Your mission, should you choose to accept it…
Hi everybody!
Remember that new television show for Shaw TV we were working on? We’re still working on it! (Wow, what an update…)
Actually, as promised, we want to keep you updated on what the episodes are all about and what you can submit to the show.
Our first episode is nearly complete, but here’s our theme and what you could record for episodes 2-6:
Money – The worst thing you’ve spent money on. Or, the thing you do for love that doesn’t pay (or doesn’t pay you yet).
Spring – Name as many of Edmonton’s festivals as you can in 30 seconds. What’s the best festival?
Edmontonia – What do we have here in Edmonton that ain’t nobody else got?
Food – What’s the Edmonton dish? Is it beef? Is it beef, with a side of beef, and beef salad? Could it be the Wildcat donair at the UofA? Is it something I’ve never even heard of? Tell us, show us, cook for us!
History – What’s your favourite historical spot in the city? While we’re looking for heritage locations, this may lead you to recount that important story that just-so-happened to occur at an Edmonton location.
That’s the easy stuff. We’re open to ideas, pitches, stories, segments, and anything you can record on a video camera (on anything from the highest-end digital cameras to an iPhone).
Just point me to a YouTube video or drop me the file in an e-mail. This is your show Edmonton.
The basic rules: it’s got to be recorded on video, you can’t be nude, no swearing.
Preview: the edmontonian presents on ShawTV
What’s up, my little monkeys? As you know, we’ve been working feverishly on our new TV Show for Shaw. It’s meant a lot of work and a lot of high drama in the edmontonian offices, but it’s looking pretty good so far, if we do say so ourselves.
Anyway, since we are now exactly one month to the premiere, we thought we’d give you guys a little sneak preview. Let us know what you think; but for the love of God, be gentle. It’s still a work in progress.
Help Us Help Edmonton
As promised, here’s more detail on our new TV show and what you could do to help.
So, our show the edmontonian presents is set to debut next month in May on Shaw TV, and we’ll be producing six episodes of fantastically local television. Note that I did not say it would be good television. But moving pictures nonetheless.
And we, as always, want your help.
Since it’s a TV show we’ll need something visual. But it can be a video you’ve shot, art, animations, music, whatever you’ve got. Send us a link (if, for example, it’s on YouTube) or attach your file to an e-mail.
We’re looking for your stories, your way Edmonton.
But it shouldn’t have any swearing or nudity. It’s got to stick to CRTC rules and broadcast standards. Yes, we shall finally have standards.
To help get your brain juices flowing, our first three episodes have the following themes:
Firsts
Money
Spring
Submissions must fit our themes, but how they fit is certainly up for interpretation. Hit us with your creativity, Edmonton!
And e-mail us if you’ve got any other questions (or if you want to help in some other way).
Since this is also filed under self-promotion, if you’ve got a business you’d like to advertise, the show is also looking for sponsors.
Live from Luzzara
Come on down to Luzzara and meet this blue fish. Yes, it's wearing a tiara.
You know, it’s been some time since we tried out the whole live on the Internet thing. You never know when we’ll actually need to use those “skills” for something important, so it’s time for some live Internetin’.
This morning I’m taking a page out of Sally’s book e-book and broadcasting live from a coffee shop while doing stuff. Lucky for me (and probably you) I’m at Luzzara, which is a great little shop on Whyte Avenue, with the always-bubbly, super coffee-knowledgeable Sarah Jackson. Luzzara’s a hub of east Whyte and you don’t know who will stop in…
Also, I’ll be putting together today’s Headlines while broadcasting, providing you with spectacular video of me typing and copying links. Yeah, I know what you like.
You should be able to watch the “show” at the top of this post in an embedded video player (try refreshing the page if it’s not there) or at our livestream.com page. Drop us a comment, tweet at us, or join the livestream chat and I’ll do my best to talk with you while this all goes down.
Auctions and ads
I was going to tell you about an auction of wedding photos you might be interested in. Then the auctioneer started advertising with us. So I felt weird about it.
Then I figured you’d still want to hear about a potential way to snag some wedding photos for cheap (depending how the auction goes, of course). So, I sucked it up, and thought that, as long as we’re totally transparent about the fact that Paper Tiger Media is one of our advertisers, but didn’t pay for a mention in a post, we’d all be cool.
So, we’re cool?
