THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORT AND COMMUNICATIONS
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Wednesday, October 30, 2024
The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications met with videoconference this day at 6:46 p.m. [ET] to study matters relating to transport and communications generally.
Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne (Deputy Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Deputy Chair: Honourable senators, I am Julie Miville-Dechêne, a senator from Quebec and the deputy chair of this committee. Tonight, I will be chairing the meeting in Senator Housakos’s absence.
[English]
I would now invite my colleagues to introduce themselves.
Senator Simons: Hello. I’m Senator Paula Simons. I come from Alberta and from Treaty 6 territory.
Senator Fridhandler: Senator Daryl Fridhandler, from Alberta.
Senator Clement: Bernadette Clement, Ontario.
Senator Dasko: Senator Donna Dasko, from Ontario.
[Translation]
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, colleagues.
This evening, we are continuing our study of the local and regional services provided by CBC/Radio-Canada. Our witnesses are joining us by video conference.
[English]
We have April Lindgren, Professor, School of Journalism, Toronto Metropolitan University; Marla Boltman, Executive Director, and Sarah Andrews, Director of Government and Media Relations from Friends of Canadian Media; and Derrick Gray, Chief Research and Operations Officer at Numeris.
Welcome, and thank you for joining us. We will first hear opening remarks of five minutes each, starting with Professor Lindgren, followed by Ms. Boltman and then Mr. Gray. Opening remarks will be followed by questions and answers. Professor Lindgren, you have the floor.
April Lindgren, Professor, School of Journalism, Toronto Metropolitan University, as an individual: Thank you very much, and thank you to the committee for inviting me here today.
I run something called the Local News Research Project at Toronto Metropolitan University School of Journalism. That’s formerly Ryerson. One of our initiatives is something called the Local News Map. It is an online resource that tracks where and when a print, a broadcast or an online local news outlet closes, when one launches and if their service increases or decreases. We have data that goes back to 2008. I’m going to draw upon that data today to make the point that there’s a significant role, I think, for the CBC in meeting the information needs of local communities at a time when many people have less and less access to local news.
For the purposes of our project, the definition of a local news outlet is one that maintains independence from its sources far from the people it covers, demonstrates a commitment to accuracy, transparency and reporting methods and is devoted primarily to reporting and disseminating timely, originally produced news about people, places, issues and events in a defined geographic area.
We produce a summary report of the Local News Map every two months. I shared a copy with the committee in advance, although I’m not sure if you have it yet. The latest data shows that 521 local news outlets have closed in 347 communities across Canada since 2008. Now, three quarters of those were community newspapers that published fewer than five times a week, but in the last 18 months or so, broadcast news is also taking a hit. We’ve had CBC and Global cancelling local newscasts and shutting down radio stations. When I checked recently, 37 local radio stations have closed since 2008, but fully a third, about 11 of them, have happened in just the last 18 months, to that earlier point I was making. Now, of course, local news outlets have also opened since 2008, but only about half as many have opened as have closed, so there’s been a net loss.
In the spring, we did a deeper dive into what is now 15 years of data from this map, and I think the results demonstrate the need for a public broadcaster to play an even larger role going forward in filling the local news voids caused by the retreat of commercial media.
Between 2008 and April of this year, which is when we looked at the data, nearly half of all the closings occurred in places with fewer than 20,000 people. By comparison, only about 75 launched in these small communities. I think there’s a case to be made that a public broadcaster has a role to play in ensuring these smaller places have access to news and information, just like people who live in more populous locations.
Since 2014, the closings have also increasingly been concentrated in lower-income places where, arguably, people have less capacity to pay for local news, and they need a free source like the CBC. Between 2019 and 2024, for instance, about two thirds of all the closings happened in places that had less than the national median income.
Now, of course, news outlets start up and they close over time in communities, so we wanted to see if there are any actual winners over time. We didn’t find very many. However, overall, we found that in 239 communities, the number of closings exceeded the number of launches. In other words, people have access to fewer sources of local news. By comparison, only 76 have emerged, by which I mean the number of new arrivals over time in these communities has been greater than the number of closings.
A question I often get asked is whether the new independent mostly digital local news media arriving on the scene can pick up the slack. They are certainly important, and they often produce good journalism, but they remain relatively small and limited in number. I can elaborate on that later, if you would like.
I’ll wrap up by saying Canadians are aware there is a problem. Data recently gathered from a McGill University study shows that only about half of people in cities and towns are somewhat satisfied or satisfied with local news coverage. That satisfaction level drops to 40% among rural residents.
My time is up. I’ll conclude by saying that at a time when the private sector media in many communities is not able to provide people with the news and information required to navigate daily life, I think the public broadcaster, particularly CBC online and CBC Radio, has an increasingly important role to play in ensuring that those needs are addressed.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much for all of this data, Ms. Lindgren. Over to Ms. Marla Boltman with Ms. Sarah Andrews. You both have five minutes that you may divide as you want.
Marla Boltman, Executive Director, Friends of Canadian Media: Good evening. Thank you, senators, for inviting us to appear this evening. My name is Marla Boltman, and I am the executive director of Friends of Canadian Media. We are a non‑profit, non-partisan citizen’s movement that stands up for Canadian voices in Canadian media. We work to protect and defend Canada’s rich cultural sovereignty and the healthy democracy it sustains. Joining me is Sarah Andrews, our director of government and media relations, who will conclude our opening remarks in French. Together, in English and in French, we are here with a simple, unmistakable message: Local news has never been more needed and yet never more at risk.
It is virtually impossible to place a value on the importance of local news, that is credible, verifiable and subjected to rigorous editorial oversight. Local news connects us in our communities and between our communities. It keeps us informed and less vulnerable to those who seek to disinform. In so doing, it helps to keep us together.
Local news also serves as a check on authority by challenging those in positions of power, creating accountability and combatting corruption. As parliamentarians in our upper house — who, in your own right, serve a challenge function — I am sure you will agree strongly with this important duty. It is for all of these reasons that we say quite seriously that our democratic health very much relies upon the well-being of local news.
But sadly, as you know, it is in crisis. Cutbacks combined with inconsistent attempts to recreate the financial and distribution models that online technologies have disrupted have left local news organizations struggling. Occasionally, we will see an Internet start-up plug some gaps by providing bulletins and information or unedited, unverified opinion, but this is no substitute. Such ventures lack the scale, the heft and the trust required to contribute a fraction of what is being lost.
[Translation]
Sarah Andrews, Director, Government and Media Relations, Friends of Canadian Media: We’ve seen private media sell radio stations and centralize television. We’ve seen dozens of dailies and weeklies be acquired and shut down. It’s no exaggeration to say that, when it comes to local media, as with national media, we’re witnessing a blatant market failure.
That’s what makes CBC/Radio-Canada so vital. It continues to provide service to the entire country. CBC/Radio-Canada is a source of local news gathering and reporting relied on by almost everyone. In Quebec, in the North, in rural communities and elsewhere, it’s CBC/Radio-Canada that people turn to for information and news.
Despite that, some people want to see our national public broadcaster defunded.
The harm that such a measure could do to our communities, our ability to counter disinformation and the health of our democracy is almost impossible to gauge.
In conclusion, we have several recommendations for the committee.
First, CBC/Radio-Canada must receive more support for local news production and distribution, which need to be properly funded.
Second, the CBC/Radio-Canada mandate must be updated to ensure that local news is correctly prioritized.
Lastly, we can’t ignore what polls keep telling us: Canadians want and need an improved version of CBC/Radio-Canada.
Thank you. We will be pleased to answer your questions.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, ladies, for being concise. It’s greatly appreciated.
[English]
Now I will ask Mr. Derrick Gray to speak for five minutes.
Derrick Gray, Chief Research and Operations Officer, Numeris: Thank you, Madame Chair, and good evening to the senators. Thank you for inviting me. My name is Dr. Derrick Gray. I’m the chief research and operations officer for Numeris, a not-for-profit joint industry committee responsible for video and audio audience estimates to support the Canadian media industry.
I’ve been asked to look at the performance of CBC as well as SRC over the past 10 years in comparison to some of the other for-profit channels or privately owned channels.
Looking at the data, in the case of television — I’ll start with television and then I’ll go on to radio. In the case of television, we do see that all TV networks have been showing downward trends in audiences over the past 10 years. The CBC network itself does tend to have a steeper decline in their audiences than the other privately owned networks, with the exception of Western Canada — Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and B.C. — where we do see two large privately owned networks that are showing a much steeper decline in audiences than the CBC. If we look at SRC, we see it is relatively flat in most regions in terms of their audience. However, in Quebec, where the bulk of their viewership comes from, they have a decline there, but their decline is less than some of the other French privately owned networks.
This pattern tends to hold true for individuals 2 plus, adults 18 years of age and older, as well as adults 25 to 54 years old. We do see that the decline is driven by what is known as reach, which is the number of unique individuals who are tuning in to CBC or SRC as opposed to the time spent. Fewer people are watching; however, those who are watching tend to be watching for more similar amounts of time as before.
