Western Standard - Former CRTC Vice Chair and newspaper executive Peter Menzies on Bill C 18 and the state of Canada's

00:00:00.000 So thank you very much for joining the show today, Peter.

00:00:02.900 Hey, it's my pleasure, thanks for inviting me.

00:00:05.060 So, I mean, most of my listeners are pretty aware

00:00:07.460 due to many repeated rants out of me and what C18 is,

00:00:10.240 but perhaps if you could run down in a nutshell

00:00:12.560 what that bill is about and where it's been.

00:00:15.280 Yeah, it's an effort to redistribute advertising income

00:00:18.900 earned by social media and search platforms

00:00:21.620 and search engines to newspapers

00:00:25.220 and other news organizations,

00:00:27.580 qualified ones that have been making the case.

00:00:31.240 Here's the journalistic approach.

00:00:32.440 I've been making the case,

00:00:33.860 shouting very loudly that Facebook et al

00:00:36.760 have been stealing their content

00:00:38.780 and this has been going on for years.

00:00:41.020 They keep saying that.

00:00:41.920 I'm not quite sure why they get away with it

00:00:43.540 because they never support it

00:00:45.160 with anything other than just a statement.

00:00:47.460 So the non-journalistic or the less journalistic point of view

00:00:50.640 is that it's kind of a shakedown.

00:00:52.820 Actually, it is a shakedown.

00:00:54.420 It most certainly is.

00:00:56.140 But I mean, I guess maybe we'll talk a little more though.

00:00:59.160 I mean, into the, I would consider it as a libertarian,

00:01:02.480 more of a devil's advocate point of view.

00:01:04.300 But I mean, you've seen the decline of revenue

00:01:07.100 and ability in the media industry.

00:01:08.560 You know, I mean, it's been dramatic this last 10 years

00:01:10.600 and it's a, people will call it a problem

00:01:12.440 that needs to be solved,

00:01:13.360 whether or not the government should intervene to do so or not.

00:01:16.480 But our news is at risk.

00:01:19.100 So, I mean, C18 isn't the solution,

00:01:20.720 but what should we be doing?

00:01:22.720 Yeah, I mean, I guess there's a couple arguments there.

00:01:25.560 News is certainly at risk because it's a time of disruption, right?

00:01:28.940 But times of disruption tend to sort them in from the boys

00:01:32.180 in these kinds of things.

00:01:33.480 So the companies that are well-equipped intellectually

00:01:36.400 and willing to invest in their product tend to find their ways

00:01:40.940 through these things.

00:01:42.060 Companies that aren't tend to struggle more.

00:01:46.060 I mean, it's gonna be a struggle for everybody,

00:01:47.980 but some make it and some don't.

00:01:50.200 That's what happens.

00:01:51.060 That's in when things evolve, right?

00:01:52.940 When the business models evolve in terms of that.

00:01:55.860 There have been a number of newspapers,

00:01:57.820 the Wall Street Journal,

00:01:58.820 the New York Times is actually starting to do quite well.

00:02:02.240 Daily Telegraph in London, the Times,

00:02:05.120 the Guardian made money last year in London.

00:02:07.440 And, you know, after years of not making it

00:02:09.620 and going with, you know, voluntary subscriptions

00:02:11.860 and voluntary donations, others have gone behind a paywall.

00:02:15.540 You guys are using a paywall.

00:02:19.080 You know, the guys who are going back to that

00:02:21.500 and are providing content that is pleasing to their readers

00:02:25.460 are getting through it.

00:02:26.620 Others are not.

00:02:28.900 And so, you know, and yet at the same time,

00:02:33.120 we've been through the internet,

00:02:34.360 we have access probably to more news

00:02:36.000 than we've ever had before.

00:02:38.320 Yeah, and I guess there's what the,

00:02:41.100 one of the bigger risks with the government getting in this way,

00:02:43.640 particularly with C-18,

00:02:45.280 is it'll stunt the evolution of outlets.

00:02:47.900 I mean, it doesn't give them that incentive then

00:02:49.620 to change or be innovative or try new models.

00:02:52.480 And it also strangles the little ones like us

00:02:54.980 or the ones that may not qualify

00:02:56.940 as the government's going to pick and choose

00:02:58.780 who is a qualified outlet and who isn't.

00:03:01.580 Well, it's actually got worse than that.

00:03:03.200 I hate to break it to you,

00:03:04.960 but this week it appeared like the government

00:03:07.720 was sort of backing down and it is because I think,

00:03:12.100 I think Meta, Facebook and Instagram,

00:03:15.480 unless something dramatic changes, they're gone for good.

