Media ownership in Canada
Encyclopedia
Media ownership in Canada is governed by the CRTC. The CRTC does not regulate ownership of newspapers or Internet media, although ownership in those media may be taken into consideration in decisions pertaining to a licensee's broadcasting operations.
, media in Canada are primarily owned by a small number of companies, including CTVglobemedia
, Rogers
, Shaw
, Astral
, Newcap
, Quebecor and the government-owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
. Each of these companies holds a diverse mix of television, cable television, radio, newspaper, magazine and/or internet operations. Some smaller media companies also exist. In 2007, CTVglobemedia, Astral Media, Quebecor, Canwest Global and Rogers all expanded significantly, through the acquisitions of CHUM Limited
, Standard Broadcasting
, Osprey Media
, Alliance Atlantis
and Citytv
, respectively. In 2010, Canwest was sold off and split between Shaw and Postmedia Network
due to financial troubles.
Between 1990 and 2005 there were a number of media corporate mergers and takeovers in Canada
. For example, in 1990, 17.3% of daily newspapers were independently owned; whereas in 2005, 1% were. These changes, among others, caused the Senate Standing Committee on Transport and Communications to launch a study of Canadian news media
in March 2003. (This topic had been examined twice in the past, by the Davey Commission (1970) and the Kent Commission (1981), both of which produced recommendations that were never implemented in any meaningful way.)
The Senate Committee’s final report, released in June 2006, expressed concern about the effects of the current levels of news media ownership in Canada. Specifically, the Committee discussed their concerns regarding the following trends: the potential of media ownership concentration to limit news diversity and reduce news quality; the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission]] (CRTC) and Competition Bureau’s ineffectiveness at stopping media ownership concentration; the lack of federal funding for the CBC and the broadcaster’s uncertain mandate and role; diminishing employment standards for journalists (including less job security, less journalistic freedom, and new contractual threats to intellectual property); a lack of Canadian training and research institutes; and difficulties with the federal government’s support for print media and the absence of funding for the internet-based news media.
The report provided 40 recommendations and 10 suggestions (for areas outside of federal government jurisdiction), including legislation amendments that would trigger automatic reviews of a proposed media merger if certain thresholds are reached, and CRTC regulation revisions to ensure that access to the broadcasting system is encouraged and that a diversity of news and information programming is available through these services.
operations, in which the same company operated both CBC
and CTV
affiliates in the same market, in 1967. This model of television ownership was restricted to smaller markets until the mid-1990s, when the CRTC began to allow companies to own multiple television stations in large markets such as Toronto
, Montreal
and Vancouver
.
by their associated networks, although even private affiliate
stations are mostly owned by non-network conglomerates rather than local companies. These acquisitions have been controversial; stations in smaller markets have frequently had their local news programming cut back or even eliminated. For instance, CTV's stations in Northern Ontario
and in Atlantic Canada
are served by a single regional newscast for each region, with only brief local news inserts for headlines of purely local interest. This, in turn, has contributed to the rise of independent local webmedia such as SooToday.com
, The Tyee
and rabble.ca.
's Hollinger
acquired the Southam chain. Black's 1999 sale of the Hollinger papers resulted in an increase in the diversity of newspaper ownership, with new ownership groups such as Osprey Media
entering the business, but was even more controversial because the CRTC, waiving its former rules against broadcasting companies acquiring newspaper assets, permitted Canwest Global to purchase many of the Hollinger papers. The Toronto Star
is a partial exception to this — it is owned by an independent company, but is itself a part owner of CTVglobemedia.
s may be implemented, or the ownership rule may be waived entirely. For example, in Windsor, Ontario
, Bell Media Radio owns most of the commercial broadcast outlets, due to the city's unique circumstances — being in the immediate environs of the Metro Detroit
market in the United States
, Windsor has historically been a difficult market for commercial broadcasters, so the CRTC waived its usual ownership restrictions to help protect the Windsor stations' financial viability.
When licensing a new broadcast outlet, the CRTC has a general (but not strict) tendency to favour new and local broadcasters. However, in the modern media context such broadcasters often struggle for financial viability, and are often subsequently acquired by larger companies. The CRTC rarely denies the acquisition applications. Canada also has strict laws around non-Canadian ownership of cultural industries; a media company in Canada may not be more than 20 per cent foreign-owned.
s increasingly consolidating under the same few media conglomerates that own most of the country's conventional television stations, the CRTC also imposed a market share
cap: no company can own broadcasting assets holding more than 45 per cent of the country's total television viewership.