Radio is a slightly different story. Again, there is downward pressure on Canadian radio. Most radio stations do show a downward trend in audiences. However, the CBC and SRC radio stations have been relatively flat in terms of audiences over the past ten years. Their long-term trend ranges anywhere from being up by about 1% to below by 1%, and that’s within relative errors there — it’s fairly flat — whereas the commercial radio stations do tend to show a downward trend. We see this consistent across the six measured metros, which are French Montreal, English Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. This pattern is quite consistent again for individuals two years of age or older, adults 18 plus and adults 25-54. In the case of CBC and SRC radio, both reach and time spent do show similar patterns and are relatively flat over the past ten years.
That would conclude what my data is saying.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you.
I will ask a question to start.
Senator Simons: You’re the chair.
The Deputy Chair: Yes, I can do that.
[Translation]
Ms. Andrews, my question concerns CBC/Radio-Canada’s mandate. We met with witnesses from the CRTC at our last meeting, and they obviously told us what we already knew. We heard, in particular, that CBC/Radio-Canada has no obligation in its mandate with regard to the number of stations and its regional presence. We’re told that there must be a regional presence based on CBC/Radio-Canada’s financial resources. Therefore, it’s relatively vague.
Are you seeking a more binding mandate? Is CBC/Radio-Canada free to choose how it spends its money, since it’s an independent Crown corporation? Do you want the public broadcaster to lose its independence when it comes to allocating funds?
Ms. Andrews: Let me begin by attempting to answer your question on the mandate, because I think it’s important.
Much has been said at recent meetings about CBC/Radio-Canada’s licence conditions. It is true that the current mandate under the Broadcasting Act mentions regions only, not local broadcasting. However, it is mentioned in the licence conditions, which is why CBC/Radio-Canada is required to provide local news.
The problem we’re raising as an organization is that the current conditions do not require a minimum expenditure from CBC/Radio-Canada on local news. This was newly included by the CRTC in the latest licences, and it’s the reason we appealed to cabinet for the CRTC to review the decision.
As you know, the CRTC has not yet followed up on the referral of the decision, and we’re expecting it to do so within a year, before the current CBC/Radio-Canada licences expire. We consider that the first step would be a minimum expenditure on local news. The CRTC argues that CBC/Radio-Canada has always fulfilled its obligations, but that’s no reason not to set a minimum expenditure.
As for the mandate — the most important question — I’d say that, right now, CBC/Radio-Canada’s mandate is rather vague. As you said, the mandate is to entertain and inform Canadians. The discussion will be interesting. Over the past year, we’ve called on our supporters to ask what they want from CBC/Radio-Canada.
Local news was the main topic discussed. I think that anything local is very important to Canadians. Original productions and our stories were mentioned a lot. Radio is also very important to our supporters.
[English]
Senator Simons: My first question is for Mr. Gray.
I have to tell you, as somebody who spent six years as a CBC Radio producer in Edmonton and Toronto, your numbers cheer me greatly, because I then went on to work in newspapers. I know, as Ms. Lindgren said, that there’s been a precipitous decline in every kind of conventional media in this country. The fact that CBC Radio is holding firm or perhaps even slightly going up suggests that they’re doing better than almost anybody else, doesn’t it?
Mr. Gray: In all fairness, I’ve looked at CBC as a single entity, all the CBC Radio stations combined, and the privately owned as a single entity. That is an average. I’m comparing two averages there.
Particular stations, or maybe privately owned radio stations, are doing better than CBC, but as a group, they are showing a decline. You’re absolutely right. CBC does tend to be holding stable and flat over the ten years.
Senator Simons: Radio as opposed to television.
Mr. Gray: Correct.
Senator Simons: That’s really interesting. I guess the real question then, Professor Lindgren, when you’re looking at closures, you mentioned there were some CBC closures. Can you tell us where those were?
Ms. Lindgren: No, I didn’t mention CBC closings. I said there had been radio station closings, but they’re private and community radio stations. They’re mostly private and community radio stations that have closed. There were 37, I think, since 2008, but 18 in the last little while.
Senator Simons: You won’t be able to tell us probably, although I’d love this information, how many communities are, at this point, almost wholly reliant on the CBC for their news?
Ms. Lindgren: This is one of the dilemmas we have in Canada. We don’t have a good sense of where the so-called news deserts are, which is places that have no local news coverage at all. We have no idea of how different communities are served and who is better served and who is more poorly served. The answer is that I don’t know the answer to that. CBC could probably answer that question. I do think that lack of information is a bit of a problem when we think about what the role of the broadcaster is, because obviously we want it to be in places where there’s little or no other — if there are little or no other private-sector options, it’s increasingly important in those places.
I will add I think it’s increasingly important in those places in an era when we have so much more unpredictable weather, emergencies, floods and fires. Radio remains a very important part of notification and getting information to people in really difficult situations. It’s no coincidence that the emergency kits that people are recommended to have if there’s a wildfire or floods coming is a crank radio.
Senator Simons: I have questions for everybody. I’m going back to Mr. Gray for a minute.
One of the challenges is that we’re looking at television numbers knowing that far fewer people are watching television in any way, not just watching the television news. They’re not watching linear TV. Lots of people under 30 don’t own a television set at all. Are you tracking downloads or clicks to CBC web pages or private radio web pages? I think that is how many people consume their news, even if it’s produced by what were conventional broadcasters who have pivoted to digital.
Mr. Gray: We’re tracking video. The clicks on a web page would not be measured by us. However, we would capture streaming from CBC Gem, either via a connected TV or smartphone.
The currency that is used for trading right now, which is what I referred to in the data set I looked at, is for linear television because that is how ads are bought and sold in Canada right now.
We do have a service that is currently running that measures video in terms of streaming across pure plays, broadcaster video on demand and so forth in Ontario and Quebec. The media industry does have access to that data. By summer, our hope is we should roll that out nationally. Then it’s up to the industry as at what point they want to transition to that as the currency.
As I said, clicks to websites and banners are outside the scope of our measurement service. We are audio and video.
Senator Simons: I worked in broadcasting for years in private radio before the CBC. The reason the ratings mattered is because that was how you sold the ads.
Mr. Gray: Correct.
Senator Simons: A sore point with many print publications is that CBC sells ads on its websites. Does that have anything to do with your ratings, or is that based entirely on the information they generate and say to their advertisers they are getting “x” many clicks because Google tells them that?
Mr. Gray: Ads in terms of websites and print fall under Vividata which is a different organization. They would be the individuals measuring that for the purpose of digital print and hard print trading.
Senator Simons: Interesting. Thank you to all the witnesses.
Senator Dasko: Thanks to everyone for being here.
Mr. Gray, could you just describe the methodology you use to measure viewing and listening? What technology are you using?
Mr. Gray: We license the PPM meter from Neilsen, which is a portable people metre. It is a small device that looks very similar to a pager. We have roughly 5,000 Canadian households, so that equates to about 11,000 individuals, who carry this pager.
Within the audio stream of radio stations as well as the audio stream of TV stations, there is an inaudible watermark code that gets picked up by that meter. When an individual carrying one of our meters is exposed to the radio station or the TV channel, the meter recognizes that watermark and relays the information to us. From that point, we use estimation using statistical methods and produce the audience estimate.
We do follow global guidelines. We have been audited by the Media Rating Council in the U.S., and our methodology does stand up to global standards.
Senator Dasko: So you are asking individuals to carry a device so you know person X or Y is the one consuming the particular media.
Mr. Gray: Yes.
Senator Dasko: Just in terms of what you have been finding, you must be able to distinguish between different types of programming that people are or are not listening to and whether those are going up and down. I think you were telling us about overall television’s steep decline, CBC and SRC less steep, flat. Radio is flat. Is this across all types of programming, or are we seeing steep declines in news consumption versus entertainment or music or other categories, special programming?
Mr. Gray: Unfortunately, with radio, we don’t measure content type. Radio is transacted on by time bands, day parts. I can look at the morning drive time, afternoon drive time and give you that. Television does. We do have content ratings in TVs. We could certainly look at the content type. Of course, CBC carries sports and news and various things and we could look at some of the trends for that. I would have to get back to the committee with that. I don’t have the data with me right now.
Senator Dasko: CBC obviously is producing various kinds of programming. It’s really interesting and helpful to know what it is that is being consumed and especially what is going up or down.
Ms. Lindgren, I have a couple of questions. You were giving numbers about outlets that have closed and the net loss of local news outlets. Do we know what people are doing who have lost their outlets? I’m thinking about displacement. Have they found other sources for their news online or whatever it may be? Or maybe they are not actually looking for other sources of news. I know when you are talking about outlets opening and closing, you are not talking about the loss to particular individuals who might have been following a certain outlet that has closed. What are those people doing? I know it’s a really hard thing to measure, but do you have any sense of that?