Anyway…Paper Tiger Media, an Edmonton-based photography and video studio is offering you (or someone you know) the chance at a full wedding photo package for an unknown price. The price is unknown because they’re auctioning off the deal. Right now the wedding package bid is at $155. I don’t know what wedding photos usually go for, but I’d hazard a guess to say it’s more than $155. You have until November 21 to bid.
Do you know of any other Edmonton businesses auctioning off services?
—–
After kicking around the idea of talking about Paper Tiger Media’s idea, we found that all of our advertisers have something going on right now. So, unsolicited by them, I’m going to tell you about it.
Our Traveling Tickle Trunk friend Brenda just got back from Calgary, where she was at the Taboo show. It’s like the Taboo show we had in Edmonton, but it was in Calgary. That’s some solid, sexy Edmonton representation.
Tailz is about to start some “puppy socialization” classes. There is so much out there for pets it continually blows my mind. (I mean, we had something called Dogapalooza!)
And, of course, the Exposure Festival is on right now (also running until the 21st.). Festivals don’t stop just because summer does.
—–
If you’re looking to promote your Edmonton business or event you can always talk to us about advertising options. We happen to know of a local website which might just be a good place to get the word out.
The results are in: web-based show in top 3
Edmonton — Monday, October 18 Edmontonians chose their new city council and school boards. Monday night they chose a new way to watch election results.
With only CTV and Shaw dedicating primetime television hours to Edmonton’s 2010 election, Edmontonians tuned into “the edmontonian celebrates democracy.” A production of theedmontonian.com, the web-based show featured a mix of election results and analysis with the insight and comedic talents of many of the city’s brightest online, and independent journalists.
“We couldn’t be more excited about the show,” said Jeff Samsonow, Editor-in-Chief of the edmontonian.
“The show had been planned for months, but we had no idea Global, CBC, CityTV, and Access would stick with their regular programming on the city’s biggest local news night.”
“We are proud to have been there on election night. Without any dancing celebrities,” Samsonow continued, in an obvious reference to CTV’s one-hour show which made way for the popular “Dancing with the Stars.”
In the 8-9pm hour “the edmontonian celebrates democracy” was the city’s third highest-rated election show. 9-10 it was the second most popular, as CTV went back to regular programming.
“This was a big day for Edmonton,” said show producer Sally Poulsen. “This election showed Edmonton was ready to keep building LRT, redevelop the City Centre Airport, and become a city that can embrace its urban, creative side.”
“Since 100 Edmontonians chose our show over Hollywood programming we have another reason to celebrate October 18, “Poulsen continued.
Those behind “the edmontonian celebrates democracy” also thanked the City of Edmonton for providing polling data as it became available. ShareEdmonton.ca put the data into easy-to-understand results and was the key to ongoing updates during the show.
“Because the results were available to all, people don’t just need us to tell them who’s winning. Anyone can read you stats all night. We wanted to provide election and political information with large doses of humour,” said the Editor-in-Chief.
The good vibes have the crew behind the online show in a great mood the day after but Samsonow is left wondering what it will lead to.
“Do you think we can borrow one of those local television frequencies if Edmonton stations aren’t using them for Edmonton programming?”
—–
For more information:
Jeff Samsonow
Editor-in-Chief
the edmontonian
Fakey McFakerson
Fake Press Releases
fake@fakepressreleases.com
TIME TO ELECTIONATE!
Dear Edmonton.
Buckle up. It’s time to get election’d.
And now…an election day message from Trent Wilkie…
Have you voted yet?
If you have not, Trent’s got a great tip for you before you head to the voting booth. (video above)
After you’ve marked your ballot, head home, put the kids to bed, crack open a case of beer, order pizza, and watch our election show (I’m giving you a lot of things to do here).
Trent will be there. I’ll be there. All of your friends will be there.
Or, at least, all of your friends will be watching. Maybe invite your friends over to watch.
8pm. Right here at theedmontonian.com. It’s gonna be off the hook.
Time to celebrate democracy
The 2010 Edmonton municipal and school board elections are upon us. In mere hours we shall have a new city council, public school board, and Catholic school board. And it’s all thanks to you.
Well, it’s thanks to you if you vote. Which you better do.