00:03:18.060 They're out of the business in Canada, everywhere.

00:03:21.400 They are not news providers, they are content providers.

00:03:25.280 And news is a small percentage.

00:03:26.780 And as they've been saying recently,

00:03:29.180 it's just not worth the grief.

00:03:30.560 There's just not, it's 3% of their content and that,

00:03:34.100 and those users are replicable.

00:03:36.240 They'll still be there for other reasons.

00:03:37.700 In other words, yeah.

00:03:39.820 But what they've done is they've changed from a per links,

00:03:43.460 which was really problem sort of way of charging people,

00:03:46.600 charging the social media, the web giants,

00:03:49.520 to sort of putting a cap on it, making a calculation.

00:03:53.420 And then the big thing problem for guys like you

00:03:56.480 is that they're really restricting the number of people

00:03:59.540 to whom they may have to distribute money.

00:04:02.280 So I still think it's a long shot

00:04:04.120 that any money gets distributed through this.

00:04:06.700 But if it does, here's who it's going to.

00:04:09.140 Videotron, Bell, the CBC, probably the biggest bunch.

00:04:14.840 Rogers, you know, maybe Black Press might be the biggest one

00:04:20.220 that gets out of there.

00:04:21.480 But innovators, startups, entrepreneurs,

00:04:25.840 like Western Standard, Black Locks, Halifax Examiner,

00:04:30.000 you know, Narwhal, they're on the left, 0.99

00:04:31.540 they're on the right, they're screwed. 0.98

00:04:34.040 They'll be left out. 0.98

00:04:35.460 They will not be subsidized.

00:04:37.160 The status quo, right,

00:04:40.380 which includes most of the people who are struggling,

00:04:43.620 and a lot of people who have tons of money anyway,

00:04:46.580 like Bell and Rogers, will get the loot.

00:04:49.760 And you guys will not.

00:04:54.880 We'll have to find other ways.

00:04:56.180 We're pretty stubborn.

00:04:57.120 I don't know if they'll get rid of us that easily.

00:04:58.560 Well, that's where you need, you know,

00:04:59.740 like you gave a little pitch there.

00:05:00.940 That's where you need your readers support.

00:05:03.540 You know, like if,

00:05:05.120 and that's really the thing that people are going to have

00:05:07.380 to get their heads around.

00:05:08.320 If they want the sort of content they're looking for,

00:05:10.820 if they want local product, if they want.

00:05:13.220 Right now you have the only online newsroom in Alberta,

00:05:19.340 I think, other than the CBC, in terms of doing that.

00:05:24.260 There's no Calvary Herald, no Calvary Sun,

00:05:26.380 no Edmonton Journal, no Edmonton Sun newsroom

00:05:28.520 that I'm aware of.

00:05:30.120 If people want that, it's 10 bucks a month.

00:05:34.060 It's like, it's a beer, right?

00:05:36.900 If they're not willing to put that forward, they'll lose.

00:05:40.680 I try to remind people,

00:05:42.180 at least those of us of a vintage,

00:05:43.460 remember we never thought twice of spending

00:05:45.660 that much or more to have the paper boy,

00:05:47.220 bring that to us, to our household every day.

00:05:49.740 And that was decades ago, you know,

00:05:52.580 for that sort of price, you can get the same thing.

00:05:54.420 I'm hoping Canadian consumers learn to adapt that way.

00:05:56.800 They realize it's a product to pay for.

00:05:58.540 And a lot of our subscribers have so far,

00:06:00.820 it just takes some time.

00:06:02.500 Yeah, and you know, you don't need to get everybody,

00:06:04.220 you just need to get enough, right?

00:06:05.820 I mean, that's basically the way that needs to go.

00:06:09.420 And I mean, the Globe and Mail has, you know,

00:06:11.580 really shuttered down with the paywall

00:06:15.540 and that sort of stuff.

00:06:16.380 And all the other papers I mentioned have done that,

00:06:18.740 but you gotta have the quality,

00:06:20.060 you gotta have the value proposition, right?

00:06:21.960 So, you know, you guys are doing a good job on that

00:06:24.780 and others are too, but, you know, some,

00:06:27.400 I mean, it's very difficult, you know,

00:06:29.440 I don't like calling names out,

00:06:31.300 but it's very difficult for a post media product these days

00:06:34.680 to make a value proposition.

00:06:37.320 Half of it is, you know,

00:06:39.680 half of your local paper is the National Post.