Ms. Lindgren: The only sense I have is anecdotal. If it is a relatively rich media environment locally, if one news outlet closes, ideally you would have access or the opportunity to go to other sources in your community for reliable local news.
The challenge is that in addition to news outlets closing, a lot of surviving more traditional media are really much reduced in terms of the amount of news they are producing. Thus, we get those conversations about ghost or zombie newspapers in particular where they continue to publish but there may be one or two stories in them.
The same thing happens with radio stations and television stations, again significant reductions in local content. I have just been looking at Kingston, Ontario, for instance. The Kingston Whig Standard, which is a storied newspaper, has been significantly reduced to the point where there are fewer than half a dozen people in their newsroom.
Earlier this summer, the local Global Television station was significantly cut. All the on-air people were let go. The newscast was cut to half an hour. Now the anchor is in Peterborough and the line-up of the stories is decided in Toronto. I have been digging around in Kingston, asking what people are doing. There is an online digital news source, the Kingstonist.com, so people are going there. But again, it is a small operation, four or five people, compared to a newspaper like the Kingston Whig Standard, which used to have upwards of 50 people.
I guess in a place where there are options, people will look for them, but news is also getting more difficult to discover. You have to work a lot harder now to find local news than you used to because of the Meta ban, the Facebook ban on local news as a result of the Online News Act, or the reaction to the Online News Act. It’s not so obvious to people who used to just encounter news stories posted in their Facebook feed and they could passively consume news that came to them that way. It is not happening at all on Meta unless somebody puts up a screenshot, in which case you have to go to the site and it requires more effort. People are having to work a lot harder to find alternatives to local news, if it even exists. It is not a very good answer, but it’s the best I can do.
Senator Cuzner: Thank you to the witnesses here.
First, Senator Simons and Senator Fridhandler would be aware of the OK Radio Group in Western Canada. When I was living in Fort McMurray in the late ‘80s, I used to do some work with CJOK and CKYX 98. They were at the cusp of the digital radio station. They didn’t have anybody in over the weekend. Everything was done online. I came back to Cape Breton, and we are slower to catch on in Cape Breton, I’ll admit to that. It was still very much analog. In our main radio station, we would have had two sports people and probably four or five in the news department, and then your on-air personalities, the DJs, what have you. That has caught up to Fort McMurray. They have been gutted. They have one news person at a time now. Whatever comes into the newsroom, they take it off-line, but very little local news.
You can track the number of radio stations that have closed down. Are you able to track the shrinkage or atrophy in the local newsrooms? A lot of the local stations now, nobody leaves the radio station. They count on community people. Is there any way of tracking that?
Ms. Lindgren: There is no reliable tracking of that. We hear about it when there is a round of layoffs. We hear about it if somebody takes the time to focus and examine and study the local news environment in a particular community.
Part of the problem is, to be frank, news organizations are not that keen to say to people, “Oh yes, please continue to subscribe to my newspaper or buy advertising on my station, and we have actually just cut the coverage from five people to one, so we are going to give people less for their money, or you are going to be reaching for your people because there will be less content here that will be of interest and fewer people are going to be drawn to what we are doing, or there will be fewer stories in the paper.”
Partly it is the media industry newsroom is not that interested to admit they have cut everything to the bone. Secondly, they are privately operated so they don’t have to. Third, nobody has actually tried it because of these difficulties.
StatsCan data shows there hasn’t been that big a change in the number of journalists in the country, but it also shows there has been a multiple-times increase in the number of public relations people, and that’s where a lot of journalists end up going. I think there is no doubt that with fewer newsrooms, there are fewer journalists in communities keeping an eye on what politicians are doing, telling stories that introduce people to each other in the community, pointing to challenging issues and suggesting reporting on what solutions have been found in other places to help create conversations about ways forward.
Sadly, we don’t have any specific numbers that we can point to on this except on a community by community or actually even station or news outlet by news outlet case.
Senator Cuzner: Dr. Gray, would the sharp decline that you saw in CBC Television be impacted by the loss of the Hockey Night in Canada broadcast? Because it would have been about 10 years ago they lost that contract.
Mr. Gray: I don’t have that data in front of me, but I would say it is probably a very fair assumption that that would play a role. But it wouldn’t be the only driver in this case.
Senator Cuzner: With CBC, are we able to separate the national programs from the local programs? We have two local on-air personalities in Cape Breton. They have got their audience. I listen all weekend as well. Some people don’t listen to the national programs, The Debaters and Because News and what have you. That makes my Saturday morning, sort of a sad testament to my social life. Do we have that tracking as far as what breaks out with numbers locally versus nationally?
Mr. Gray: We do for television. We have that metadata for television that we can layer on. But again, radio is bought and sold on day parts primarily so there is no content metadata, so we wouldn’t be able to look at it that way for radio.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you. Maybe this data that you have, the breakdown between national and local news at CBC/Radio-Canada would be interesting for us, if you could send that over.
Mr. Gray: Absolutely.
The Deputy Chair: Senator Fridhandler, welcome to the committee.
Senator Fridhandler: Thank you.
The questions I wanted to ask have been touched upon. I think we talked about who is actually operating at the local level. I guess my fundamental question is, do viewers care? No matter what we mandate and how many dollars we allocate, is anything going to change here. I hear radio is stable, so that’s a good-news story. But are we going to impact anything? Is there any evidence that money or mandating is going to change viewers’ habits?
The Deputy Chair: Ms. Boltman, would you like to answer this?
Ms. Boltman: I would like to answer that, but I would like to start in a different direction. We are talking a lot about statistics here, but we are not talking about the impacts on these communities and how they are feeling in terms of loss of news. There are two things I want to say before I come back to your question. In the absence of local news, we have learned that two things are filling the vacuum. One is national news, and national news, as we know, is dominated by a handful of voices, and it tends to be more polarizing than local news, which explains in part why news avoidance numbers are spiking. That also touches on your question. Have we lost people? Are they going to come back if they have been put off by news or they have gone other places? When you combine that with social media’s amplification of disinformation, we are left with an increasingly divided society with low public trust in democratic institutions and processes. That is the impact of the loss.
In terms of bringing them back, and do they care, I think they do. If you will indulge me for a moment here, we have reached out to many of our supporters over the years, and particularly most recently, about the CBC and their feelings on it with the Minister of Canadian Heritage doing her study or putting her panel together to study the CBC. We asked people what they thought. I want to share a couple of quotes with you.
The Deputy Chair: Ms. Boltman, are those surveys? When you talk about your supporters, are there studies? What are you talking about?
Ms. Boltman: We have many things we have done. In one case, we did a survey last November where we talked about trust in the news, and CBC actually was, in English Canada, rated first in terms of trustworthy and reliable news. It was rated second in French Canada. What I’m talking about here is the way we communicate with our supporters. We ran a “have your say” campaign, and we asked people how they felt about the CBC and what changes they wanted to see. We got pretty close to 10,000 responses. That’s what I’m referring to when I talk about how people feel about local news and its importance to them.
If you will indulge me, I’ll just read two to you. The first is from Judy from Manitoba, who said:
Every morning, CBC local news connects me to my community like nothing else can. It is more than just reporting. It is a daily check-in in on what’s happening in our lives here. The service is crucial, especially in areas where other local media have disappeared. CBC’s dedication to local stories not only informs us, it strengthens the bonds within our community.
I’ll just read you one more, because I think it is always great for you to hear from the people. We may speak for them and represent them, but these are their voices. This is Janet from Nova Scotia, who wrote:
CBC’s local coverage is more than just news. It’s the heartbeat of our town. But with each passing year, I worry we’ll lose this vital connection. It is distressing to see local media dwindling. We can’t let CBC follow that path. We need to ensure it remains a strong voice that can keep us united and informed about the nuances of our community.
So I hope that answers your questions in terms of, if you mandate it, what will happen, and will people actually watch it? What we hear time and time again from our supporters is how much local news matters to them and how much they don’t want to see it disappear.
Senator Fridhandler: But those are the people who are still listening. The people we have lost — I anecdotally will talk to people who are professionals and well educated and in their thirties and forties, and they say, “We don’t pay attention to that stuff anymore. We go on our device here and listen to this source and that source, and I don’t really care about that.”It would be more important to me to hear from the people who are not listening and whether they would be inclined to ever listen again.
Ms. Boltman: I think they are listening. They are just listening to other sources. But those other sources — we have lots of new outlets that have emerged — don’t have scope and reach and also don’t have the regulatory responsibilities that someone like CBC has to provide rigorous journalism and news. A lot of it is opinion based, and the reason why is because facts are expensive. Local news is expensive to produce, which is why we see private media pulling away from news, particularly local news, as they experience more and more financial difficulties. I recognize that I cannot speak for the silent. It is not necessarily that people are not there; it is that they have been presented with other options.
