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The broadcasting regulator Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission established its Public Benefits program in the late 1970s. It eventually came to require a minimum 10 percent of the value of acquired broadcas...
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The broadcasting regulator Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission established its Public Benefits program in the late 1970s. It eventually came to require a minimum 10 percent of the value of acquired broadcasting licences to be devoted to worthwhile initiatives. A portion of a CAD $230-million Public Benefits package in 2000 was devoted to funding a Canadian Media Research Consortium (CMRC) established between several universities. Mandated to "focus on the development of Canadian data for use in media planning," the CMRC issued its first report in 2003, which was criticized for flawed methodology and cited as an example of "administrative" marketing research performed to the benefit of media owners rather than to the benefit of the public. The CMRC issued a five-year retrospective study in 2008 that addressed some of the earlier methodological flaws and perhaps, as a result, reached different conclusions.
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The Castlegar Citizen, a strike newspaper published in Castlegar, B.C., from 2000 until 2005, is presented as a case study of newsworkers publishing while involved in a labour dispute with their employer. Previous experiences in p...
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The Castlegar Citizen, a strike newspaper published in Castlegar, B.C., from 2000 until 2005, is presented as a case study of newsworkers publishing while involved in a labour dispute with their employer. Previous experiences in publishing strike newspapers in various countries are examined, with the elements essential to their success being identified as a will on the part of news-workers and their unions to oppose increasingly powerful ownership groups, and the support of local community members, including advertisers. These conditions were seen to be present in the example of the Castlegar Citizen, and it was only its small size that led to its closing, when staff members began to leave for other endeavours.
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Background Canada is suffering a crisis in local news largely attributable to regulatory failure. Its largest newspaper chain, Postmedia Network, took over the second-largest chain in late 2014, and in early 2016 it merged the new...
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Background Canada is suffering a crisis in local news largely attributable to regulatory failure. Its largest newspaper chain, Postmedia Network, took over the second-largest chain in late 2014, and in early 2016 it merged the newsrooms at its duplicate dailies in four of Canada's six largest cities. Parliamentary hearings on local media ensued, and a mid-2017 report recommended, among other things, changes to the Competition Act to more effectively deal with news media mergers and takeovers. Analysis The Competition Bureau is dominated by economists who may lack sufficient grounding in media issues to effectively deal with mergers and takeovers in news industries. Conclusion and implications Reform of the country's Competition Act, which has been called for by successive federal media inquiries, is more urgently required than ever.
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Background: The Canadian government allocated $595 million in subsidies over five
years to news media in 2019, but the bailout was based on questionable data. Financial
losses were exaggerated; a think tank report was criticized...
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Background: The Canadian government allocated $595 million in subsidies over five
years to news media in 2019, but the bailout was based on questionable data. Financial
losses were exaggerated; a think tank report was criticized for using data selectively; data
from a university research project differed sharply from annual industry counts; and job
loss figures were disputed.
Analysis: Hard data can diverge markedly from soft data accepted in pursuit of policy
outcomes.
Conclusions and implications: A second campaign under way on behalf of entertainment
industries could yield a bailout several times larger than the first. Closer scrutiny
should be exercised of media narratives and offered data. An independent media research
centre should collect and verify data for policy purposes.
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Background In early 2015, a few months after Postmedia Network, Canada's largest newspaper company, purchased 175 Sun Media titles from Quebecor Inc., the Supreme Court of Canada rendered a landmark decision. It allowed the purcha...
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Background In early 2015, a few months after Postmedia Network, Canada's largest newspaper company, purchased 175 Sun Media titles from Quebecor Inc., the Supreme Court of Canada rendered a landmark decision. It allowed the purchase of one hazardous waste company by another because the Competition Bureau, which had blocked the deal, failed to quantify the anti-competitive effects of the monopoly created. Analysis The ruling set an important precedent for the Postmedia purchase, which was approved by the Competition Bureau two months later. Conclusions and implications This article points up the problematic nature of competition cases involving news media companies and the need for reform of the Competition Act to prevent such cases from being decided solely on economic grounds, as now mandated by the Supreme Court.
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