Peter Menzies: Smaller audiences, bigger bailouts—Expect even more subsidies for Canada’s dying broadcast platforms

Péladeau laid out five demands of “government authorities and the CRTC.” They are: Make advertising dollars spent with foreign companies non-tax deductible and create a new tax incentive to “encourage advertising purchases from Quebec and Canadian companies.” Ban the CBC from competing with the private sector for advertising revenue. Exclude public broadcasters from access to the Canada Media Fund. Make TV journalism eligible for the Journalism Labour Tax Credit, currently only available to non-broadcast news media. Significantly reduce the regulatory burden on domestic broadcasters. Most of this isn’t new. Péladeau’s been campaigning for decades—and on this point we agree—to have the CBC’s ability to be a commercial competitor curtailed. His argument, despite making a great deal of sense, has so far fallen on deaf Ottawa ears. His chances are probably better when it comes to broadcast companies becoming eligible for the Journalism Labour tax credit. But unless Carney decides to enlarge the treasury/taxpayer pie currently feeding publishers,  that could come at the expense of Postmedia, the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, and many smaller operators. The CRTC’s efforts to force offshore streamers to fund news are currently in court where they have been challenged by the (mostly) American companies. No doubt contingency plans are unfolding at the regulator’s Gatineau headquarters as the Commission looks for alternative ways to prop up not just Péladeau but Bell, Rogers, Corus, and others, many of which have been gutting their newsrooms and making their products increasingly unappealing for years. The challenge for Carney and the CRTC seems clear: prop up the bottom lines of Quebecor and the others or face another cultural existence crisis in Quebec at a time when the separatist Parti Québécois is rising, zombie-like, from the grave. So, put your money on Péladeau getting at least some of the loot he’s looking for. Meanwhile, should the CRTC lose its legislative grip on the throats of Netflix, Spotify, and other offshore streamers, its latest report indicates it won’t be easy to breathe life into cash-strapped companies whose products remain primarily based on 20th-century technologies. Young people are moving on from TV and cable. “Traditional sources such as television and local radio stations are most likely to be used by Canadians 50-plus and least likely to be used by Canadians 18 to 24,” states the CRTC’s “Annual Highlights Of The Broadcasting Sector” report. “Canadians aged 18 to 34 indicated they were more likely to obtain local news from social media than any other age group.” Noting that TV revenues fell by 8.6 percent in 2024, the report illustrates a huge gap in consumption patterns between those under and those over 50 years old. “Online news consumption seems to be highest among Canadians aged 18 to 49,” it added. “Canadians aged 65-plus consume the least amount of online news of all age groups.” In other words, new technology is winning and old technology is losing. If Carney is to continue to follow the policies established over the past decade by his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, that means more subsidies for dying 20th-century entities and more constraints on those hatched in the 21st. As for the CRTC, it made its objectives clear in its aptly named 2018 report, “Harnessing Change.” More subsidies for dying platforms will only make it more difficult for the increasingly few Canadian publishers (The Hub is among them) who still believe—as most not so long ago did—that being financially beholden to the government is an abominable conflict of interest capable of destroying the public’s trust in their work. But it’s unlikely anyone in government or the CRTC cares.