But I think we are underestimating how Canadians really feel about news and where they get their news. We have this impression that everybody is getting their news from social media. But if you look at the polls and the studies, that’s actually not true. Social media is the least trusted platform where people go to get news. I already said CBC is the most trusted. We have to look at what’s out there and where people are getting their sources from and what the responsibilities are on those sources to actually provide rigorous, verifiable and credible news versus, like I said, opinion. More and more Canadians are getting fed up with the disinformation they’re finding on social media, and they are looking for more and more trusted sources of news. I do believe that Canadians feel they can get that trusted news from local news.
Senator Clement: Thank you all for being here.
I was a city councillor and mayor back in the Jurassic Park days where we actually had a reporter who covered the city council beat and sat through four or six hours of council meetings and would report back to the community. We were kind of irritated because they would misquote us, or there would be issues and we didn’t agree, but at the end of the day, everybody in town looked to that media in whatever format they got it, and we had legitimate community conversations. People trusted what we were talking about. They didn’t always agree with us, but they certainly trusted that the council was doing things transparently and that it was being reported on by people they know and they see at the grocery store.
An Hon. Senator: A newspaper?
Senator Clement: A newspaper, yes, absolutely. We still have newspaper, but now the journalist is covering 20 events per day and doesn’t have time because they have cut back on the staffing.
I want to ask you — any of you — what is working? I think some of you have indicated there are some news outlets that are making it. What are the commonalities of the ones that are making it or are still hanging in there? What do they have?
I’d also like your comments on media that might be Indigenous-led or identity-led or community-led and whether those outlets are gaining some traction and whether they have built trust in their information.
Professor Lindgren?
Ms. Lindgren: Sure. There’s a lot there.
First, I would just say that in terms of trust can be rebuilt, one of the key factors that we’ve seen in research is that having a reporter present on the ground in person — so you do run into them in the grocery store, for instance — is really key to building trusted local media, because people have a sense that the reporters know the community, they know the issues, and they’re not parachuting in for two hours to do a story and then heading back out of town. Being present on the ground, I think, is really important, and it’s something that CBC/Radio-Canada reporters — I mean, we need to keep in mind that that’s an important part of what they do, being there and are not just dropping by occasionally or once in a while. That’s the first thing.
The second thing that is becoming increasingly evident about what helps local media survive is that content matters. Advertising is really problematic these days, so people don’t necessarily come to the local paper or radio station or TV station for ads, because we can go online, and there are ads, and you get directed exactly where you need to go for what you want to buy. So you’re not coming for the ads, and you’re not coming for the TV Guide — because that’s not around much — and you’re not coming for the crossword puzzle, so why go to local media? It’s because that local media can provide content that’s important for navigating everyday life. It could also be entertaining. It could be fun. It could be sports. It could be just knowing what other people are doing, but it has to be news that matters to people. Being able to produce that kind of content is essential.
The other thing is being engaged with the community. It’s increasingly evident that news organizations can’t be so transactional, as in, “Give us money, and we’ll drop a paper off at your door, or we’ll give you access to our news site.” Part of being a part of the community and showing that you’re engaged with the community is listening to what the community thinks is important and trying to ensure that this coverage you provide is reflective of the diversity in the community and also that your newsroom is as well. Media is still falling far behind on that one, but it’s also important.
These are two things that are essential to the survival, because if you want people to pay, whether it’s by a subscription or by a donation or by becoming a member because they believe in what you’re doing, you have to give them something to believe in. It’s a very different model than producing a publication that is getting rich on advertising, and you’re the only game in town, and people are going to come to you because there’s nowhere else to go for news and, anyway, you can get all the grocery ads, and you can do the crossword puzzle and read the classifieds. That model doesn’t exist anymore. Now, it takes three or four different revenue streams to survive, and that requires an emphasis on content, on being a part of the community and doing journalism in the public interest that people are willing to pay for in some way, shape or form.
Senator Clement: Anyone else on the Indigenous-led or diverse language?
The Deputy Chair: And a bit shorter in terms of answers, so we can move on.
Ms. Boltman: I thought April Lindgren summed that up quite well, so I don’t want to top her, but I want to add that I think the way local news will succeed is exactly what she said. It’s because we don’t have all these things anymore. It used to be that when people opened the newspaper, they could look at the arts section, the lifestyle section, the metro section and the comics. They had all these other reasons to go to the newspaper. Section A may have been part of it, but now, what has happened is that what is left of a lot of the mainstream media where we’ve lost the local news is that all that is left is the Section A, the hard-hitting, polarizing news for political junkies that often isn’t relevant to the communities or their daily lives. That is why, as I mentioned before, we’re seeing this reduction in people actually watching news or listening to news or reading news. They’re tuning out, and they’re turning off, because they don’t like it. They don’t like what they’re hearing.
I think success will come if we can get back to the idea of this local news and where the trust is — like we said — the person at the grocery store. You know these people; they’re in your community. That is where we will win, and we will bring people back to news, and we can counter the polarization, counter the divisiveness and, for sure, counter the disinformation.
The Deputy Chair: I will ask a question specifically on CBC/Radio-Canada, because we haven’t quite focused on this during this panel, if you don’t mind.
I’d like to know, briefly — from both of you or all of you — is CBC/Radio-Canada doing enough in local and regional news? What is your judgment on that? Are they present enough? Are they doing enough? Do they have enough money to be present in local news? We’ve talked about the whole context, and it’s quite interesting. You keep saying, Ms. Lindgren, that’s why CBC has to be there, but are they there? Is it enough? Maybe to Ms. Boltman, too. I would like to have a concise answer from both of you.
Ms. Andrews: To answer your question very quickly, the CBC does provide vital local news to Canadians.
[Translation]
Can they do more? Absolutely. As I mentioned earlier, the licence conditions for CBC/Radio-Canada should set out a minimum level of expenditure for local services. We know that in communities where CBC/Radio-Canada is not present, however, more can be done. Is it a question of money? Most probably. CBC/Radio-Canada is asked to do a lot, even though its funding is $33 per person per year.
We consider the funding question to be fundamental. We’ll wait to see what the minister announces in the coming weeks and what she proposes for the funding model. We expect her to talk about the importance of local news as part of a revised and improved CBC/Radio-Canada.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: What do you think, Ms. Lindgren?
Ms. Lindgren: I think the CBC could be doing more in terms of providing local news to communities. I think it could be more collaborative. In a community where there are one or two CBC reporters and a small radio station and a small newspaper, I think there’s the potential to work together to do projects, to try and address the problems that are confronting a community and seek solutions and create a forum for conversation. I think it could and should do more.
Senator Clement: I did want to come back to whether you have any data around Indigenous-led news outlets or outlets that are providing news to specific communities. Do you keep track of those? Do you have any information on those? Do those work?
Ms. Lindgren: CBC has quite a successful Indigenous service, a lot of programming. I think that is important.
I don’t have any specific data on where they have bureaus in more isolated areas. I do know that a CBC station like Thunder Bay covers a huge area in the North with a lot of communities there. I grew up in that city, and the CBC now does cover those communities much better than it used to, but it’s a question of priorities. What does CBC think is important, another reporter on Parliament Hill or more reporters in smaller communities that have lost local news outlets, or, in the case of the North or more isolated communities, never had them?
The Deputy Chair: Do you think it should be less on Parliament Hill and more in the community? You did ask the question, but you did not answer the question, and we’re here to hear some opinions.
Ms. Lindgren: I don’t necessarily want them to cut Parliament Hill. I would like to see more reporting at the local level, so more resources at the local level.
Senator Simons: I’m having an existential crisis after Senator Fridhandler’s question. I worked in local news. If I had a big scoop on the front page of the Edmonton Journal in 1999, I could be sure that 250,000 people would read it. But now, this whole study is predicated on the notion that we want the CBC to do more local coverage because we think local coverage is good.
In a world in which everybody is listening to Call Her Daddy and Joe Rogan and not the local news, how do we get people to stop being distracted by their access to all the news of the world, including the gong show going on south of the border, and to actually focus on the local news? Maybe I’m trying to make people eat kale and oat bran and they don’t want kale and oat bran.
The Deputy Chair: It’s a very easy question, so if you could tackle it very quickly. We’ll have to end soon. Please be brief.
Ms. Boltman: I’m going to say I like kale and oat bran, for starters, and I think there are a lot of people out there who like kale and oath bran.
We keep saying that they’re not there and they’re not listening, but the McGill study that we just mentioned earlier talked about how 78% of Canadians want to see CBC continue to stick around and be funded. There are some criticisms, and that 78% number is predicated on fixing what ails them. I don’t think it’s a case of these disappearing audiences, particularly for CBC News. I think CBC News is doing very well. I think a lot of the issues about audiences and numbers may relate more to entertainment programming, which is something that all television broadcasters are suffering from right now as we live in this age of foreign streamer American dominance.
In terms of people actually tuning in to news, they are, and I think they’d like to be tuning in to local news more if there was more available, and that’s why people are particularly concerned about this crisis in local news that we’re having.
Senator Simons: Local news, that’s the question.
The Deputy Chair: We have to close this panel. Thank you very much. This was very interesting.
