A Rogers store offering services from Rogers Wireless. Photo from Wikimedia Commons. The recent government approval of the Shaw purchase by Rogers Communications confirms a seeming iron rule in this country: our media bosses always get their way, no matter how disastrous the consequences might be for Canadians. As a
Continue readingAuthor: Marc Edge
Canadian Dimension: Financialization is the latest business model for Canada’s media
The Toronto Star sign after being stripped from the 1 Yonge Street building. Photo by Fareen Karim/BlogTO. Canadian media have traditionally been highly lucrative businesses. Some of the country’s richest families made their fortunes in the newspaper industry, including the Thomsons (Globe and Mail) and the Irvings (Brunswick News). Television
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Canada may be on a path to digital totalitarianism
Photo from Unsplash Another breadcrumb has landed which suggests that Canadians may be on a path to digital authoritarianism, or even totalitarianism, if some politicians in Ottawa get their way. First the standing committee of Canadian Heritage began a legislative spree to regulate the Internet. Now the committee’s MPs want
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Google has made our online lives easier, but we may all be about to become a victim of its success
Google’s headquarters for European operations in Dublin, Ireland. Photo from Wikimedia Commons. Google is so successful that it may be about to become a victim of its own popularity, and Canadians may all suffer as a result. One of its many free services might be going away soon because the
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: MPs pushing the Online News Act don’t know how the Internet works
Illustration by The Project Twins Eager viewers tuned in online Monday morning to watch as Google Canada head Sabrina Geremia was called before the Parliamentary committee that passed Bill C-18, the Online News Act, late last year. Some viewers out on the west coast, like your humble correspondent, even got
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Postmedia shoots more hostages to keep debt payments flowing to New Jersey hedge fund
New Jersey’s largest newspaper chain shot another dozen Canadian hostages last week as the end game of its northern extortion scheme grows ever closer. If the federal government doesn’t allow Postmedia Network and the rest of the country’s press to start taking money from the pockets of Google and Facebook
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Ruling in Rogers-Shaw deal shows reform of Competition Act is badly needed
Photo by Timon Schneider/Dreamstime Does the Competition Bureau have a hope in hell of stopping Rogers from swallowing Shaw and creating a nationwide cable monopoly? Probably not, but that’s just the point, and it’s a point the bureau itself has been trying to make for years. Its enabling Competition Act
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The myth of Google and Facebook’s online advertising ‘monopoly’
The newspaper charge of monopoly against tech giants like Google and Facebook is laughable since they obviously have competitors, writes Marc Edge. Illustration courtesy Raconteur. Newspaper publishers complain that Google and Facebook are taking the advertising that used to go to them and claim that the tech giants are therefore
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: How to fund journalism in Canada if Google, Facebook won’t
Canada can fund news media without robbing Google and Facebook, but it will involve clawing back some of the monopoly profits being raked in by our giant telecom companies. Photo from Flickr. It is increasingly obvious that the pot of gold Canadian media expected to find at the end of
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Could a UK-type system of ‘local democracy reporters’ help fill the news gap in Canada?
Photo by congerdesign/Pixabay While MPs wrangle clause-by-clause over Bill C-18, the Online News Act, which aims to redistribute hundreds of millions of dollars a year from Google and Facebook to Canada’s starving news media, it may all be for naught if the digital giants refuse to play along and quit
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Canada needs a long-term news strategy to stop undermining trust in journalism, says white paper
Photo by Roman Kraft/Wikimedia Commons Instead of plugging the holes in a sinking newspaper ship with successive bailouts, Ottawa should formulate a long-term national news media strategy that doesn’t undermine public trust in journalism, according to a former senior journalist and media regulator. “Canada is on the cusp of making
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Telecom giants—not Google and Facebook—continue to dominate Canada’s media economy
Big telecom companies like Rogers and Bell continue to take the lion’s share from subscription revenues for cable, Internet access, and wireless services. Photo by Paul Mckinnon/Dreamstime. Those following the Senate and Parliamentary hearings into Bills C-11 and C-18 might think Canadian media are wasting away while foreign digital giants
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Meta witnesses get hostile reception from Liberal MPs
Last week, MPs confronted Meta executives over their threat to block Canadians from sharing news across Facebook and other platforms. Photo by Christoph Scholz/Flickr. Heritage committee hearings into the Online News Act turned hostile late last week after MPs were forced to work overtime to hear from Facebook parent Meta
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Could Google, Meta quit Canada over Bill C-18?
Entrance sign at Meta’s headquarters complex in Menlo Park, California. Photo from Wikimedia Commons. The high-stakes game of chicken that is the Online News Act reached a new, dangerous level last week after the federal government closed the list of speakers on its pending Bill C-18 without inviting Meta. That
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: US hedge fund bet on Canadian newspapers may be about to pay off big
The hedge fund bet on Canadian newspapers will pay off big if Ottawa passes Bill C-18, the Online News Act, writes journalism researcher and author Marc Edge. Photo from Flickr. Hedge funds specialize in buying up “distressed” companies and turning them around profitably, usually by cutting costs and selling off
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Where have all the newspapers gone? Spoiler alert: They’re still here
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Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Going all Howard Beale on Canadian media
Peter Finch as anchorman Howard Beale in Network (1976). Image courtesy of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The disquiet among Canadians is palpable. Disdain for their news media is unmistakable. It is the end result of ownership control so tight that it squeaks. So powerful have the media become in Canada that they extracted
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Cultural groups aren’t the only ones lobbying for Internet controls
Photo by Nelly Antoniadou/Flickr A National Post investigation of lobbying efforts by cultural groups hoping to shape the controversial Online Streaming Act, or Bill C-11, has shown that they succeeded in having user-generated content potentially included in the pending legislation. This is hardly shocking to those who have watched for
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Canada may be headed down a slippery slope of Internet regulation
Ottawa seems determined to bring online communication in Canada under the thumb of federal bureaucrats, writes journalist and author Marc Edge. Photo by Jason Howie/Flickr. It has been called a “regulatory power grab without precedent” and a “full-blown assault” on free expression and democracy. The Wall Street Journal quipped that
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Ottawa should reject the Murdoch plan
Rupert Murdoch’s victory in Australia has been seized on by publishers in other countries, including Canada, who are hoping to use it to persuade their governments to enact similar legislation which would force Big Tech companies to share some of their vast revenues. Photo by Matt Brown/Flickr. Rupert Murdoch’s long-running
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