Post Tagged with: "c-18"

Sour grapes in Alemany Farmers' Market by SMcGarnigle, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Sour Grapes: Big Media Lobby Wants to Squash the New Collective Responsible For Administering Google’s $100 Million Online News Act Money

Late last month, I wrote about the behind-the-scenes battle over the selection of a collective to administer and allocate Google’s annual $100 million to news outlets as part of its Bill C-18 deal with the government. I reported that there were two proposals: the Online News Media Collective, a big media consortium led by News Media Canada (NMC), the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB), and the CBC, which was pitted against the Canadian Journalism Collective, a proposal spearheaded by a group of independent and digital publishers and broadcasters that promised a more transparent and equitable governance approach. To the surprise of many, last week Google selected the Canadian Journalism Collective.

The importance of who administers the collective is open to some debate since all eligible news outlets get their fair share regardless of which collective is responsible for allocating the money. However, concerns emerged that the big media collective envisioned a governance structure almost completely controlled by its own members, largely shutting out independent outlets and digital publishers and broadcasters. That governance control opened the door to implementing Bill C-18 in a manner that would benefit big media over the independents.

Yesterday members of the big media collective responded to Google’s choice with a request to the CRTC that can only be described as sour grapes.

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June 12, 2024 6 comments News
PowerBall 100 Million by bbyrnes59 CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 https://flic.kr/p/dS6xX

The Behind-the-Scenes Bill C-18 Battle: How Newspapers, Big Broadcasters and the CBC Are Trying to Seize Control Over How Google Money is Allocated to Canadian Media

Bill C-18, the Online News Act, is best known for two things: the government’s bad bet that Meta was bluffing when it said it would block news links in response to a system that mandated payments for links (news links have now been blocked for 10 months in Canada) and its attempt to salvage the legislation by striking a deal with Google worth $100 million annually. The Google deal has receded into the background, but the behind the scenes there is an intense battle over who will be selected to administer and allocate the annual $100 million. The outcome – which will be decided by Google by June 17th – will have enormous implications for Canadian media for years to come since it is anticipated that Google and the selected collective will negotiate a five year deal worth $500 million. Sources say that two proposals have emerged: a big media consortium led by News Media Canada (NMC), the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB), and the CBC, pitted against a proposal spearheaded by a group of independent and digital publishers and broadcasters that is promising a more transparent and equitable governance approach.

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May 28, 2024 7 comments News
Infoletta Hambach, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fight_capitalism_%26_more_free_money_at_demo_(15893842432).jpg

More Free Money: Media Lobby Campaigning For Even More Government Funding, Grants and Tax Reform

The proverbial ink is barely dry on the disastrous Bill C-18, yet the Canadian media lobby has already moved onto the next targets for government funding, grants, and tax reform. The effort, which is seemingly designed to ensure that government funding or regulation cover the entire cost of news, focuses on extending grants, expanding provincial tax credits, and overhauling the tax treatment of ad spending. It has hard to overstate how dangerous these policies have become as the sector’s addiction to government funding and regulation has come at an enormous cost that erodes public trust and created dependence on the very governments the press is supposed to hold to account.

The slippery slope of this government’s funding the media has been ongoing for years: the Local Journalism Initiative offered tens of millions in grant money, the Labour Journalism Tax Credit created a tax credit worth nearly $14,000 per journalist when established that was more than doubled last year on a retroactive basis to nearly $30,000 per journalist, and the Online News Act (Bill C-18) offered the hope (or more accurately illusion) of hundreds of millions more from Google and Meta. On top of the federal money, the Quebec government offers a similar tax credit system that comes close to ensuring that government money and regulation cover the entire cost of news journalists at print and digital publications in the province. And if that were not enough, the CRTC is working through its plan for Bill C-11, which the Canadian Association of Broadcasters hopes will lead to the creation of yet another news fund, with 30% of contributions from Internet streaming services such as Netflix and Disney going to the news divisions of Canadian broadcasters such as Bell and Rogers.

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February 21, 2024 13 comments News
House of Cards by Victoria Pickering CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 https://flic.kr/p/SVn4VL

The House of Cards Crumbles: Why the Bell Media Layoffs and Government’s Failed Media Policy are Connected

Bell’s announcement this week that it is laying off thousands of workers – including nearly 500 Bell Media employees – has sparked political outrage with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau characterizing it as a “garbage decision.” The job losses are obviously brutal for those directly affected and it would be silly to claim that a single policy response was responsible. Yet to suggest that the government’s media policy, particularly Bills C-11 and C-18, played no role is to ignore the reality of a failed approach for which there have been blinking warning signs for years. Indeed, Trudeau’s anger (which felt a bit like a reprise of his Meta comments over the summer) may partly reflect frustration that his policy choices have not only not worked, but have made matters worse.

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February 10, 2024 15 comments News
10 by will in nashville CC BY-ND 2.0 https://flic.kr/p/4XMjgk

The Year in Review: Top Ten Michael Geist Substacks

My look back at 2023 concludes with a review of my most popular Substacks of the year. Given the overlap between blog posts and Substacks, there is unsurprisingly overlap between the most popular posts with the piece on Bill S-210 occupying the top spot on both charts. However, there are differences, with posts on the CBC and my appearance before the CRTC that focused on competition and consumer choice making their way into the Substack top ten.

1. The Most Dangerous Canadian Internet Bill You’ve Never Heard Of Is a Step Closer to Becoming Law

2. Caving on Bill C-18: Government Outlines Planned Regulations that Signal Willingness to Cast Aside Core Principles of the Online News Act

3. Bill C-18 and the CBC’s Self-Destructive Approach to Government Digital Policy

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December 28, 2023 6 comments News