00:06:43.520 So why would you buy your local paper when really,

00:06:46.320 I mean, school board doesn't get covered,

00:06:48.000 city council get covered, courts, eh, now and then, right?

00:06:52.040 So what's the point?

00:06:55.240 It's difficult.

00:06:56.080 So, I mean, do you think maybe though,

00:06:58.120 I mean, the government backed down a little bit.

00:07:00.040 And as you sort of point out,

00:07:01.160 the government really doesn't have the leverage

00:07:03.560 they pretend to have or think they have

00:07:05.200 with the social media giants.

00:07:06.680 I mean, it was 3% of the content they provided.

00:07:09.560 I can't see Facebook and Google back and down.

00:07:11.920 People keep saying, well, that happened in Australia,

00:07:13.560 but I think that just says all the more,

00:07:15.080 they're not letting that precedent get set

00:07:16.720 because every country with a greedy government

00:07:18.840 is gonna come in and try and snatch some from them

00:07:21.080 in the future.

00:07:21.840 So, I mean, do you think the government will swallow some pride,

00:07:24.880 maybe, and just get this bill?

00:07:26.920 Or are they just gonna keep on this standoff

00:07:29.320 and no news gets provided on those giants at all?

00:07:31.320 Sure.

00:07:31.840 Well, first of all, the narrative that Google and Facebook

00:07:34.880 backed down is one spun by Rupert Murdoch's media in Australia.

00:07:37.800 It was actually the government that backed down

00:07:39.800 and made some amendments and said, basically,

00:07:43.320 you're free to make your own deals.

00:07:44.800 You know, nobody's actually ever used the Australian legislation.

00:07:49.280 So to that extent, you know, the Australian model

00:07:52.600 is the government threatening to do something

00:07:54.280 unless everybody else does something.

00:07:56.280 I think the government's in this situation right now

00:07:58.640 where I think it's too late for Meta, for Facebook.

00:08:02.160 I think they insulted them too much.

00:08:05.520 I mean, people don't make emotional decisions.

00:08:07.560 They make business decisions.

00:08:08.800 But they also found that they were probably gonna be insulted

00:08:12.000 whether they made a philanthropic decision and said, okay,

00:08:14.960 we'll help anyway, because let's face it,

00:08:17.000 none of them set out to kill newspapers

00:08:19.040 or to kill news products, right, in terms of that.

00:08:21.440 So what they're trying to do now is salvage

00:08:23.640 some sort of deal with Google, which will put a cap on it.

00:08:30.440 And right now, my understanding is there's a huge difference

00:08:35.000 between what News Media Canada and some of the other lobby groups

00:08:38.760 lobbying for the loot are expecting and what Google's willing to pay.

00:08:45.000 So, you know, the best case scenario,

00:08:47.760 this ends up with them making some kind of deal with Google,

00:08:50.480 who then get exempted from the act.

00:08:52.440 And then they maybe never even bother bringing the act into force,

00:08:56.440 which allows Facebook Meta to still carry news,

00:08:59.120 which they might decide to get it, but it might be too late for that.

00:09:01.760 They might decide to get out of the business anyway.

00:09:03.760 Or as it stands, they don't get any deal with Google.

00:09:10.440 And as it stands, they're not going to get one, near as I can tell.

00:09:14.920 And we play this drama out through the fall.

00:09:18.200 And then we'll see what

00:09:21.600 probably the best case scenario for everybody is that the government amends Bill C-18

00:09:26.160 so that the coming into force date just gets extended into eternity.

00:09:33.160 And you just kind of nobody, they don't withdraw the act.

00:09:37.160 It sits there, but no harm is done.

00:09:40.520 Yeah.

00:09:40.760 You just kind of let it die quietly of old age.

00:09:44.680 I mean, it's got to be frustrating.

00:09:46.440 And it's been, I wrote on it recently, a difficult environment for established journalists.

00:09:52.200 They put in their time and everything, and then, you know, there just isn't the demand

00:09:56.560 for their product as there used to be.

00:09:58.960 But I mean, I see it as almost some of the outlets are really jumping

00:10:03.800 on the government bandwagon.

00:10:04.960 I think Post Media said they're going to stop advertising on Facebook

00:10:08.680 and the shots go back and forth.

00:10:10.360 But it feels like it's just sad to see such large institutions coming,

00:10:15.640 getting down to that rather than seeking changes in their ways

00:10:19.440 to try and get out of the soup they're in.

