What if Canadian journalism’s problem is its product?

These days, I find myself using an anecdote from my many years as vice chair at the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to illustrate the current demands from media companies for more and bigger subsidies from government.

Back in the days when people thought they could make money running a radio station, they would apply to the CRTC, which regulates broadcasting (and now the Internet, since our government decided it is broadcasting). CRTC staff would then conduct an economic study of the market in question and the health of any licensed stations already there. The purpose was to determine whether the market was robust enough to sustain another station. If it was, there would be an open call for applications and a competitive process—often referred to as a “beauty pageant”—would unfold, which in those days would involve a public hearing in the market in question.

I always found the narrowness of the reviews interesting because, having once, to my eternal shame, been a newspaperman, I was interested in the health of the entire media market, not just the CRTC-licensed ones. But it was not the CRTC’s job to consider whether adding a new commercial radio station or news website would finally kill off local newspapers. Our job, as I came to understand it, was to nurture the health of our licensed offspring and, through them, achieve the goals of the Broadcasting Act.

I recall one such study of a smaller mid-sized market within which four commercial stations already existed. The city, overall, was growing and had a sound, stable economy. Three of the radio stations were making a lot of money, but one was not. It was actually losing money.

And so, staff recommended that the market could not sustain an additional competitor and that the application should be denied. I did have a question, though: “Did we consider maybe that the money-losing operator, which appears robust, just isn’t very good at running their radio station?”

The answer, of course, was no. Those sorts of analyses are not within the regulatory agency’s “scope”.

Peter Menzies argues that Canadian journalism’s challenges stem from the quality of its product rather than a lack of subsidies. He reflects on his experience at the CRTC, emphasizing that the regulatory body focused on licensed media without considering the broader market health. Menzies questions the effectiveness of news companies that have reduced their offerings and suggests that their struggles with subscriptions may be due to a weak value proposition. He highlights the need for introspection within the industry and warns against relying on government support for outdated products that fail to engage audiences.

About 45 percent of Canadian households bought a daily newspaper at the turn of the century, while only about 15 percent now have online subscriptions.

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