Ms. Boltman, could you send us the McGill study? I don’t think we have it. It would be interesting. Could you do that for us?
Ms. Boltman: Sure. We can send that over to you.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much to all of you for your generosity.
[Translation]
Honourable senators, we are now meeting to continue our study of local services provided by CBC.
For our second panel of witnesses this evening, we have, in person, Kevin Desjardins, President of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters.
[English]
The committee also welcomes, by video conference, Matthew Hatfield, Executive Director, OpenMedia; and Kirk LaPointe, Journalist, Adjunct Journalism Professor, University of British Columbia.
Welcome, and thank you for joining us. We will hear your opening remarks of five minutes each, starting with Mr. Desjardins, followed by Mr. Hatfield and Mr. LaPointe, which will be followed by questions and answers. Mr. Desjardins, you have the floor for five minutes.
Kevin Desjardins, President, Canadian Association of Broadcasters: Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee, for having me back.
[Translation]
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to share the view of private broadcasters during this important discussion.
It’s always a pleasure for me to appear before this committee, since I represent more than 700 private stations and services that make up the Canadian Association of Broadcasters.
[English]
Obviously, this committee has had significant opportunity to discuss the Canadian broadcasting industry in recent years, and we appreciate you returning to this particular question on the role of the national public broadcaster in the Canadian broadcasting system.
Amongst the membership that CAB represents, there is likely a diversity of opinions on the role of CBC/Radio-Canada, but broadly, we recognize that there is a role for the public broadcaster etched into the Broadcasting Act, but we strongly believe that the national public broadcaster should be mandate‑driven and not market-driven.
The role of the public broadcaster should be complementary to the role played by private broadcasters. As such, we don’t believe that the public broadcaster should compete with private broadcasters in three critical areas: for advertisers, for programming rights and for talent. We state this in an evolving global context where digital giants, in a very short period of time, have entered the Canadian advertising market and become dominant players. The economic presence of a public broadcaster with a substantial annual operating subsidy competing directly with private broadcasters in these three critical areas has a negative effect. Moreover, the chase for advertising dollars and popular programming only serves to distract the CBC from their public service mandate.
In advertising, the CBC’s presence distorts the marketplace by having a significant entrant for whom advertising dollars are a secondary revenue stream. Advertising dollars are the lifeblood for private broadcasters, and any ad dollars intended for broadcasting platforms that go to the CBC/Radio-Canada only serve to squeeze the shrinking TV and radio portion of the larger advertising pie. Because ad dollars are a secondary revenue source for CBC, there’s concern over the downward flexibility on their rates, which, in turn, can act as a drag on the whole of the industry.
We believe that there is a direct link between the corporation straying from its mandate and its ability to advertise. If the CBC/Radio-Canada were constrained from advertising, there would be no rationale to compete with private broadcasters for content, but because the public broadcaster needs to chase ratings to attract advertisers, it bids up the cost of programming rights for popular foreign and domestic content.
[Translation]
It should also be noted that the discussion on Radio-Canada’s role of market disrupter, especially in Quebec, deserves close examination. While CBC is unfortunately an overly commercial competitor in Canada, Radio-Canada is competing openly in Quebec. To a certain extent, this concentration of commercial interests in the province could undermine the broadcaster’s role and mandate, which is to serve official language minority communities across the country.
[English]
It’s important to also reflect on how the national broadcaster makes use of its evolving digital channels to take a more overtly commercial approach. For instance, CBC and Radio-Canada radio stations are commercial free, but some of the digital extensions of those linear broadcasting properties include advertising. When a radio program is repackaged as a podcast, they can include commercials. When they are posted on their website, it is alongside banner ads.
Gem and ICI TOU.TV streaming services don’t merely provide digital access to the broadcaster’s catalogue. To support these digital streaming services, CBC/Radio-Canada sells ads or subscriptions and acquires the rights to a much broader and more popular set of international programming to encourage Canadians to log in.
Seeing the overtly commercial direction of CBC/Radio-Canada’s digital extension should give us a greater sense of the general direction the public broadcaster will chart if they are not provided with a clear guidance to focus on their public interest mandate. In the questions, I can talk about their acquisition of talent and the role they play there.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much. We will now hear from Matt Hatfield.
Matthew Hatfield, Executive Director, OpenMedia: Good evening. I’m Matt Hatfield, and I’m executive director of OpenMedia, a non-partisan grassroots community of over 250,000 people in Canada who work for an open, affordable and surveillance-free Internet.
I’m joining you today from the territory of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, the Haudenosaunee and the Mississaugas of the Credit.
I have four points to share tonight: why Bill C-18 failed, the case for publicly funded local journalism, a point on the value of the news and where we can start fixing the local journalism problem.
Bill C-18 has been a clear net loss for Canadian journalism. Google will eventually provide $100 million in funding, yet if we subtract Google’s previous support and consider the enormous traffic losses caused by the Meta pullout, Bill C-18 is revenue-negative for most Canadian outlets. It is unquestionably negative for small local outlets, many of whom lost 50% or more of their audience overnight.
Bill C-18 misunderstood the news problem in two key respects. First, it was wrong to think that the distribution of news had huge financial worth that Meta was appropriating. As the CRTC told you yesterday, news is actually a loss leader. News was only ever profitable when used to attract readers to a package of non-news goods. Today, most Canadians get classifieds, sports and entertainment elsewhere on the Internet. That’s not going to change, no matter what laws we pass.
But more fundamentally, Bill C-18 went wrong by making it expensive to share quality journalism. Effectively, the government is taxing platforms for permitting the spread of good journalism, while misinformation remains tax-free. It’s as if we tried taxing vegetables while beer and cigarettes were tax-free, and the results speak for themselves.
Precisely because news production isn’t profitable, there is a strong public welfare case for the government to fund news production. That likely means cleaning up the opaque web of subsidies the government has created for funding private news and replacing them with a simple, more permanent system the Canadian public can understand. But given that we have an established public broadcaster, their number one priority should be ending every Canadian news desert the private cannot.
Earlier in this hearing, we were reminded that the CBC is tasked to inform, enlighten and entertain, but surely when a pillar as foundational to democracy as informing Canadians is so deeply under threat, addressing that gap should be the CBC’s top priority of the three, not equally weighted.
Several of you have asked previous witnesses how to measure the value of news. I don’t know if you found their answers satisfactory. I didn’t. The value of news is not ticking boxes in the Broadcasting Act. It’s not TV desks or radio stations, and it’s not number of hours marked as regional programming. News is a social good, with both direct and indirect value. The value of investigative journalism that uncovers corruption in my local mayor’s office is not determined by whether I tuned in every night to hear the story firsthand. The existence of investigative reporters covering local government and corporate actions benefits everyone in the community, those who follow closely and those who do not. That’s why it is critical that every Canadian community of any size has full-time beat reporters who spend their whole day writing stories of interest about their local community, not putting a thin veneer on national coverage.
Senator Simons inspired me to do some rough calculations on what placing podcast-focused local reporters in every news desert would cost. Any way I ran the numbers, it is extraordinarily little compared to the CBC’s overall budget.
As I’ve told this committee before, we need a widely distributed and locally trusted journalism system now more than ever. Our democracy is on the tracks in front of an accelerating train of credible AI misinformation that is only gathering size and speed. Yet, if the testimony at this committee so far is any measure, instead of working together to steer ourselves off the tracks, leading Canadian institutions are busy arguing about whose job it is to start the car.
I have four recommendations for you. First, the private sector should be given the best chance we can to fill the void by expanding the Canadian media tax credit from a trivial 15% to a more substantial 70%. We can also help by getting the CBC out of the advertising business altogether, with the government making up any resulting budget deficits. If CBC will not voluntarily commit to both ending advertising and funding reporters in every news desert, I encourage you to amend the Broadcasting Act so they have no choice but to do both.
Lastly, I told you Bill C-18 got news wrong by making quality journalism expensive while misinformation is cheap. We can make quality Canadian journalism even cheaper to spread than the cheapest AI slop by requiring Creative Commons licensing for all CBC news content. Canadians already pay for CBC’s news content once; it belongs to us already. But as a structural measure, Creative Commons licensing would encourage the spread of quality CBC content much farther around the Canadian web, informing Canadians and helping the private sector cover stories it cannot otherwise afford to.
Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much.
Just before hearing from Mr. Kirk LaPointe, I want to say that in the interests of transparency, we were both ombudsmen. Mr. LaPointe was the ombudsman of CBC while I was the ombudsman of Radio-Canada, so we know each other, but we have a link with CBC/Radio-Canada.
Mr. LaPointe, we are listening to you.
Kirk LaPointe, Journalist, Adjunct Journalism Professor, University of British Columbia, as an individual: Thank you, Madame Chair, and thank you for the opportunity today to speak to the committee on the important topic of the future of our public broadcaster.
