total.  In the past, we have always classified them as must-sees, this year however we need to wait and see what will become of them.  The underlying theme in the new programming is comedy, whereas in the past the strength of CTV has always been with drama hits. To name a few: Mr. Sunshine featuring the return of Matthew Perry, $#*! My Dad Says with William Shatner & The Defenders with Jim Belushi and Jerry O’Connell.

There is one new show that caught our eye: Law & Order: Los Angeles (LOLA). Assuming it will be at the height of the Law & Order-brand series, we deem that this will be the big hit of the new lineup.

A shout-out goes to CTV for continuing to produce & promote Canadian series (8 in total) – including Flashpoint which steals a spot in the top 20 and continues to air in the US.

Oh and one more thing: Conan’s back! Funny thing, his show may be airing too late for many of us to enjoy.  Expect to laugh weekdays at 1am following the Daily Show and The Colbert Report.

CTV’s sister station /A\ continues to take on some of CTV’s programming such as Two and a Half Men and The Vampire Diaries but also acquired 3 new programs: Mike & Molly, Hellcats & Nikita.

Ultimately, regardless of what happens in the Canadian television market as a whole, we are confident that CTV Montreal will keep its strong lead, and stay #1!

On est très fier de notre Jean-Pierre qui nous lance un petit défi pour ce week-end. Faites 5% de son kilométrage en vélo… 21,4 km. Question de lui envoyer de l’énergie!

Pour le suivre et devenir ami facebook de son équipe, cliquez ici.

Détail du Grand Défi Pierre Lavoie

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

That might very well be the recurring theme of most TV networks for their fall 2010 programming. Who can blame them for sticking to the best programs and strategies, especially after a year of profound questioning about the future of television and continued economic turmoil?

Interesting to note is that in the fall 2010 programming intro, CBC’s host expressed concerns that were raised in their Toronto preview a week prior about the lack of new programs. The thing is, CBC has been searching (for quite some time) for a pattern in their schedule that would ensure stability to its audience and comfort to its advertisers. After many years of trial & error, the 2009 schedule has paid off, and CBC is proud. Due to its mandate, CBC has introduced many new original productions and it’s now time to rely on the success built in the last year and watch it grow.

This past success can be credited to shows such as The Hour, Rick Mercer Report, and Dragons’ Den, which will benefit from increased spending this fall and thus enabling tons more of ‘I’m iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin’s!’ (hopefully from Arlene, our favourite!).  Battle of the Blades, a new program in 2009 that initially lacked industry buzz surprisingly generated good results and hence will also be returning this fall. In the upcoming season we will be seeing more behind-the-scenes footage as requested by viewers as well as a new line-up of great athletes such as Russ Courtnall and Theoren Fleury just to name a few … we can’t wait to see them on the ice again!

Only two new shows were added to the schedule; All For One and Men With Brooms. Firstly, All For One will feature Debbie Travis travelling across the country on the search for unsung heroes among diverse communities. Although the concept is noble, it is hard to predict the fate of the show due to the fact that the content itself remains outside of the decorating realm. Secondly, Men With Brooms (based on the Canadian movie bearing the same name) will feature four 20-something guys, curling & humour, all with an authentic feel. With Paul Gross as a collaborator and the recent hype surrounding our Canadian athletes during the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, we deem this series to be promising; after all, Canadians surely can’t wait to hear the melody “haaaaaaaaaaaarder, hurry haaaaaaaaard” once again!  In any case, both new programs will benefit from their positioning on the schedule with Battle of the Blades as a lead-in.

T! Highlights: Sincere congratulations to the CBC team behind the Montreal 2010 Fall Preview. In under 40 minutes the overall schedule was presented and core programming was discussed with a great video that summed it up in a visual nutshell.

Finally, we would like to draw attention to the impeccable work of George Stroumboulopoulos, host of The Hour, the highly acclaimed current affairs-meets-talk show program, arguably one of the best of its kind on both sides of the border, and definitely our team’s favourite. A last shout-out goes to Being Erica which remains a strong series that our American cousins can now enjoy under the name The Importance of Being Erica (oddly, the series will be broadcast on a non-SRC network in September, which is a shame).

Mais un popcorn ça se partage. Que pensez-vous de cette programmation de l’automne pour TVA?

P.S. Toutes nos analyses de la télé pour l’automne 2010 sont accessibles en cliquant sur le tag “pop corn”. (dans la marge de gauche)

À l’aide d’un concours où les gens étaient invités à s’inscrire sur le site de NRJ Montréal et décrire l’état de leur par-brise, 6 participants ont eu l’opportunité de recevoir l’équipe mobile de Lebeau à l’endroit de leur choix pour remplacer leur pare-brise (bureau, maison, stationnement public, etc.). Des interventions en direct d’une minute commentées par le reporter Benoît Cossette de NRJ qui accompagnait l’unité mobile Lebeau, ont été diffusées aux heures de grande écoute du lundi 31 mai au mercredi 2 juin. En plus de gagner du temps, ces gagnants ont reçu un certificat cadeau de 300$ en bon d’essence. Cette campagne fût un grand succès suscitant l’intérêt des gens à participer et à communiquer les éléments uniques du service mobile de Lebeau offert à Montréal et les environs.

lebeau.ca

Écoutez les extraits audio

Lebeau Vitres d’autos-Mentions-NRJ_31 mai 2010_8 h 15

Lebeau Vitres d’autos-Mentions-NRJ_31 mai 2010_9 h 14

That said, you’ve probably already seen the original Social Media Revolution by Erik Qualman, author of Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business book as well as his Socialnomics blog. The YouTube video has been seen over 1.9 million times, inspiring a slew of copycats.