Small number of companies
Apart from a limited number of community broadcastersCommunity radio
Community radio is a type of radio service, that offers a third model of radio broadcasting beyond commercial broadcasting and public broadcasting. Community stations can serve geographic communities and communities of interest...
, media in Canada are primarily owned by a small number of companies, including CTVglobemedia
CTVglobemedia
CTVglobemedia , was one of Canada's largest private media companies. Its operations include newspaper publishing , television broadcasting and production , radio broadcasting , and their respective Internet properties.Originally established by BCE and the Thomson family in 2001 combining CTV Inc.,...
, Rogers
Rogers Communications
Rogers Communications Inc. is one of Canada's largest communications companies, particularly in the field of wireless communications, cable television, home phone and internet with additional telecommunications and mass media assets...
, Shaw
Shaw Communications
Shaw Communications is Canada's largest telecommunications company that provides telephone, Canada's fastest Internet and television services as well as broadcasting and soon Wifi. Shaw is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta...
, Astral
Astral Media
Astral Media Inc. is a Canadian media corporation. It is Canada's largest radio broadcaster with 83 radio stations in eight provinces, and is a major player in premium and specialty television in Canada, including The Movie Network, Super Écran, Family, Teletoon, Canal D, Canal Vie, VRAK.TV,...
, Newcap
Newcap Broadcasting
Newfoundland Capital Corporation Limited is a major Canadian broadcasting company, majority-owned by Harold R. Steele. Newfoundland Capital is the parent company of Newcap Inc. . It is currently the number two private-sector radio broadcaster in Canada, just behind Astral Media...
, Quebecor and the government-owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
. Each of these companies holds a diverse mix of television, cable television, radio, newspaper, magazine and/or internet operations. Some smaller media companies also exist. In 2007, CTVglobemedia, Astral Media, Quebecor, Canwest Global and Rogers all expanded significantly, through the acquisitions of CHUM Limited
CHUM Limited
CHUM Limited was a media company based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada from 1945 to 2007. Immediately prior to its acquisition, it held full or joint control of two Canadian television systems — Citytv and A-Channel — comprising 11 local stations, and one CBC Television affiliate, one...
, Standard Broadcasting
Standard Broadcasting
Slaight Communications is a Canadian radio broadcasting company. The company was first formed as Slaight Broadcasting in 1971, when owner J. Allan Slaight acquired CFGM in Richmond Hill...
, Osprey Media
Osprey Media
Osprey Media was a Canadian newspaper regional chain that published 20 daily newspapers, 34 non-daily newspapers, and a number of shopping guides and magazines in the Canadian province of Ontario...
, Alliance Atlantis
Alliance Atlantis
Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc. was a Toronto-based media company that operated primarily as a specialty service operator in Canada. Alliance Atlantis also had offices in Halifax, Los Angeles, London, Dublin, Madrid, Barcelona, Shannon and Sydney.Alliance Atlantis was acquired by Canwest...
and Citytv
Citytv
Citytv is a Canadian English language television system owned and operated by Rogers Communications under its Rogers Broadcasting Ltd. division...
, respectively. In 2010, Canwest was sold off and split between Shaw and Postmedia Network
Postmedia Network
Postmedia Network Canada Corp. is a Canadian media company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, consisting of the publishing properties of the former Canwest, with primary operations in newspaper publishing, news gathering and Internet operations....
due to financial troubles.
Between 1990 and 2005 there were a number of media corporate mergers and takeovers in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. For example, in 1990, 17.3% of daily newspapers were independently owned; whereas in 2005, 1% were. These changes, among others, caused the Senate Standing Committee on Transport and Communications to launch a study of Canadian news media
News media
The news media are those elements of the mass media that focus on delivering news to the general public or a target public.These include print media , broadcast news , and more recently the Internet .-Etymology:A medium is a carrier of something...
in March 2003. (This topic had been examined twice in the past, by the Davey Commission (1970) and the Kent Commission (1981), both of which produced recommendations that were never implemented in any meaningful way.)