Once the polls close, tonight at 8pm, we should all put our feet up, grab a drink, and toast this amazing, democratic process. Whether your candidates win or lose, it’s a great day to be able to safely walk into a polling station and select a group of people you want to run your city. And great days deserve celebrations.
So, at 8pm, as the votes are being tallied, we ask that you join us here at our website as the edmontonian celebrates democracy.
We’ll be joined by many friends, including Saturday Night with Samsonow band leader Pepe Duenas, Unknown Studio ruffian Adam Rozenhart, CJSR’s Makin Whoopee co-host Colin MacIntyre, Mostly Water Theatre’s Trent Wilkie, blog contributors Gregg Beever, Paul Poulsen and Deja Sprinfield, Edmonton’s Twitter King, Mack D. Male, plus *Hollywood celebrities, and local candidates. And we’ll be fueled by delicious Eva Sweet Waffles, with a great soundtrack of Edmonton bands.
We’ll talk election, politics, Spaceports, voting, whatever’s on Pepe’s mind, and we will be updating live results as they come in, and roaming around campaign parties and headquarters.
We’re also pleased to report we’ll be one of only 3 live “TV” shows you can watch Monday night. (The quotation marks are for our web-based show, as CTV and Shaw are actual television stations.) We guarantee, however, to be funnier than the other 2. …and we’ll probably be the only ones broadcasting to your computer, so you can still PVR all your favourite Monday shows.
See you at 8pm!
*Hollywood celebrities may not be as advertised
And now…an election day message from Edmonton’s first mayor…
Then tune into our election night show. the edmontonian celebrates democracy at 8pm, right here at theedmontonian.com.
You can also hear more from Mayor McCauley, and other former Edmonton mayors, in the Ghost Mayor podcasts.
An election alliance
It has come to our attention that Edmonton television stations Global, CBC, CityTV, and ACCESS will not be providing a live election show, Monday, October 18.
They may have screen-crawls and the odd update in a commercial break.
So, since we here at the edmontonian plan to be live on the web when polls close at 8pm, we saw two choices.
We could make fun of Global, CBC, and the gang of local broadcasters for not doing a show on what is about the biggest night of Edmonton news, for the next three years. Or we could offer our services to what is clearly a collection of cash-strapped television stations.
In this age of collaboration, where traditional news providers are struggling to make their way in the digital world, we extend our hand to Edmonton’s beleaguered news broadcasters.
We’ll be live, at 8pm, Monday night. We’ll have live election results, analysis, reports from the field, and Pepe. And since some local TV stations can’t find a way to bring news of the election to the people, as it’s happening, we’re offering our program, “the edmontonian celebrates democracy,” to them.
If you know anyone at Global, CBC, CityTV, or ACCESS let them know they can broadcast our show through their airwaves. It might just save local TV.
p.s. I’m really quite serious. If you’re at Global, CBC, CityTV, or ACCESS, and have been losing sleep because you just couldn’t think of a way to put together a live election night show, e-mail me and we’ll see if we can partner up.
Post 1000: An epic of events
Alright, so this post is probably not going to be an epic tale to be told for years to come.
But this is the 1,000th time we hit “publish” and felt confident enough to not quickly hit “delete.” And that’s pretty good in my books.
All that 1,000th business out of the way, there’s quite a bit going on tonight, in terms of the election.
In case you missed it…
…check out our video on demand of Saturday Night with Samsonow! The latest episode is from September 25, featuring a report on the Dawson Bridge from The Unknown Studio’s Adam Rozenhart, and School Board Trustee Candidate Sarah Hoffman!
Saturday Night with Samsonow: Sept. 25
It’s Saturday night, and we know what you want, Edmonton.
Feel free to make yourself a delicious Samsonowich and enjoy the show.
You want a live talk show, broadcast over the Internet, from the comfort of my living room.
At 9pm, if you click that video above, you are going to get exactly what you want. You’re welcome.
Tonight’s guest is Sarah Hoffman, Ward G Edmonton Public School Board trustee candidate. And we’ve got a special report on the Dawson Bridge from Adam Rozenhart. Plus, Pepe is here.
P-A-R-T–Y? Because we gotta!
Hey, our fore fathers didn’t fight for our right to party so we could sit at home watching people who think they can dance.
Heck, no.
They’d have wanted you to head down to Whyte Avenue’s Wunderbar for 7pm this evening to enjoy some local entertainment, local cake, and beer from all over.