A couple of weeks ago Erik released a follow-up video aptly called Social Media Revolution 2. In reality it’s not true follow up, more like a refresh of his first video. SMR2 has mostly updated information on social media & mobile and a few new statistics that are hard to ignore according to the author.

I won’t run down to you everything on the video because a lot of the information between SMR1 and SMR2 repeats itself, but here are some of the new and updated statistics in SMR2.

• 96% of Millennial‘s (people born after 1982) have joined a social network.
• In SMR1 Facebook added 100 million users in the last 9 months. SMR2 states that Facebook added 200 million users in the last year.
• If Facebook were a country it would be the 3rd largest country in the world, in front of the United States.
• 80% of companies use social media for recruitment, 95% of them use LinkedIn.
• Ashton Kutcher and Britney Spears have more followers on Twitter than the population of Sweden, Israel, Switzerland, Ireland, Norway and Panama.
• Some universities have stopped distributing email accounts to students, instead they are giving them eReaders, iPads and tablet computers.
• More than a 100 hours of video has been uploaded on YouTube in the time it’s taken you to watch SMR2.
• If you were paid $1 every time an article was posted on Wikipedia, you would make $1,712.32 an hour. In SM1 that number was just over $156/hour.

At the end of the video Erik asks us if we still think if social media is a fad… I’m not sure, and I’ve never liked to make predictions when it comes to human behaviour. I’ll be honest, I can’t picture it going away and I think it’s here to stay but will continue to evolve in ways we can’t imagine yet.

I was inspired by Erik’s video to post this article and by chance a small book was dropped on my desk last week that I think can help our clients get a better picture of what’s going on right now. So in a selfless act of self promotion I’d like to mention that PHD has just released their second guide on the current media landscape called Fluid: PHD on Harnessing the Rising Speed of Influence (available for free here) that gives a very up to date bird’s eye view on the current social environment. In case you’re curious, the first one was called 2014: PHD on the Future of the Media Agency (also available for free).

Having just read Fluid, I think it’s a great guide that can help show our clients the current barriers they must face if they want to jump into the social landscape. One such barrier, which will probably be the hardest for most clients to deal with, is transparency. We’ve all seen examples in the last year of brands (that I will not mention) committing this faux-pas in the social media landscape. I commend these brands for taking the risk and rolling with the punches.

I believe that we must make our clients (big and small) realise that the relationship with their customer has changed; it’s no longer a simple, one-time transaction. Because of the web landscape and the social environment, more and more customers are coming into stores with more knowledge on the product than the employees at the store. Customers like these are devoted to brands and should be nurtured because they will become brand ambassadors and an invaluable asset.

So where does this leave media agencies when their clients ask them to include “social media” sites in their media plans? One thing that has become very clear and that we NEED to make our clients realise is that a simple banner on social networks or a Facebook/Twitter account will not do it. We need to let our clients know that we are in a world where brands have the opportunity to become their own specialised content networks. These specialised “networks” can now easily connect directly with their fans and brand ambassadors through social networks and they will in turn share, chat, tweet, blog and share news about their products.

From a media planners point of view I think our job has become much more of a collaborative effort with our clients. Media agencies and planners need to become brand ambassadors and work even more closely with clients and help guide them in this brave new world.

We’ve been working hard on our end here at Touché! PHD to build a social media offer which will be revealed soon. We are confident that our media planning perspective on tackling social media will be unique and pioneering.

This said I’d like to hear your comments and thoughts on how you or media agencies can help introduce their clients to social media.

Mais un popcorn ça se partage. Que pensez-vous de cette programmation de l’automne pour Radio-Canada?

P.S. Toutes nos analyses de la télé pour l’automne 2010 sont accessibles en cliquant sur le tag “pop corn”. (dans la marge de gauche)

Il n’a certainement pas la prétention de circonscrire en entier le vaste sujet des médias sociaux mais vise surtout à identifier et analyser l’affaissement de certaines barrières sociales, créant ainsi un monde où la communication est de plus en plus fluide.
Sans en dire plus, nous vous laissons donc avec ces réflexions de PHD, accessibles en version numérique.
Vous pouvez aussi entendre Mark (et son succulent accent british!) présenter le livre en cliquant ici.

Et pour une communication vraiment fluide, réagissez en émettant vos commentaires ici sur le blogue!

Mais un popcorn ça se partage. Que pensez-vous de cette programmation de l’automne pour Télé-Québec?