The Senate Committee’s final report, released in June 2006, expressed concern about the effects of the current levels of news media ownership in Canada. Specifically, the Committee discussed their concerns regarding the following trends: the potential of media ownership concentration to limit news diversity and reduce news quality; the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission]] (CRTC) and Competition Bureau’s ineffectiveness at stopping media ownership concentration; the lack of federal funding for the CBC and the broadcaster’s uncertain mandate and role; diminishing employment standards for journalists (including less job security, less journalistic freedom, and new contractual threats to intellectual property); a lack of Canadian training and research institutes; and difficulties with the federal government’s support for print media and the absence of funding for the internet-based news media.
The report provided 40 recommendations and 10 suggestions (for areas outside of federal government jurisdiction), including legislation amendments that would trigger automatic reviews of a proposed media merger if certain thresholds are reached, and CRTC regulation revisions to ensure that access to the broadcasting system is encouraged and that a diversity of news and information programming is available through these services.
Role within small markets
Due to Canada's smaller population, some types of media consolidation have always been allowed. In small markets where the population could not adequately support multiple television stations competing for advertising revenue, the CRTC began permitting twinstickTwinstick
A twinstick, in Canadian broadcasting, is a term for two television stations, broadcasting in the same market, which are owned by the same company...
operations, in which the same company operated both CBC
CBC Television
CBC Television is a Canadian television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster.Although the CBC is supported by public funding, the television network supplements this funding with commercial advertising revenue, in contrast to CBC Radio which are...
and CTV
CTV television network
CTV Television Network is a Canadian English language television network and is owned by Bell Media. It is Canada's largest privately-owned network, and has consistently placed as Canada's top-rated network in total viewers and in key demographics since 2002, after several years trailing the rival...
affiliates in the same market, in 1967. This model of television ownership was restricted to smaller markets until the mid-1990s, when the CRTC began to allow companies to own multiple television stations in large markets such as Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
and Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
.
National media conglomerates
As of 2007, almost all Canadian television stations are owned by national media conglomerates. Most, in fact, are directly owned and operatedOwned-and-operated station
In the broadcasting industry , an owned-and-operated station usually refers to a television station or radio station that is owned by the network with which it is associated...
by their associated networks, although even private affiliate
Affiliate
An affiliate is a commercial entity with a relationship with a peer or a larger entity.- Corporate structure :A corporation may be referred to as an affiliate of another when it is related to it but not strictly controlled by it, as with a subsidiary relationship, or when it is desired to avoid...
stations are mostly owned by non-network conglomerates rather than local companies. These acquisitions have been controversial; stations in smaller markets have frequently had their local news programming cut back or even eliminated. For instance, CTV's stations in Northern Ontario
Northern Ontario
Northern Ontario is a region of the Canadian province of Ontario which lies north of Lake Huron , the French River and Lake Nipissing. The region has a land area of 802,000 km2 and constitutes 87% of the land area of Ontario, although it contains only about 6% of the population...
and in Atlantic Canada
Atlantic Canada
Atlantic Canada is the region of Canada comprising the four provinces located on the Atlantic coast, excluding Quebec: the three Maritime provinces – New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia – and Newfoundland and Labrador...
are served by a single regional newscast for each region, with only brief local news inserts for headlines of purely local interest. This, in turn, has contributed to the rise of independent local webmedia such as SooToday.com
SooToday.com
SooToday.com is a regional news website in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.The site was created in 2000 as a regional tabloid shopping and business directory...
, The Tyee
The Tyee
The Tyee is an independent Canadian online web magazine, which focuses on coverage of news and media issues in British Columbia.The Tyee was launched in November 2003 by David Beers, a journalist who had previously been associated with the Vancouver Sun...
and rabble.ca.
Controls over mergers
Many, though not all, Canadian newspapers are also owned by the same media conglomerates which own the television networks. Companies which own both television and newspaper assets have strict controls on the extent to which they can merge the operations. The issue of newspaper ownership has been particularly controversial in Canada, especially in the mid-1990s when Conrad BlackConrad Black
Conrad Moffat Black, Baron Black of Crossharbour, OC, KCSG, PC is a Canadian-born member of the British House of Lords, and a historian, columnist and publisher, who was for a time the third largest newspaper magnate in the world. Lord Black controlled Hollinger International, Inc...
's Hollinger
Hollinger Inc.