00:10:22.160 Yeah, it is.

00:10:23.080 It is.

00:10:23.480 It's really, it's kind of embarrassing, isn't it, right?

00:10:27.360 Like, I mean, it's kind of nationally embarrassing to see that we're going

00:10:30.560 through this with our media.

00:10:32.480 I mean, we used to be pretty proud of our media and that sort of stuff.

00:10:36.480 And a lot of it just isn't very good anymore.

00:10:40.360 And nobody, I can't believe I just said that out loud,

00:10:44.120 but people need to say that out loud a little bit from time to time, right?

00:10:47.360 Like, you actually have to have, like I was saying, a product that people want to buy.

00:10:53.280 And here's one of the tough things for the journalists.

00:10:55.440 Like, hey, look, they got kids.

00:10:57.120 They got mortgages.

00:10:58.640 They got, they've got, you know, livelihoods.

00:11:00.880 They've got elderly parents to care for.

00:11:02.640 They've got all those things that everybody else does.

00:11:04.640 So it's not like, you know, we shouldn't empathize with their predicament.

00:11:09.280 And I can understand their despair and their desperation in terms of that.

00:11:14.400 But news, there hasn't ever been a great deal of money in news.

00:11:19.120 The fact of the matter is those big old newspapers like the one I used to run,

00:11:23.280 it wasn't just the news that people bought it for, right?

00:11:26.800 It's like those were the days when if you wanted to rent an apartment,

00:11:29.600 you had to buy the paper.

00:11:30.960 If you wanted to, you know, sell your car, you had to put an ad in the paper.

00:11:36.320 And if you wanted to buy a car, you had to buy the paper.

00:11:38.560 If you wanted to do virtually anything, if you want to find out who had a kid,

00:11:42.400 who had the births, deaths, whose daughter got engaged, who got married,

00:11:46.480 whose grandma died, you had to buy the newspaper.

00:11:48.960 If you wanted to see the comics, the horoscope, that sort of stuff.

00:11:52.400 I mean, I got back in the day when Catherine Ford and Peter Stockland were both writing

00:11:56.800 on the Calgary Herald editorial pages and everybody thought this was great controversy.

00:12:01.040 And it was, and it was fun.

00:12:02.160 And, you know, it would be like, what are they going to say next?

00:12:04.720 And that sort of stuff.

00:12:06.080 The fact of the matter is, though, I got more phone calls

00:12:09.120 when the Canadian Tire Flyer wasn't delivered to somebody's door on a Thursday morning

00:12:13.760 than over anything Peter Stockland or Catherine Ford ever said.

00:12:16.640 Well, yeah.

00:12:17.840 I mean, it's the world has changed so dramatically.

00:12:20.160 I mean, it's good to remind everybody.

00:12:21.600 It was just such an, it was a need.

00:12:23.680 It was an integral pipeline to information that you couldn't go without it.

00:12:28.720 But those days, the internet products that really killed newspapers,

00:12:32.880 it's not so much Facebook.

00:12:34.080 I mean, Facebook didn't start making money until 2012, right?

00:12:38.720 And it was over for newspapers by then because it was Kijiji and Craigslist that did it, right?

00:12:44.000 Classified advertising was worth 30, in some cases 40% of most North American newspapers revenue.

00:12:51.040 And these guys gave that stuff away for free, right?

00:12:55.440 And how do you compete with that?

00:12:56.800 All of a sudden something you're, you know, like a product like the Globe and Mail,

00:13:00.720 if you wanted to rent an apartment, it cost you 80 bucks to put a classified ad in, right?

00:13:05.360 All of us.

00:13:06.320 And they're, I mean, these were very high rates, 25 cents a word.

00:13:09.120 I think the Herald was and that sort of stuff.

00:13:10.960 All of a sudden, somebody has given that away for free.

00:13:13.600 So if they, if they're chasing anybody for loot, it should be Kijiji and Craigslist.

00:13:17.120 Yeah, which, well, I don't want to give them ideas.

00:13:22.560 But I mean, it is tragic.

00:13:24.080 But I mean, obviously, that's just, it's just not going to change anymore.

00:13:26.800 I mean, now that I can pick up my phone and search out a used car or an apartment or a job.

00:13:33.280 It's just not coming back.

00:13:34.480 This is a change in history.

00:13:36.160 What do you think the approach is?

00:13:40.080 I mean, you think the government can quietly let this go to the wayside?

00:13:42.800 Would it almost be better to, for the rest of us to quiet down and let them sort of pad this thing away?