A blog (and podcast) only get to turn 1 once.
We’d love to you see you tonight, so come say “Hi.”
You don’t even have to bring presents. (Though they are accepted.)
Good morning, Starshine.
Today concludes my week of morning livecasting from coffee shops (and let’s be honest and say Second Cups, because they seem to have unkillable wifi).
This no doubt leaves you asking, “Who cares about livecasting nothing from coffee shops?” Oh INTERNETS, you always make the best arguments.
The point of trying this on for size is to make ourselves available to the community at large. Have something on your mind? Something you want to promote? I am literally sitting here, waiting to hear it. With a webcam pointed at my stupid face. That’s the reason we started the edmontonian, after all – to give the community a voice we felt was being lost amidst the decline of original, locally produced news content.
Look for these morning webcasts to be a weekly occurrence, starting this fall.
Oh what a wonderful…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz………
Well, I am up and at zem bright early again this morning, continuing this week’s trial run of morning show webcasts.
I didn’t go into great (read: any) detail about this last time, probably because I was a no-sleep zombie, but the reason for this week’s Mon/Wed/Fri morning show broadcasts, as well as the episode of Saturday Night with Samsonow we did last month, is that we’re spending the summer months trying to test out the best (read: cheapest and easiest) ways to integrate regular webcasts into the normal swing of things around here. It’s all just another way to tell stories about Edmonton, folks!
Anyway, this morning me and the webcam will be sitting in awkward silence at the Starbucks on Jasper Ave and 101 St. (I think it’s 101 St., it’s the one by Quizno’s) the Second Cup at Milner Library between 7 and 9 a.m. If you have anything you’d like to talk about, come down and see me. I’ll be the one asleep on the table in front of a webcam.
Good Morning Edmonton!
In the fine tradition of things we thought of at the last possible minute and decided to execute anyway, we present our latest foray into live streaming. I mean, if we’re going to become a media juggernaut, we have to have a morning show, right?
Here’s how it works. This is literally the definition of interactivity. From 7 a.m. until 9 a.m. this morning, I will be sitting at the Second Cup on Whyte Ave. and Gateway. If you’d like to be on the show, come down and talk to me. In the meantime, I’ll just be sitting here like a weirdo, doing work with a webcam pointed at me. I will also try to remember to give you weather and traffic updates at the top and bottom of the hour.
The Samsonowich will destroy breakfast as we know it
Why would someone create a sandwich of waffles and danish? If I’m remembering the story correctly, I’ll tell you why.
We went and tried one of McDonald’s new healthier options, a Southwest Salad. We weren’t fans of the BBQ sauce on the salad, but have since heard other reviews that place the salad in higher esteem. Maybe the restaurant we went to was just phoning it in.
Anyway, we thought it would be funny to create a salad of cheeseburgers. It was. We didn’t eat that though.
Twitter got rolling on things and before you know it CJSR’s Makin’ Whoopee is talking about the “Samsonowich,” a breakfast delicacy made of waffles and danish. With whipped cream or syrup to top it off.
Fast-forward to Saturday, and our attempt at a live, late-night, Edmonton talk show, and you’ve got a need to create this monstrosity of breakfast, in a cooking segment.
You know what? It was actually pretty good.
We used Eva Sweet (vanilla) waffles, so we started with the best waffles any of us had ever had. I picked up some danish (It has to be cherry!) at Sobeys, whipped up the cream myself, and put it all together live on the air.
It’s likely not a healthy option to start your day, but damn if it isn’t a delicious, messy way to kick things off.
—–
Saturday Night with Samsonow is continually looping on our livestream.com account. We didn’t know it would do that, but it’s kind of cool.
If you watch, just pretend the parts without sound are our attempt at an artsy film school submission.
Saturday Night with Samsonow
Because we never give ourselves enough work to do we’re attempting a live talk show.
Tonight. 9pm.
Come right back here. You might have to refresh this page (or the main page if that’s what you’re on) to get the live stream to kick in.
Tonight’s guest is local social media darling Adam Rozenhart. Plus, we’ve got Pepe Duenes as our band. We’ll also be crank-calling an actual local media celebritity. And eating the long-rumoured Samsonowich.
See you then!
(Although, we won’t be able to see you.)
If the website is hiccuping at all, you can try watching at our livestream.com account too.
Photos! Video! Words! Music!