Hollinger Inc. was a Canadian media company based in Toronto. It was created by the Canadian businessman Conrad Black as a holding company for his media interests after he acquired control of The Daily Telegraph in 1986. It was the parent company of Chicago-based Hollinger International, whose...
acquired the Southam chain. Black's 1999 sale of the Hollinger papers resulted in an increase in the diversity of newspaper ownership, with new ownership groups such as Osprey Media
Osprey Media
Osprey Media was a Canadian newspaper regional chain that published 20 daily newspapers, 34 non-daily newspapers, and a number of shopping guides and magazines in the Canadian province of Ontario...
entering the business, but was even more controversial because the CRTC, waiving its former rules against broadcasting companies acquiring newspaper assets, permitted Canwest Global to purchase many of the Hollinger papers. The Toronto Star
Toronto Star
The Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its print edition is distributed almost entirely within the province of Ontario...
is a partial exception to this — it is owned by an independent company, but is itself a part owner of CTVglobemedia.
Radio norms
In radio, a company is normally restricted to owning no more than three stations in a single market, of which only two can be on the same broadcast band. (That is, a company may own two FM stations and an AM station, or two AMs and one FM, but may not own three FMs.) Under certain circumstances, local marketing agreementLocal marketing agreement
In U.S. and Canadian broadcasting, a local marketing agreement is an agreement in which one company agrees to operate a radio or television station owned by another licensee...
s may be implemented, or the ownership rule may be waived entirely. For example, in Windsor, Ontario
Windsor, Ontario
Windsor is the southernmost city in Canada and is located in Southwestern Ontario at the western end of the heavily populated Quebec City – Windsor Corridor. It is within Essex County, Ontario, although administratively separated from the county government. Separated by the Detroit River, Windsor...
, Bell Media Radio owns most of the commercial broadcast outlets, due to the city's unique circumstances — being in the immediate environs of the Metro Detroit
Metro Detroit
The Detroit metropolitan area, often referred to as Metro Detroit, is the metropolitan area located in Southeast Michigan centered on the city of Detroit which shares an international border with Windsor, Ontario. The Detroit metropolitan area is the second largest U.S. metropolitan area...
market in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Windsor has historically been a difficult market for commercial broadcasters, so the CRTC waived its usual ownership restrictions to help protect the Windsor stations' financial viability.
When licensing a new broadcast outlet, the CRTC has a general (but not strict) tendency to favour new and local broadcasters. However, in the modern media context such broadcasters often struggle for financial viability, and are often subsequently acquired by larger companies. The CRTC rarely denies the acquisition applications. Canada also has strict laws around non-Canadian ownership of cultural industries; a media company in Canada may not be more than 20 per cent foreign-owned.
2008 rules
Under new rules announced in 2008, the CRTC limited companies to two types of media in a given market — a company may, for example, own television and radio assets in one city, or radio and newspaper, or television and newspaper, but may not own all three simultaneously. As well, with the ownership of cable specialty channelSpecialty channel
A specialty channel can be a commercial broadcasting or non-commercial television channel which consists of television programming focused on a single genre, subject or targeted television market at a specific demographic....
s increasingly consolidating under the same few media conglomerates that own most of the country's conventional television stations, the CRTC also imposed a market share
Market share
Market share is the percentage of a market accounted for by a specific entity. In a survey of nearly 200 senior marketing managers, 67 percent responded that they found the "dollar market share" metric very useful, while 61% found "unit market share" very useful.Marketers need to be able to...
cap: no company can own broadcasting assets holding more than 45 per cent of the country's total television viewership.
See also
- Concentration of media ownershipConcentration of media ownershipConcentration of media ownership refers to a process whereby progressively fewer individuals or organizations control increasing shares of the mass media...
- Mass mediaMass mediaMass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
- Media activismMedia activismMedia activism is activism that uses media and communication technologies for social movement, and/or tries to change policies relating to media and communication ....
- Media democracyMedia democracyMedia democracy is a set of ideas advocating reforming the mass media, strengthening public service broadcasting, and developing and participating in alternative media and citizen journalism. The stated purpose for doing so is to create a mass media system that informs and empowers all members of...
- Media in CanadaMedia in CanadaCanada has a well-developed media sector, but its cultural output — particularly in English films, television shows, and magazines — is often overshadowed by imports from the United States. Television, magazines, and newspapers are primarily for-profit corporations based on advertising,...
- List of all Canadian media companies with the media they own, from SourcesSources (website)Sources is a Web portal for journalists, freelance writers, editors, authors, and researchers, focusing especially on human sources: experts and spokespersons who are prepared to answer reporters’ questions or make themselves available for on-air interviews....