I’ve been a journalist for 45 years. I ran CTV News on the day of the 9/11 attacks. I helped start the National Post as its first executive editor. I was the Ottawa bureau chief of what was then a much larger Canadian press. I’ve managed the Vancouver Sun newsroom, run Southam Inc. and The Hamilton Spectator and most recently was the publisher and editor of the Business in Vancouver publication and vice-president editorial of its parent company, Glacier Media, the largest in Western Canada. I teach ethics and leadership at the UBC School of Journalism, Writing, and Media and have been there for 21 years.
I have twice worked for the CBC, once as a host in Ottawa at the launch of CBC Newsworld, now called CBC News Network, and later, as Madame Chair has referred to, I was the English‑language ombud for CBC. Of all the career stops I’ve had, the stints at CBC were the most authentic forms of service, the ones where you thought about your obligation to the widest public, and those stints held the largest places in my heart, so it breaks my heart to see where the CBC has gone.
The committee’s work is examining the local services CBC provides, so I’ll focus my opening statement on that issue, although I have some ideas about programming. Local news is in an existential crisis at the moment — the committee has heard this regularly — and not only at the public broadcaster.
There are broad challenges today for local news because its traditional business model of subsidizing the expense of journalism ostensibly through the revenue of advertising has been disrupted by the powerful technologies of Google and Meta. Those two firms now hold 70% of the country’s digital advertising share, and it’s growing. Nothing has replaced, or stands to replace, the loss of that market position for them, and we have witnessed news organizations and hundreds, maybe thousands, of jobs disappear or diminish from the duopoly.
The many new start-ups lack the scale to hold power to account. Even with an influx of public subsidy — something I don’t particularly support, but I do understand now — the funds are mere Band-Aids on a very open wound for Canadian journalism.
Not only is journalism today at its greatest economic disadvantage in memory, it is suffering an all-time low in trustworthiness with the public. There are some good reasons for this when media fail to hold institutions accountable or make mistakes of omission or commission in stories and themes they cover.
CBC News has its own set of problems, because more is expected of it as a representative for all Canadians and not just slices of the Canadian market. I believe it has lost some of its stature because it has lost some of its way. It has not found the recipe in its journalism to satisfy the Canadian mainstream as it contended with the important challenge of broadening its representation of our country. It appears to have emphasized diversity of portrayal over diversity of perspectives, and in doing so has only traded an earlier version of alienating audiences for a new version.
This has opened a very vulnerable flank for the corporation and built an opportunity for its opponents to call for its defunding. I’ve argued that CBC needs to be fixed, not nixed, and that its critics’ view that it serves as a mouthpiece for the federal government is ludicrous and ill-informed. As an avid consumer of news, I can vouch that many of the most assertive investigative pieces on this government, and on previous governments of all stripes, were created in its newsrooms. But its antagonists are not all wrong, and CBC has to be more open to tackle their critique that their services are not thorough in their perspectives and thus not sufficient value for money.
Despite the shortcomings of CBC News, any move to weaken it without first solving the mystery of the broken business model across journalism would be a cruelty to Canadian communities. CBC is at times the last media standing. While it is true that CBC’s television news has not been the country’s most popular now for decades, the services provided in particular by radio where there are no viable private sector players are the backbone of Canadian information and discussion in many communities. Television news needs to better understand how to deliver what people want, and soon, because its defenders are dwindling. Radio not so much of a problem.
If I can add one more point to today’s discussion, it would be to push this committee to push CBC to revitalize the mandate of its English and French ombuds. These mandates were changed in haste a dozen years ago and turned into some of the weakest in the world in representing the public and dealing with its complaints. It is at the heart of the problems the public has with the CBC. While I respect those who have held these offices, their powers to advocate accountability at CBC and Radio Canada in its newsrooms are illusory under the current conditions. If CBC wants to find a road back to Canadians, one step it must take is to be seen to be more accountable and accessible in addressing complaints about its work.
I thank you for your time and look forward to your questions.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you all. If I may, I will ask a question.
Senator Simons: I think that was teed up for you.
The Deputy Chair: Mr. LaPointe, I’m very interested. When you talked about CBC, I don’t know if you think Radio-Canada has also lost its way and has mixed up diversity as they portray it with diversity in perspective. Can you elaborate on that and give us examples? Does that relate to local news, or is it a more general statement you are making on CBC? Does that include Radio-Canada or just CBC?
Mr. LaPointe: I’ll limit my remarks to CBC, Madam Chair, because I’m not a Radio-Canada listener out in Vancouver.
For all the commendable work that CBC does around covering its communities, I believe it has measurably moved away from what public opinion polls would suggest is today the most prevalent Canadian political, ideological and therefore mainstream thinking around certain issues.
So it has I think regrettably failed to bring along, as I think it improved greatly and smartly, the people who represent it on the air, the people who represent it in newsrooms across the country, with sufficient diversity of perspectives to satisfy that large audience, that large audience now that public opinion polls suggest will result in a shift in the government some time in the next year. I think, in a way, it has hurt itself in doing so by virtue of just not keeping track of the change that was going on in the country and not somehow satisfying whether it is on economic issues or in some cases on social issues and giving them some credence.
I’m not suggesting that CBC start talking about denying climate change or dismissing the importance of Indigenous reconciliation or the prime importance of bringing more people to this country in order to, frankly, benefit our country. None of that’s the issue. It is the kind of fiscal conservative piece that most Canadians hold right now that polls would show one of the overwhelming reasons why there is dissatisfaction with this government and an openness to entertaining an option later next year.
The Deputy Chair: Okay. Does it apply to local news too? What you are suggesting?
Mr. LaPointe: It does.
The Deputy Chair: Across the board?
Mr. LaPointe: I can’t speak for more than the markets of Vancouver, Toronto, and sometimes Ottawa when I’m listening. By and large, the starting point of the journalism isn’t to reflect what broad public opinion polls would say that their audiences are talking about — not only their audiences, but their non‑audiences in particular — when they are not listening to the radio at that moment or watching TV.
I think this had been a complaint of the CBC now for about a generation, that in particular the moderate conservative views of Canadians don’t get reflected. In this case here, what we have seen in the last number of years is that the moderate Canadian views have hardened. It breaks my heart to hear that at rallies of the Conservative leader, when he mentions defunding the CBC, he gets the largest applause. The dollars flow in faster to the party coffers. This is not a healthy sign when your public broadcaster is perceived as a state broadcaster, and when you are not really programming properly through your newscasts to have room for that kind of discussion with conservative voices or with stories that are themed on conservative precepts of how the economy and some of the social programming ought to be constructed.
Senator Simons: I want to come back to a point that Mr. Desjardins and Mr. Hatfield both raised, the issue of CBC advertising, because here we come to the conundrum. I worked for 23 years in the Edmonton Journal newsroom. We got progressively more annoyed because the CBC is not just competing against Global and CTV. They are competing against print organizations, as everybody moved to digital. They were competing head to head with the advertising department of our newspaper for ads. There is nothing I find more annoying than listening to my CBC podcast and having a commercial in the middle, sometimes a commercial that clangs with the contents of the podcast. Yet, as Mr. LaPointe has just said, the Conservative leader is making hay with promises to defund the CBC.
If I accept the argument that, Mr. Desjardins and Mr. Hatfield, you both made, that the CBC should be less reliant on advertising, perhaps not reliant on advertising at all, that perforce means they would need a significant increase in government funding. Oh, yes, it would, because you take away a big chunk of their revenues. But I agree that robbing Peter to pay Paul doesn’t get us anywhere.
I’ll start with Mr. Desjardins, and then Mr. Hatfield. Do you think the CBC, in order to get out of advertising, should legitimately receive a significant influx in funding in order to meet its local mandate needs?
Mr. Desjardins: Thank you. I’m glad we are coming back to this.
The parliamentary appropriation for the CBC is about $1.3 billion. They make somewhere around $300 million in advertising. They spend about $75 million to make that $300 million in advertising. The hole you are talking about is maybe around $200 million or $225 million. Again, is it a massive influx that would need to be put in?
I think with the parliamentary appropriation they have, they would be able to redeploy these funds more towards local news and less towards Family Feud or what have you, those sorts of things where there is significant expense but the significant expense is undertaken in order to attract viewers to attract advertisers. You get them out of the advertising game, and they can then focus on their mandate. That, for us, is important. Again, I do think there is a role for the public broadcaster, but it is not competing against private broadcasters. It is about complementing what private broadcasters are able to do.
Senator Simons: Mr. Hatfield, you talked about partnerships that are truly complementary. Maybe pick up from there.
Mr. Hatfield: I’m sure if we are trying to recreate every television and newspaper room that once existed, that would be extraordinarily expensive. I question whether that’s strictly necessary or the most efficient use of funds in this case. Maybe the CBC should be encouraged to have leaner, perhaps digital-first or audio-centred outfits in many Canadian communities and make sure they are in every Canadian community.
Perhaps they should have more government funding to make their content a resource that everyone in Canada can make use of. If you have a Creative Commons licence, it means I as a Canadian can do all kinds of fun and interesting things with CBC News content. It also means that a small private broadcaster could fill out part of my schedule by rebroadcasting CBC content and then focus my original content where I’m adding unique value.
