Media musings to fill your summer — don’t scoff!

Here are a few media musings we can let wander around our noodles over the summer. You may say the Bulldog is on North Etobicoke Gold  but think of this.  If we had told you last week that Rogers would  throttle City News Channel after just 20 months in business, you would have scoffed. Scoffed!  Let’s start with an easy one. It cannot be that Christine Bentley wishes to live in quiet seclusion forever. We really hope not and assume that her absence from the public eye is all about a so-called no-compete deal that accompanied her generous settlement from CTV last September. Non-competes usually forbid a talented person like Christine from taking another anchor job within a year of her dismissal. So let the guessing begin. Where will Christine Bentley show up this coming fall? Which raises speculative question number two. Can CTV News Toronto long resist the success of CP24? You can be sure that the railroad builders are Bell Media have fully analysed the economics of folding the Agincourt newsroom into its all news local channel on Queen Street. The argument for the status quo may outweigh that for a change, but we’re not betting. Of course the CRTC would have something to say about. And finally, with even the Ford brothers wondering about the future of Toronto’s rickety newspapers, we’ll take this moment to say that the most money-losing of the lot is the National Post. Pity. The Fords say one or more of the four dailies will be gone within five years and that seems possible.