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podcasting in quebec

La Presse has an article on the state of podcasting in Quebec, concluding, basically, it’s not too good. The focus is on Radio Canada’s offerings (called baladodifusions in Quebecois), and this sort of shocked me:

la version podcast de Christiane Charette, une des émissions-phares de la Première Chaîne, est laissée à l’abandon. Personne ne l’a mise à jour depuis le début de la saison; le dernier fichier date du 22 juin. «Personne dans l’équipe de Christiane n’a eu le temps de s’en occuper. Ils ont manqué de ressources», explique Marie Tétreault, chef des communications aux nouveaux médias à la société d’État.

Talk about commitment.

Que/franco podcast evangelist Sylvain Grandmaison gets quoted in the article, expressing some frustration, and he writes up what he *really* said here: Ce que la presse ne vous a pas dit.

I had some drinks with Sylvain at the last PodMtl (hey, how come that page is in English only?? it automatically detects browser language)… and we talked about why Quebec is “behind.”

One thing I think is that anglos – because of language – just have quicker access to developments in a wider swath of world population. We are connected directly via the web to everything that happens in the UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, … etc. And since much innovation is happening on mobile data etc there, especially US and UK, it means were are getting (english) “data” inputs, meaning quicker uptake of innovation elsewhere.

The CBC may look good compared with Radio Canada, but they were pushed by the successes of NPR in the US, and BBC in the UK – and CBC was probably behind them by a year or 2 on podcasting. (See what I had to say about CBC and podcasting in November 2005) Whereas RadioCanada is pushed by … well by CBC certainly, and possibly? I presume? public broadcasting in France and elsewhere in Francophonie? Who does Radio Canada look to as the “competition” or at least as colleagues?

Does anyone know how much public broadcasters are podcasting in other francophone countries? UPDATE: Radio France, for instance, is podcasting like crazy, see: RF Podcast.

Anyway, would be nice to see more in Quebec, no doubt.

2 Comments

  1. Cyrille Simard Cyrille Simard 2007-10-03

    All major radio station, public or private, in France (Radio France, NRJ, RTL and RFI (the equivalent of our CBC International) have been podcasting for a while now. Its the same situation in Belgium if you check RTBF for instance or Switzerland (Radio Suisse Romande). The public radio broadcaster in Cameroon was attempting to support it also (CRTV) but now they only offer a few programs (CRTV).

  2. Hugh Hugh 2007-10-03

    Thanks Cyrille, I checked Radio France – they appear to be podcasting EVERYTHING … kudos to them. So R-C … what up?

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