OTTAWA – Despite pleas for lots more, the federal government has given a small boost to local journalism, providing one or more still to be determined independent non-governmental organizations with $50 million over five years to support such efforts in underserved communities.
Budget 2018 noted “As more and more people get their news online, and share their interests directly through social media, many communities have been left without local newspapers to tell their stories.”
The Liberals will also be exploring new local news business models that could see greater involvement of private and philanthropic support “for trusted, professional, non-profit and local news.” This may involve “new ways for Canadian newspapers to innovate and be recognized to receive charitable status for not-for-profit provision of journalism, reflecting the public interest that they serve.”
The budget document did not reference traditional TV or radio news.
Unifor, the union representing 12,000 media workers across the country, said the government has failed local news. It acknowledged that topping up the Canada Media Fund (also announced in the budget) will provide much needed revenue to the broadcasting sector, but added it’s disappointing no aid was offered to local news.
"Canadian newsrooms have shrunk by at least 30% in the last four years, with more newspaper closures and journalist layoffs expected to come, so solutions are needed now,” said Jerry Dias, Unifor national president.
While Unifor has a negative outlook on the federal government’s commitment to local news, the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) expressed cautious optimism.
"We're pleased the government chose to adopt one of the recommendations the CAJ and other media organizations had suggested that could help improve the quantity and quality of local news in Canada," Nick Taylor-Vaisey, president of the CAJ, said in a statement. "We'll be monitoring the rollout of this promise though, given this government's track record on promising the moon and falling substantially shorter on delivery."
As has been outlined to the CRTC in various consultations, local broadcast news is in need of significant financial support. Unifor, and others, argue that the government should amend the Income Tax Act so online advertising on foreign online platforms such as Google and Facebook fall under the same rules as domestic TV and print advertising where the advertiser gets tax credit only for advertising with Canadian outlets. Unifor said this would drive approximately $250 million back to Canadian news outlets.
The future of local news has been a major topic of debate at CRTC proceedings (and the Commission’s local news fund for independent broadcasters and funding flexibility for broadcasters owned by vertically integrated companies – a policy established in 2016 – is meant to address at least some of the problem ). In the most recent round of comments to the Commission on the distribution models of the future consultation, several parties suggest that regulatory changes are required to ensure the long-term health of local news.
Bell Canada said the CRTC should move to a local discretionary model where conventional broadcasters are allowed to shut down their over the air transmitters and then negotiate carriage fees with the broadcast distributors (BDUs). This would benefit local TV stations in general, said the company.
Not all BDUs are in favour of the Bell proposal, however. Shaw Communications said that this would result in higher subscription costs for Canadian consumers. Rogers Communications agreed, noting this is simply a rehashing of the fee-for carriage, or value for signal debate from a number of years ago.
This increase in monthly cable TV subscription packages would not only affect consumers, but also BDUs, broadcasters and the independent production community, added Rogers.
“At a time when subscriptions to Canadian BDUs are declining and more and more Canadians are looking for alternatives sources of television programming, imposing a fee-for-carriage regime would only exacerbate the problem and encourage consumers to seek out unregulated OTT services,” the company said.
Independent broadcaster Channel Zero argued that to date measures to support local news such as the Independent Local News Fund as well as regulatory flexibility won’t address long term sustainability. All genres of programming, years ago, needed financial support with tax credits being one such mechanism.
“Decades ago, local news did not. Now that local news does, making it eligible for tax credits should be a ‘no brainer’,” said the company in its submission to the CRTC.
