The CBC just got more government cash—good luck, private sector competitors

For Canada’s struggling news industry, though, more money for the CBC is very bad news indeed. Because the Mother Corp, as much a publicly-funded news and entertainment corporation as it is a public broadcaster, is now even better equipped to kick its competitors to the curb. It already employs one in three working Canadian journalists. If its 11 percent increase in funding is allocated equivalently to its newsrooms, that number moves closer to 37 percent. Almost the entire industry is now heavily dependent on government funding, but while the CBC got plenty in the budget, there was diddly for the “private” sector. OK, there was an additional $38.4 million over three years, for the Special Measures for Journalism (first introduced as COVID relief) component of the Canada Periodical Fund, but the Journalism Labour Tax Credit remains unchanged. The Local Journalism Initiative and its sidekick, the ominously-named Changing Narratives Fund, are also, it appears, unchanged. And government advertising continues to be placed where consumers are most likely to see it. The lack of news on the tax credit was particularly crushing to the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB), which, while still lobbying the CRTC to expand funding for its members’ newsrooms, had been hoping radio and TV journalists could join the party and receive the benefits that remain available to newspaper publishers only. CAB President Kevin Desjardins was “disappointed” that “the expansion of the Canadian Journalism Labour Tax Credit and increased federal advertising investment in Canadian broadcast media—were not included.” Whether this is because the government expects the CRTC to force foreign streamers like Spotify (and through them, their subscribers) to subsidize radio and TV newsrooms is unknown. What you can bet on, however, is that the complaining from already subsidized media for more subsidies because of the enhancement of subsidies for their largest and already dominant competitor is going to be loud. Quebecor’s Pierre-Karl Peladeau, as the industry trade publication Cartt.ca reported, isn’t taking prisoners. “There is no tax credit for television journalism, no tax incentives for advertising in Quebec and Canadian media, and no information about when the digital services tax already paid by private broadcasters will be refunded,” he said. “The federal government…completely ignored our industry and turned a blind eye to the crisis that is hitting television broadcasting so hard.” News Media Canada (NMC), which represents the “print” industry, was more diplomatic, posting enthusiastically about the boost in the Special Measures fund and reminding its members that the deadline for bellying up to that bar is Nov. 17. But, sure as Toronto sports teams lose seventh games, NMC and CAB executives will be beating a path to as many government doors as they can to demand their playing field—already tilted severely in the CBC’s favour in the fight for readers, viewers, listeners and advertisers—be levelled. The economics of the situation are pretty apparent, so you’d think Carney and Champagne would understand the damage their added funding for the CBC will do to its private sector competitors—who remain unsubsidized and principled. If they don’t, we need to be worried. If they do, publishers best get their affairs in order.