About Dispatch Labs
Dispatch Labs is a local news website and podcast covering Kanata and Ottawa's west end — Stittsville, Carp, Bells Corners, the Carp Ridge and the tech park corridor. We publish a weekly newsletter and record a biweekly podcast, and we sell three fixed advertising placements to businesses and organizations in that coverage area.
The site is operated as Dispatch Labs, a trading name of NetChill Media Group Incorporated, and it runs from a small office and recording space on Black Tern Crescent in Kanata. We started covering the west end because the neighbourhoods here — Kanata's tech corridor, the older village core of Stittsville, the rural stretch out toward Carp and the Ridge — don't get consistent, dedicated coverage from the larger Ottawa outlets. Our focus stayed narrow on purpose: one coverage area, reported closely, rather than a wide beat covered thinly.
What we do is straightforward: a weekly field log newsletter with short local items and one sponsor line, and a biweekly podcast built around interviews and stories from the towns and streets in our coverage area. Advertising on both is sold as three set placements — a newsletter line, a podcast audio package, or a longer field season partnership — described in full on our Advertise page.
How a partnership comes together
Whichever placement you choose, the workflow behind it is the same one we use for our own reporting: plan, draft, review, then run.
- 1
You reach out
A short message telling us the placement and rough timing. We answer within one business day.
- 2
We plan the slot
We confirm the edition, episode window or partnership start date against our editorial calendar.
- 3
We draft & review
Copy or script goes to you for sign-off before it runs — nothing airs or publishes without approval.
- 4
It runs
The placement goes out on schedule, and we follow up with open counts or listen summaries.
What we don't do
- We don't cover or advertise businesses outside Kanata and Ottawa's west end — staying local is the point of the publication.
- We don't run unlabelled sponsor content. Every placement is marked clearly as advertising, separate from our news items.
- We don't publish audience figures, subscriber counts or listener numbers — we don't track or claim them, and we won't invent them for a sales pitch.
- We don't carry testimonials or client endorsements on the site. What we offer speaks for itself in the rate card and the process above.
How we produce it
The newsletter is written and reviewed by our small editorial team from notes gathered on location — at a Stittsville market, a Carp Ridge trailhead, a tech park office launch. The podcast is recorded in a compact studio at our Black Tern Crescent office, with a portable field kit we carry to interviews around Kanata and the west end.
Sponsor placements go through the same small team: one editor drafts and checks the copy or script, and the same host who records our regular episodes reads sponsor mentions live, rather than handing them to a separate voice or an automated ad system.
Editorial & production
Handles newsletter copy, podcast scripts, sponsor-line drafting and the review step before anything runs.
Host & field reporting
Records podcast episodes and host reads, and gathers field notes and interviews across the coverage area.
Between takes, Black Tern Crescent studio.
An interview near Bells Corners, filed for the field log.
Where we're based
Our office is at 74 Black Tern Cr., Kanata, ON K2M 2Z3, and the whole publication is built around that neighbourhood — Kanata proper, out through Stittsville and Carp, over onto the Carp Ridge and back through the tech park corridor. If you'd like to talk through a placement in person or by phone, our contact page has directions, hours and a routing button to our enquiry form.
Ready to talk about a placement?