CBC, Bell among broadcasters urging Ottawa to force Google and Facebook to share revenue: documents – National Post

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Bell told the government that it supports a regime in which 'digital services that provide our news stories to the users of their platforms' have to 'financially contribute'

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Some of Canadas largest broadcasters urged the federal government to force Google and Facebook to share revenue with them, arguing those funds are needed for their beleaguered local TV news operations.

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Bell Media cannot continue to operate its news business at a loss indefinitely, the company said in its submission to a Heritage Canada consultation on the Liberal governments promised news compensation legislation, obtained through access to information.

Bell, whose Bell Media division includes CTV, said we firmly believe that all Canadian broadcasters who gather and produce news should be included in any news compensation regime.

More than three quarters of the companys local TV stations havent been profitable in several years, experiencing an aggregate loss of $340.7 million since 2012. In fact, local television is buckling under extreme financial pressure with the sector being unprofitable since 2012, it said, noting that in the past five years, privately-owned TV and radio stations have seen cumulative revenue losses of $1.36 billion.

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Bell submitted the document as part of an initial consultation in which the government reached out to specific stakeholders to ask what tack it should take in its legislation aimed at forcing web giants to share revenue with news publishers. The Liberal government has since said it will follow the Australian model, which imposes bargaining rules for publishers and online platforms. News media that publish online, including TV and radio stations, apply to be included in Australias news media bargaining code.

In mid-December, the mandate letter for Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez directed him to introduce, by early 2022, legislation that would level the playing field between global platforms and Canadian outlets.

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The biggest targets of that legislation will be Google and Facebook, whose parent company rebranded to Meta in October. The two companies earn an estimated 80 per cent of all digital advertising revenue in Canada.

The National Post requested all 46 of the written documents submitted in the first phase of its consultation, which took place in the spring. The partially redacted document released by the government did not include the comments submitted by Google, Apple News Canada or Rogers, another large broadcaster. While it had notes from at least one meeting with Reddit, it did not include any notes from conversations with representatives from Meta, which was among the companies that the government said provided input and information orally.

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Bell told the government that it supports a regime in which all online digital services that provide our news stories to the users of their platforms have to financially contribute to our news ecosystem.

The company argued that while broadcasters have put their content online, they cant earn enough from online advertising to justify the expense of funding the operations, while Google and Facebook online ad revenue continues to grow.

These digital platforms are growing their revenue at the expense of Canadian broadcasters while at the same time profit from the content we create through our local news infrastructure (i.e. our local journalists and news gathering resources), it argued.

Frankly, without news content provided by our journalists, these platforms would have significantly less content to provide.

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Corus, which owns Global, argued that news outlets effectively have no choice but to use Google a company can opt not to be indexed by Google, which would stop Google from monetizing the news content, but doing so would close an important connection to market.

Similarly, news outlets that dont post content to Facebook and Instagram are cutting themselves off from the 25.5 million Canadians who use these platforms, Corus said. Those who do choose to participate do so on Facebooks terms, where all of the costs of creating the content are borne by us, and Facebook holds almost all of the tools to monetize it.

The Canadian Association of Broadcasters told the government that according to a 2018 report, more than 75 per cent of Canadians turn to TV and radio to get their news, and that the value of news content to digital platforms is clear.

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While they may help to direct audiences to news sites and create some value for publishers, they retain most of the value of the user interaction through their ability to gather, aggregate, resell and exploit user data to advertisers through their algorithms, the CAB said.

CBC/Radio-Canada pointed out in its submission that public broadcasters, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the Special Broadcasting Service, are included in Australias regime.

It said that any funds the CBC would obtain from the digital platforms would be reinvested into Canadian content, including but not limited to, our digital properties.

CBC urged the government to act quickly. If we take too long to implement a solution, too many news outlets will close, too many journalists will be let go or not developed, and misinformation and disinformation will continue to spread, leading to distrust in our institutions and sowing divisions in our communities.

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CBC, Bell among broadcasters urging Ottawa to force Google and Facebook to share revenue: documents - National Post