Mr. LaPointe: I’m going to check in and waste less than one minute on an idea that I’ve trotted out in a series of stories over the years. I think CBC ought to be commercial free on television but also ought to get out of television programming production. It ought to be a showcase for what the private sector creates. The private sector ought to use the commitments that it has via the CRTC to Canadian content spending, create programming that will be popular with Canadians and move it all to the CBC.
Senator Simons: Mr. LaPointe and Mr. Desjardins, we are focusing here tonight on local programming, so I think that is probably not as germane to the question I wanted to ask Mr. Hatfield. How would you see those partnerships working with local newspapers and local private radio stations beyond Creative Commons licensing to reproduce the text or sound?
Mr. Hatfield: I’m not an industry professional, so I don’t want to go too far outside my expertise in how the partnerships would work. I think what is great about Creative Commons licensing is the CBC and CTRC don’t have to decide. The content is out there, and within some pretty broad parameters. I’m sure local outlets would find some interesting and unique ways of showcasing CBC content and probably get it to audiences that it would never reach entirely on the CBC’s own parameters.
Senator Simons: I guess the question is also on training, if you are working with local podcasters to train them to make a higher quality podcast with higher-quality sound, if you are working with local Indigenous or racialized communities to give them the tools themselves do the podcasting.
Mr. Hatfield: Yes, and the CRTC certainly has some investment in that. I was also encouraging the CBC to hire some of these folk in local communities. In some communities, there may never again be a strong enough commercial case to have a local journalist or two around. The government should be stepping in in some cases there.
Senator Simons: Thank you very much.
Senator Cuzner: Thank you very much. There is some good worthwhile stuff here. I’m trying to keep it confined to the focus of the study.
The Deputy Chair: The focus on our study, which is local news.
Senator Cuzner: Thank you for inviting me to your committee the day you took over.
You had mentioned, “should not compete.” That would have more to do with the national level as well. Could you elaborate on how competing for advertisers, program rights and talent acquisition would play out locally?
Mr. Desjardins: I do think it is in some of the smaller or mid‑size markets that the competition for talent is a place that some smaller radio and TV stations don’t necessarily have the ability to provide the same sort of competitive package that the CBC does when they decide to move into a territory. That certainly happened a few times where we have heard there is a great story about the CBC investing more in certain places, but when they go and invest in some of those places, it means the cost of hiring journalists in those places starts to go up.
The advertising that is being sold in a number of different platforms, especially digital, is advertising that can come from the local level. Digital advertising is hyper local, and that’s one of the challenges, frankly, that radio has. They have been losing advertisers to digital because digital was surveillance technology. It can tell you how far ahead to walk to get here tonight, and then probably serve me an ad for every place that I walked by or stopped in front of, which is no exaggeration.
In the time of COVID, especially when there were closures at the local level, a lot of radio stations lost advertisers to digital, especially as places were no longer open but were doing things online and digitally.
Bringing it back to the CBC, absolutely, when they invest but only when there is a possibility of getting commercial benefit for them, that has a deleterious effect on the private broadcasters in some of those areas.
Senator Cuzner: I haven’t seen that in my own local community, but I saw Mr. Hatfield nodding in agreement with it being a local issue with regard to advertising. Could you elaborate on that? Are there any specific instances that you could share with us, or just generalities?
Mr. Hatfield: Not necessarily. Mr. Desjardins might have more of a specific instance to share on this.
Certainly, a lot of advertising is extremely local. It is geotargeted, and so digital is in some direct competition with local folk.
Mr. LaPointe: The problem with a lot of that geotargeted advertising is that it is in the hands of Google and Meta and not so much in the hands of the traditional media sources.
While at Glacier Media, we experienced real hardship as these programmatic and algorithmic advertising forms were used very well. The tech stack in these places is unmatched in the world, and I don’t think there is anything that Canadian media are particularly going to be able to do about it.
While I understand the current government’s approach, which is to try to coax Google — and maybe one day Meta — to provide some subsidies, those subsidies are small fractions of what it has made by creating this terrific tech stack, giving us access to its technology to deliver ourselves to audiences but not receiving in return, really, what we think it is worth.
Senator Cuzner: Mr. LaPointe, I didn’t have anything specific to ask about your presentation or your testimony, but I very much appreciated your views and your insight.
Mr. LaPointe: Thank you.
Senator Dasko: Well, there is certainly a lot to think about with our witnesses today.
With respect to the CBC and its advertising revenue, it is a given that it is a significant part of their revenue stream right now. It is really difficult to think what they would do without it, but that is what I’m going to ask all of the witnesses. If CBC Television were to lose its ad revenue and not be able to increase its government revenue, what should they do? What should their priorities be if the situation came to pass — which it may well, because I’m not sure that there is a public appetite for vast increases in public expenditure at the CBC. I tend to read things that way at this point in time. Who knows? Let’s just assume that situation, and what do each of you think the CBC should do? What should they focus on? I’ll start with that, Mr. Desjardins.
Mr. Desjardins: As I say, to flip this on its head and take it from the perspective of my members, they would see the CBC starting every year with a $1.3 billion head start on the rest of the industry, and then the rest of the industry is going to have to find their way to pay for all of the things that they need to do. They have, over the last decade, been losing money on Canadian programming and news. News, despite the fact that it is still popular, is hard for them to monetize.
Senator Dasko: News is popular; is that what you just said?
Mr. Desjardins: Yes. If you take a look at ratings, especially on linear, the things that draw people are sports, reality competition shows and news. News is still popular.
There is a challenge sometimes of monetizing that, because advertisers at times don’t necessarily want to have their ads run up against a bad story or whatnot. It is difficult. I don’t think that was always necessarily the case. I think that’s more on the advertisers.
But $1.3 billion is still a fair chunk of change for them to be able to work within. I think acquiring foreign properties and Canadianizing them or the acquisition of certain materials — I think about the amount of content that’s on CBC Gem. I’m not sure that there is a great public interest rationale for why they would have Portlandia. Despite the fact that I like the show, I’m not sure that it is necessarily something that is core to what their public service mandate is.
Senator Dasko: Mr. LaPointe, what would you say? If I could add an addendum — which I could have added for you as well — as a semi-separate question, given that the topic is local, what, if any, role should regional and local programming take in these future scenarios? Let me add that in.
Mr. LaPointe: First of all, it would be great to get more local and regional programming back to the CBC, because it is one of the areas that it has ostensibly abandoned as the economics have tightened on it.
I’m of the view that it is quite correct that we need to flip this on its head. I think you have to find a whole other model, because what has happened around print journalism and newspapers in this country has come to television in the same way and, of course, private radio. That’s why I have floated this idea that I think the Canadian content commitments for programming — for non-news programming, in particular — that the private sector has ought to somehow be — those funds ought to go into producing material that then gets shown on CBC and not on those channels.
Those channels should be fine to let the market decide what it is that they are going to air, and if that means all international programming, that’s what it means, with the exception of news. I think news ought to be sheltered in this.
CBC ought to get out of producing directly. It ought to be, essentially, the presenter, and that would basically, of course, reduce its costs and programming. It would still ensure that Canadian programming is made and that it is put together properly and popular. You would be able to create metrics that would be able to counsel all that.
I think what you would end up with is much more of a market-driven system that then moves the money from the private sector over to the CBC and allows it to save some funds in terms of presenting international programming and have a better chance of profiting in the next number of years.
I think we are lost at sea on this one, because our focus tends to be much more narrow than the $1.3 billion that CBC gets as a parliamentary appropriation. We tend to be focusing our attention on CBC Television and forgetting the fact that CBC Radio operates extremely well in this country. The northern services operate extremely well, and Radio-Canada is respected and doesn’t have many of the same problems that CBC Television has and CBC Television news has, in particular, as one that is no longer the market-dominant source and hasn’t been for a very long time. We just haven’t caught up to that. The private sector has been well ahead of CBC News for a generation, and by “generation,” I mean 25 or 30 years.
Senator Dasko: In this scenario, what happens to CBC Television news? Does it disappear?
Mr. LaPointe: No. It ought not to, but it needs to fix itself, as I’ve said. It has not just an audience problem; it is a non‑audience problem of people who have decided to turn it off because it doesn’t speak to them.
I will concede that my generation of manager did a very poor job in speaking to the wider part of Canada and that it was very narrowly focused. As a result, it cost us, I think, large audiences in this country.
I think we are doing better as journalists now in having news rooms that have diversity and find the stories that a wider range of Canadians would like, but we have not come along at the same time by being as open about the perspectives that people bring to those stories and the themes that they wish pursued. I think we are halfway there, and I think that speaks to what CBC News specifically has to address in its markets.
Like I say, I can speak in Vancouver. I could talk about Toronto. I know quite a bit about the Alberta market and Ottawa, but I think it is at the heart of why it is that the CBC is being pummelled politically right now. I don’t think it has a lot of time left to fix itself before bad things happen.
