Catching up on MediaPolicy – CRTC’s Netflix plan – breaking up Google? – Meta’s news ban defiance -more CBC debate

November 23, 2024

This week MediaPolicy published a report of the CRTC’s announcement on November 15th laying the groundwork for how Netflix and the other foreign video streamers will contribute to Canadian content under the Online Streaming Act.

Released on a Friday, the announcement flew quietly under the radar of the daily news cycle, possibly because there is no immediate price tag attached to Netflix’s future obligations to make or license Canadian shows.

Last June the CRTC imposed on the foreign streamers $140 million worth of annual contributions to Canadian television subsidy funds for news, drama and kid’s programming: last week’s much anticipated announcement might end up being worth five times as much in streamers’ programming budgets for Canadian content.

You can read MediaPolicy’s take, here.

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There are times when the impact of American public policy initiatives on Canadian media policy dwarves anything we might do north of the 49th.

As you may recall, the trial judge in an anti-trust suit begun by the Trump White House and several states against Google resulted in a legal ruling declaring Google an illegal monopoly in Search and search related advertising. 

Following up, the collective of Attorneys Generals spearheaded by the federal DOJ have now tabled remedial requests to the trial judge. 

Just for starters, they are requesting that Google divest its Chrome web browser and its Android mobile operating system. And there are important requests focussing directly on bootstrapping would-be competitors to Google in the Search market by giving them “catch-up” access to Google’s treasure trove of consumer data. Radical stuff for radical times.

There is a useful news summary from the New York Times. But if you can afford the time for a ten-minute read, I recommend Matt Stoller’s excellent explainer.

As I read Stoller’s piece, it easily came to mind how unlikely it is that Canadian news publishers would have successfully pursued the news licensing payments in the Online News Act if instead of Google’s monopoly on search referrals there was robust competition in the Search Engine market.

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More than a few times MediaPolicy has raised the question of how Meta is getting away with its selective ban on Canadians news content, its response to our Online News Act. 

The Heritage Minister raised the same question publicly but she is constrained by the fact that it’s the CRTC’s jurisdiction to investigate it.

It’s possible that federal cabinet considered but dismissed the idea of sending the CRTC a policy directive asking the Commission to look into why Meta permits the sharing of some news items, but not others, and why it has flat-out restored news posting privileges to outlets such as Narcity.

The Commission is twiddling around on this one. In early October it asked Meta to explain the rhyme and reason for allowing some news content on its Facebook and Instagram platforms while banning the vast majority of news organizations.

Meta filed a letter in response and, according to a Canadian Press story, it appears that Menlo Park submitted something, but it’s not clear what. And beyond whatever details of its selective ban it provided, Meta has claimed confidentiality and opposes the public release of its answers to the Commission.

This minor legal drama will play out in the fifth dimension of regulatory time.

Meanwhile the public is still in the dark as to whether the Commission thinks there is a basis for playing hardball with Meta by, for instance, officially designating its platforms under the Online News Act so that banned news organizations can file an “undue preference” complaint and get equal treatment to Meta’s favoured news outlets.

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I’m pleased that so many followers of this blog liked Richard Stursberg’s guest column on the CBC, his advice for the incoming CBC President Marie-Philippe Bouchard. It’s now the most popular post in MediaPolicy’s short history. 

Now there’s an interesting column from The Hub’s Managing Editor Harrison Lowman in which he identifies the “defund the CBC” problem as the public broadcaster’s news curation and journalism culture. His bottom line: fix it, don’t destroy an important Canadian institution and a vital provider of news journalism.

Lowman’s piece —-clearly not toeing the Conservative Party line—- was immediately disputed by The Hub’s Editor-At-Large and former Harper policy chief Sean Speer. 

Speer’s says his support of defunding the CBC is not founded on an allegation of biased news reporting. Gosh no. It’s about the CBC’s declining audience share (him citing poor television viewership numbers, but ignoring strong digital and radio numbers). His colleague Lowman is just being “nostalgic” about the CBC.

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