COVID has accelerated media ‘crisis’: report

Canadian traditional media sources are in "crisis" as COVID-19 has exacerbated existing downward trends in advertising revenues, with shortfalls for local private broadcasters in the next two years reaching as much as $1.06 billion, according to a report released by the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB). The report, compiled by Communications Management Inc. and commissioned by the CAB, found private radio experienced a 63.5 per cent drop in advertising revenue between April and June, compared with the same period last year, while conventional private television experienced a 43.8 per cent drop. The months cover the first full three months after the COVID-19 related lockdowns began in mid-March. While COVID-19 has caused a sharp revenue decline for the private broadcasting sector in the country, the trends have existed for some time, the report found. Between 2006 and 2019, according to the report, employment in private broadcasting fell from 8,307 to 4,779. The report -- compiled from data from the CRTC, Statistics Canada, and industry tracking -- calls for additional relief funding from the federal government, saying that existing programs have been inadequate. "Additional forms of assistance should be devised and implemented as quickly as possible, because those local stations are an important – and in some cases, the only – source of local news," the report argues. The report also calls for regulatory relief on conditions of license, given budget shortfalls this year. "There must be regulatory relief for private radio and television stations, to recognize the impact of the economic disruption on their ability to fulfill certain conditions of licence, and to recognize the need for modifications in operating arrangements that might help to realize cost-savings," the report says. The report's call for relief dovetails with the CAB's July plea to the CRTC for additional relief, particularly on programming expenditure requirements. "The COVID-recession is poised to kill off more media jobs at TV and radio stations, and it's time for urgent action by the federal government, which we have been saying for years," Unifor National President Jerry Dias said in a Wednesday release. In his statement on the report, Dias also called on the federal government to implement the recommendations of the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Reform panel from January, particularly concerning the regulation of web giants Netflix Inc., Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google. "COVID has sped up the unravelling of media's business model, thanks to Google and Facebook sucking ad dollars out of Canada," Dias said in the release.

COVID has accelerated media ‘crisis’: report

Brief | August 26, 2020

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COVID has accelerated media ‘crisis’: report

Brief | August 26, 2020

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