FELDSTED: Newspapers once dug out what governments were and were not doing, and shone a light into the dark corners of our legislatures and parliament
Watching Finance Minister Morneau and Prime Minister Trudeau congratulating one another over their $585 million subsidy to the media industry made me ill. The usual suspects came forth denouncing the subsidy as an attempt to buy off the media. The media in Canada had an income of over $80 billion in 2016. $585 million is a drop in the ocean – less than 1% of income (0.73%). It is less than one half of what they pump into the CBC every year. The five giants who dominate Canadian media (which does not include the CBC as its revenues are made up largely of taxpayer subsidies) fear that a government may break up their monopolies. The top five - Bell, Rogers, Telus, Shaw and Quebecor accounted for 71.1% of the $80 billion network media economy in 2016. The media in Canada is vertically integrated. The same owners control newspapers, magazines, radio stations, TV stations, internet, cable and wireless services. When Sun News tried to break into the ma...