Université de Montréal law professor Pierre Trudel weighed in this week in Le Devoir
February 18, 2024
Lately we’ve been following Doug Shapiro’s futurist projections of media consumption.
In the last of his four part series he repeats his belief that the world wide inventory of consumer attention has plateaued and future media creators —-whether selling premium video or DIY niche content—-will be fighting over the same pie. He believes that in the near term future the digital platforms hosting the creator economy —YouTube, TikTok etc.— will make out like bandits. But ultimately, he says, this is not the big story.
In this last instalment, Shapiro suggests two game-changers. The first is the debut of virtual reality media which he thinks will take the market in media consumption by storm.
The other is driverless cars which would open up a new frontier on time spent on video consumption, an attention inventory that he suggests is fixed at the moment.
As for today’s winners, including the global streamers, “the challenges are immediate and the opportunities distant.“
There are some variables unaccounted for in Shapiro’s projections. For one, the consumer demand for premium video —-which he sees as a diminishing force—- might be more price inelastic than he thinks. In other words, if Hollywood and other purveyors of premium content respond to adversity by charging higher prices, we’ll pay them. The product is that good.
The other variable is the sustainability of this expansion in consumer attention. Shapiro clearly believes it is robust and reminds us that it didn’t take long for consumers to adopt online dating and online purchasing, so why not virtual reality media? On the other hand, we are entering new territory in media saturation. Supersaturation really is possible. After all, there is doting on babies and walks in the woods. Unplug, anyone?
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Two weeks ago we posted on the Beaudoin Report commissioned by the Québec CAQ government on a political strategy to rectify the declining availability and consumption of French language media.
I am boldly predicting this issue has legs and we will keep hearing about it. A recent column in Le Devoir by Pierre Trudel, a highly influential commentator on media in the province, suggests that the political class in Québec is coming to grips with the probability that a Pierre Poilievre government will not be the friend of Québec’s cultural goals, at least not through the federal regulation of global streaming platforms.
On that score, Trudel expresses some politely worded disappointment in federal efforts to promote French language media (which MediaPolicy has covered here ). He speculates it won’t get better, only worse, under a Poilievre-led Conservative government:
But realism requires us to keep in mind that the outcomes [of producing and promoting French language media] that will result from [Bill C-11] are largely dependent on the determination of the CRTC to apply them. In the past, the Commission has not always been enthusiastic about imposing requirements for Canadian and French-speaking presence in digital spaces.
Above all, we cannot ignore the possibility that federal power will one day be held by leaders hostile to imposing diversity and discoverability requirements on online platforms.
And the understated punch-line:
Québec must therefore use all means to guarantee effective presence and discoverability French-speaking creations from here and elsewhere.
That seems to be political code for encouraging the CAQ government to pursue the political strategy suggested in the Beaudoin Report: the CRTC must produce better results on the discoverability of French language media on global platforms or else face demands for a formal sharing of regulatory jurisdiction between Ottawa and Québec City.
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Still in Québec, Radio-Canada published an opinion piece from Louis Audet last week. Audet owns the cable provider Cogeco and is probably best known outside of his home province as the man who said no to Rogers.
Audet is pushing a media policy that is regaining public attention: extending current federal tax rules that favour the purchase of advertising in Canadian print media, TV and radio to cover digital advertising.
Audet’s pitch is that Canadian businesses spent $14.3 billion last year on digital advertising, of which $10 billion went to American owned platforms instead of Canadian media. He thinks that if the ban on tax deductibility of advertising expenditures on foreign media were extended to online, the ensuing diversion of advertising to Canadian media would be considerable.
Alternatively, Audet says the law could go further than just limiting tax deductibility to advertising expenditures placed with online Canadian media: governments could even provide a refundable tax credit, ultimately a cash subsidy.
A refundable tax credit for advertising expenditures would parallel the federal government’s current program for subsidizing reader subscriptions. In effect, this is the democratization of government subsidies to media: the gatekeepers are readers and advertisers instead of governments. For those opposed to government subsidies of journalist salaries, this is intriguing public policy.
CAQ Culture Minister Mathieu Lacombe has already suggested that Québec could move into this policy sphere based on the claim that the tax regulation of online media is within provincial jurisdiction.
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Here’s a riveting weekend podcast from the New York Times‘ “Matter of Opinion“: Men are from YouTube, Women are from TikTok. It’s not really about media, it’s about politics.
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Awesome blog with gre
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