The Deputy Chair: Mr. Hatfield has his hand raised, so we’ll let him opine on this question.
Mr. Hatfield: I worry we may be in danger of trying to solve a problem that’s impossible to solve and also doesn’t exist. If we define the problem as will people come back and watch an hour of CBC News on television every night, no, they won’t. That is never going to happen, and no quality of programming, no matter how magical, will do that. But if we define the problem as, are we supporting enough quality journalism to do the work they do in Canada, are those journalists equally distributed across Canadian communities and is their work accessible to people when those people need it, I think that is a solvable problem.
People are engaging far less cover to cover with any kind of media. They are far more selective. They pay attention to things when they come to them through their social networks and people they know say, “Hey, this is really important. Check this out.” So individual stories will acquire huge amounts of public attention, but it’s not happening through daily or nightly news consumption.
I’m much less worried about the format of how people are getting news, just that the system itself supports a decent number of reporters and people can access it at those uptick moments.
Senator Fridhandler: This is primarily to Mr. Desjardins, but I welcome the comments from the others.
You’ve advocated on three points you think are necessary to address what CBC does: remove the advertising, remove competition for content and remove competition for talent. I understand the advertising one crystal clear, but when we frame it in the local area, I’m not quite sure in the middle ground how you limit competition for content when it’s local content. Maybe you just mean another level, but I leave it for you to explain. Then talent, do you just have your hands tied, and you have to pick who is left over because you can’t try to get somebody who is a good broadcaster? Can you expand on what you would envision on those limitations, the last two?
Mr. Desjardins: Yes. There are a couple of things.
In terms of the competition for content, I do want to make the case that, yes, I am operating at a top or a national level but understanding that there are decisions that are made internally, and as I talk about redeploying funds within the CBC, where is the priority being placed? Is it being placed on the content that exists at the national level or at the local? At a certain level, it’s not exactly a zero-sum game, but there are decisions made to prioritize some over others. Again, if they’re not in the advertising game, then they’re not going to be chasing advertising dollars and then they can redeploy those funds. I do think that that helps, hopefully, to explain a bit of that.
Even where they are in terms of the places where they invest a lot at the local level, if you take a look at Toronto, Toronto is incredibly well served by private broadcasters when it comes to news, yet I would hazard a guess that the CBC spends more in Toronto and more in Montreal than they do in many of the provinces in this confederation on news. So there’s a question as to do they belong in markets where they are there to compete? They’re competing for ad dollars on those nightly newscasts against a bunch of private players.
That leads to the question of talent. The talent thing is not just the people in front of the microphone or on air. Frankly, I have heard of instances where people who worked in sales for a private broadcaster were lured to go and work in sales at the public broadcaster.
Senator Fridhandler: No sales anymore.
Mr. Desjardins: So there are no sales, but even still, there are other areas for talent acquisition because the CBC can come into a market and pay above what is generally the amount that is being paid in that market. There are certain places where they would be the bully on the block. To be frank with you, in the entire province of Quebec, I would say that is a challenge there, where they are the bully on the block in Quebec and can go and acquire talent from private broadcasters.
Senator Fridhandler: If they’re not competing for advertising dollars, a lot of this would trickle down and affect these other two main factors as well.
Mr. Desjardins: Exactly. It’s the crux of it. The advertising dollars are a crux of a lot of the discussions we’ve been having, not just on this, not just on Bill C-18 but on Bill C-11 as well. As the advertising dollars continue to exit the country, there isn’t the money to support a bunch of these obligations or the things that broadcasters want to do.
Senator Clement: Thank you all for being here and always being so willing to come and speak to Senate committees. We appreciate that.
I really don’t know what to ask. I don’t, and I’m usually not at a loss, but I am.
Can you lean into why local journalism is essential to a healthy democracy?
Mr. Hatfield, you said people are not going to go back and watch the news like they used to. That’s done, dead. What is CBC to do then? Senator Dasko was getting at that in her question, so I’m going to come back to that. What is CBC to do? I think, Mr. Hatfield, you talked about partnering with the private sector. What would that look like?
Please help me get on the record why local journalism is essential to a healthy democracy.
Mr. LaPointe: Please let me start on that one, because my last role was the editorial vice-president for the Western Canadian chain of publications at Glacier Media — it’s the largest one — and I’ve edited local newspapers, and I still write every week for them.
What I would say is that there is a palpable, tangible connection to your audience that you don’t get as a national broadcaster or a national journalist. I hear back right away when I write a column or a story that had either touched people, changed their mind, moved them to do something, prevented them from doing something, or that they acted upon it really quickly because it was relevant. It is, of course, harder and harder at the higher altitudes to see the ground, and that’s where national media, while they do majestic work at times with large issues, have real trouble in getting granular about this.
My fear when we lose this, because we are losing it — there’s no question in my mind that we’re losing this, and we’re creating these so-called news deserts as a result of the broken business model — really what we begin to do is we lose our sense of identity in our community. You don’t have a common way of understanding some of the priorities that take place, whether it’s at your local council or your school board, your high school sports event, any number of things that are the rhythm of a community. CBC, I think, has to stay in that game, and it has to stay in that game very vigorously, because the private sector is still trying to work out what the business model is for this, if there, in fact, is one.
I podcast all the time. I recorded one today. I understand their value. I hate to say it, but there are still hundreds of thousands of people in some communities, including mine in Vancouver, who get to the television set for 6 p.m. to watch local television news, or who in the morning are listening to local radio en masse. Getting the same appointment that they hold in a way regulates their priorities of a community in the course of a day. It’s an important thing.
So as much as I enjoy the fragmentation of media because of its diversity, that fragmentation also works against having a coalesced community in some respects. So it is very valuable. I can’t tell you enough how meaningful it is in community upon community that I visited where the local paper, the local website, the local radio station, the local television station are how people pretty well set their clocks in a kind of psychological way for what the community means to them.
Senator Clement: Mr. Hatfield?
Mr. Hatfield: I would agree with that. I would say media plays a crucial role in showing people what is wrong in our societies, who is to blame for what is wrong and how we can fix it.
Often, there’s a lot of freestanding frustration and energy that’s driven by valid things. Media is a really important part of the ecosystem that channels that energy in directions that actually make things better. Academics and advocacy groups like ours also do that, but media is a necessary part of that.
Beyond that, I would say for local media, local media coverage is even more important in many ways because no one else but local media can give people that perspective on issues in their immediate community. The kind of engagement people engage in when they’re dealing with things in their community tends to be a lot less polarized, more practical and more helpful than the kind of engagement we see on the national or international level.
Senator Clement, we’ve talked about the effect of social media before. Personally, I’ve been sucked into microdramas in other countries because they are a part of social media’s excitement of the day. That’s not useful or productive to me. It certainly isn’t depolarizing. Whereas, when local media brings something up, I am forced to engage with my neighbours. Generally, we get something done and have a less polarized conversation about it.
Mr. Desjardins: I’ll be as brief as I can.
Local radio is one of the things that gets a little bit lost in this conversation. We tend to think of global social media versus television or whatnot. Radio is so hyperlocal and connected to the communities, especially when you see instances where there have been fires, floods, hurricanes and whatnot.
One of the things I know my members do, and I’m really inspired by, is the degree to which they work hard to stay on air. After cellphone and cable networks go down, or what have you, the radio is there. As was mentioned on the earlier panel, people’s disaster kits have that crank radio.
It’s not just in those instances. It’s also if you go to the community barbeques and that sort of thing, you always see the radio stations out there reflecting the community back to them in ways that aren’t always newsy news. It’s that connection they make that lets people know what is happening in their community.
Mr. LaPointe: I would add, by the way, that you don’t miss something until it’s gone. Every MP in the House of Commons would miss local CBC News if it were gone. They would miss it for themselves.
The Deputy Chair: On that note, Mr. LaPointe, you said that CBC had abandoned — you used the word “abandoned” — local programming or local news. That’s a very strong term. Is it the right term?
Mr. LaPointe: I don’t recall saying they “abandoned” local news.
The Deputy Chair: Yes, you did.
Mr. LaPointe: Did I? Wow, I’m just losing my mind.
Senator Simons: There are reporters in the room, sir.
Mr. LaPointe: Yes. Well, I’ll take that one back. They’re not abandoning local news. There are fewer and fewer reporters in some of its newsrooms. I think that that’s true.
I would say the critical issue is that local, non-news programming has fallen away from CBC. It was one of the things that it began to cut back on in the 1990s. It’s had some real trouble in trying to reinvest in it, because it is a much harder business model around that too. You see operations like CHEK TV in Victoria pick up the slack from where places like CBC and even CTV have moved out of local programming of a non‑news nature.
The Deputy Chair: On that note, our time has expired. I want to thank all three of you. This was an interesting conversation. Real things were said. That’s what I like. Thank you. Have a good night.
(The committee adjourned.)