Newspapers seek Quebec aid amid revenue struggles
Newspaper publishers in Quebec are pressing the provincial government to set up a funding program to help them shift their businesses to digital, as declining ad revenues continue to batter the print media industry.
The Coalition pour la pérennité de la presse d’information au Québec — coalition to ensure the long-term survival of print news media in Quebec — is requesting the province establish a temporary, five-year financial assistance program for print media and abolish sales taxes on newspapers.
The group is also seeking a program or refundable tax credit to cover 40 per cent of the production costs for their news content, which would include journalists’ salaries, payroll for newspaper typesetting and layout and reporting expenses. It wants a similar program or refundable credit to cover 50 per cent of investments made in digital platforms, including procurement and maintenance of specialized software, and the creation of applications.
“The industry is in the midst of a profound re-examination of its business model,” said Groupe Capitales Médias CEO Claude Gagnon, in a release. “This is not a problem regarding the quality of news and information in our newspapers. In the past few years, our media outlets have all seen their overall readership grow, because of the multiplication of platforms.”
Groupe Capitales Médias, which publishes Le Soleil in Quebec City, Le Droit in Gatineau, Le Nouvelliste in Trois-Rivières and La Tribune in Sherbrooke, is joined in the coalition by Montreal daily newspaper Le Devoir, Hebdos Québec and TC Transcontinental. Together, the companies say 146 combined publications are read by nearly six million Quebecers — or nearly 80 per cent of the province’s population — every week.
Brian Myles, the publisher of Le Devoir, said the government should make a “cultural exception’’ for the print media industry, arguing that newspapers ”are vital to preserving a diversity of media voices, enriching debate, and accompanying communities of readers in their daily lives.”
Absent from the new group are major publishers Gesca Limitée, which owns Montreal’s La Presse, and Quebecor Media, which owns Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec. La Presse fully transitioned to a digital news operation on Dec. 31 2015, when it printed its last weekday newspaper; it has said it will save $30 million annually in printing and production costs, although now its revenues depend almost entirely on the uncertain digital advertising market.
“Digital ad revenues amount to $878 million in Québec, but those benefits largely elude publishers here,” said the group in a media release.
The coalition also noted that Finland, Norway, Sweden, France, the United Kingdom and United States all have print media assistance programs, which amount to some $2 billion annually.