Media only asking for fair deal

Canada’s major publishers have a message for the Trudeau government: If you want an independent media in this country, stop looking for ways to funnel government money to newspapers and think of adopting the changes that countries like France and Australia have put in place.

The top executives behind Postmedia as well as the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, La Presse, Quebecor, Black Media, Brunswick News, Le Devoir and Glacier Media have all signed on to a letter calling on the federal government to fix the biggest issue facing the industry, two main social media giants using media content to drive traffic and suck up the advertising revenue while not paying for the content that makes their money.

“Google and Facebook dominate digital advertising around the world, 80 per cent of digital advertising around the world flows to Google and Facebook,” Postmedia chief executive Andrew Macleod said. “They are a duopoly, in the truest sense of the word.”

Macleod joined other top media executives in calling on the Trudeau government to act in the ways that governments in Australia and France have.

“That means paying for copyrighted content and sharing the advertising dollars and data that flow from it,” the open letter signed by the major media executives reads.

Right now when content from National Post or any of the newspapers is served up on Google News, Facebook News or other similar platforms, that content, paid for by the original publishers, sees advertising revenue directed to the technology giants but not the companies that originally paid for it.

“Google and Facebook are just platforms, they aren’t creating content, they aren’t paying for content,” Macleod said. “Content that other publishers generate are the fuel that drives their platform.”

For years publishers have been complaining they pay for the content that the tech giants make their money from.

“We encourage the Federal Government to follow the advice of its own expert panel set up to review the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Acts, which recommended similar measures,” the open letter states.

Those similar measures would include telling platforms such as Facebook and Google to share data and ad revenue that they earn from serving up original content from Canadian publishers that they do not pay for.

“The model exists. The need is clear. Let’s apply those principles of fairness in Canada, and do it now,” the letter states.

Macleod said if the federal government wants the Canadian media industry to survive, then they need make sure everyone is playing by the same rules.

“The federal government has to level the playing field,” he said.