We are having a great time at SOS Fest.
That's Forestry rocking the Black Dog right there.
One Year in Edmonton
Hope you’re enjoying our continuing look back at the year that was. For the edmontonian that is.
First off, we thank you, again, for sticking with us for one year. That is a long time in the Internet world. I mean, there’s plenty of awesome stuff on YouTube to distract everybody.
Now, let’s look at interesting, weird, odd, intriguing stuff from the last year. And stats. Everybody loves stats.
75,000+ people have checked us out. Sure, lots of those people come back again and again, but you’re supposed to use stats to make yourself sound cool. They stopped by hundreds of thousands of times. That is cool. Period.
We’ve averaged 3 posts per day. That explains why our logo is burned onto my retinas.
We’ve got more than 2 comments per post. (Again, an average.) That’s pretty good since a lot of items don’t even have comments. But we can always count on Gregg Beever to get you angry enough to say something.
In the last year we’ve posted more than 780 times. This is 789. We’ve also shown off more than 1,500 photos of Edmonton. If only our Flickr group reflected that. (Totally my bad, you guys.)
Beyond an audience, Sally and I started the edmontonian one year ago hoping we wouldn’t be the only ones writing and talking about Edmonton.
You made that a reality. And how!
We had 40+ contributors who wrote, took photos, shot video, gave us prizes, and did lots of other great stuff, all helping to tell Edmonton stories. If we paid you we’d be a real magazine or something.
Thanks Lorraine Poulsen, Janine Edwards, Derek Clayton, Ryan Engley, Mack D. Male, Brendan Berg, Ryan Dunford, Edward Monton, Joe Melin, Trevor Prentice, Josh Macedo, Jenn Prosser, Jay Runham, Pam, Derjis, Brittney LeBlanc, Andrea, Cherie Bucy, Manny (our first of many Bureau Chiefs), Linda Hoang, Paul Poulsen, Eri Gayler, Jason Bouwmeester, Tess Dehoog, Marilyn Kontz, Brent Welch, Gregg Beever, Dustin McNichol, Lauren MacDonald, Benjamin Tippett, Colin Enquist, Kristi Shmyr, Brenda Kerber, Alexis Kienlen, Adam Rozenart, Colin MacIntyre, Jordan Schroder, Heath Sperling and Mina Hideshima, Pepe Duenes, Katie McLaughlin, Angela Ostafichuk, Chris Chan, The Joe, Veronica Petrola, The League of Extraordinary Media, and anyone I missed while scanning though a year’s worth of posts.
And thanks to the many more people we’ve had the pleasure of talking with, collaborating with, linking to (and haven’t complained about us linking to them or embedding their videos). Thank you everyone!
In the last year we’ve talked about:
- Most of Edmonton’s festivals and events, like Bikeology, Dreamspeakers, Litfest, Capital Ex, the Fringe, fashion weeks (still some of our most popular stuff),Taste of Edmonton, the Olympic torch run, and mall openings.
- Cultural institutions like the Alberta Ballet, Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton Opera and Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.
- Sports and teams including the Capitals, Rush, Wildcats and Huskies, roller derby, the (MMA) fights and Concordia.
- 150+businesses, business owners, entrepreneurs, biz people, artists, musicians and bands.
And we’ve made about 2,379 self-deprecating jokes.
Here’s to another year of talking ’bout Edmonton!
(This post would have been up a little sooner. But I actually got distracted on YouTube.)
#YegSwap on your TV
We came into your homes last weekend, via our live stream and this CTV story (above).
Neat.
Although this means the real media doesn’t see us a threat to their audience and market share. (ex: CTV isn’t going to be covering Global events anytime soon.)
So we have them right where we want them.
Time for some Juggalo news
The other day we were talking about Edmonton’s new radio station, it’s umpteenth on your FM dial, and joked about Sally applying to the CRTC for all Juggalo-news radio.
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Hey, if we get to 50 radio stations do we all win free iPods? Because there’s no Nickelback on those!
Anyway…we’re trying to add some firepower to our potential on-air lineup.
Next time, the CRTC won’t so easily dismiss the idea of the Juggalo-nation having its own broadcasting power.
Oh, and if you aren’t quite sure who, or what, a juggalo is, you can catch up thanks to the wonders of the Internet. I’m pretty sure juggalos invented the Internet.