00:13:48.240 Well, I actually, I actually think, and you know, this is where they should have been years ago.

00:13:53.920 But I mean, we are where we are.

00:13:55.200 So there's no point in Monday morning quarterbacking it.

00:13:57.680 But my former CRTC chair, Conrad von Finkenstein, and I just recently did a paper for the McDonnell Borey Institute.

00:14:04.800 The purpose of which was just trying to say what we need is a national news industry policy of some kind, right?

00:14:10.720 It involved like our suggestion was that when people subscribe, that subscription becomes 100% tax deductible.

00:14:18.320 Now, the Globe and Mail, you know, picked up on that idea in an editorial the other day, and they suggested 70%.

00:14:24.080 Well, fine.

00:14:24.640 But I mean, what we're trying to do is get a conversation started going.

00:14:28.160 But obviously, the current 15%, that's not going to, there's no incentive in that, getting a 15%.

00:14:33.920 Tax break on your $120 a year to the, you know, I mean, who's going to even bother claiming that in their tax form?

00:14:41.360 But make it 70%, make it 100%. 0.58

00:14:43.760 It's different.

00:14:44.640 You know, a different type of funding mechanism from the web giants, all kinds of different things.

00:14:50.160 So reforming the role of the CBC, getting them out of the advertising business, that sort of stuff.

00:14:55.360 That's the sort of, that's what we need to do.

00:14:58.320 That's a long-winded way of saying what we need to be doing is not subsidizing zombie products from the past that are basically staggering around dead, right?

00:15:10.240 And trying to find out ways to keep them staggering around dead.

00:15:13.440 That's like a subsidy for products that are in palliative care.

00:15:16.720 What you need to be doing is understanding what's going on, you know, the nature of the tech revolution that's happening, which is huge, right?

00:15:27.440 And build a path forward to the future, right?

00:15:30.640 We have this federal government that fancies itself as so progressive.

00:15:34.880 And when it comes to economic matters like this through Bill C-11 and C-18, they are paleocons, right?

00:15:42.080 They're trying to preserve the world of 1985 and everything they do.

00:15:46.000 It's crazy.

00:15:47.680 No, it's not coming back.

00:15:48.800 But I guess we can keep speaking up and keep pushing and keep trying to prosper outside of that.

00:15:53.680 I really appreciate you coming on to lay out, you know, what the issue was.

00:15:56.560 I mean, you've, you know, don't want to date you too much, but you've had experience through a great number of years of journalism.

00:16:01.520 And it's worth applying that, I mean, seeing the evolution and seeing where it's gone to.

00:16:06.320 So, as you mentioned, you, you, you put content in, you know, you take part with the McDonnell Laurier Institute.

00:16:11.520 Where else can people find your work, Peter?

00:16:15.120 Well, I write for a number of different publications.

00:16:19.120 I write for Epic Times pretty regularly.

00:16:20.880 The Line, The Hub is the last piece I wrote for The Hub, got, got a lot, got a lot of carriage in terms of that.

00:16:27.680 I occasionally write for the Globe and Mail and now and then Western Standard, too, can pick up my stuff.

00:16:34.480 So watch for it.

00:16:36.480 If people were to follow the McDonnell Laurier, the easiest thing is to follow the McDonnell Laurier Institute

00:16:42.800 site or social media feeds because they pick up just about everything we do and republish it under their brand.

00:16:50.080 So that's probably the easiest way for folks to do it.

00:16:53.600 Great. Well, that's another interesting stuff there, too, by the way.

00:16:56.160 Yeah, I was about to say, I've had a number of guests, you know, we've been a part of the McDonnell Laurier Institute.

00:17:00.560 They're a fantastic organization.

00:17:02.480 People should go there, as you said, just to look in general.

00:17:05.600 You could you could lose some hours digging into the content there.

00:17:08.240 It's fantastic.

00:17:09.120 Great. Well, I thank you again for your time and sharing with us today, Peter.

00:17:14.960 And well, hopefully the next time we talk, it'll be a little less bleak outlook.

00:17:19.120 Yeah, yeah.

00:17:19.600 Well, like, you know, like I said, like, keep your chin up.

00:17:21.840 I mean, this is a disruptive time.

00:17:23.360 It's a tough time.

00:17:24.640 People will need new ideas.

00:17:26.000 Some will work and some won't.

00:17:27.600 But just keep going forward and and the smart and the able will survive.

00:17:34.800 We will.

00:17:35.280 We're also this stubborn.

00:17:39.200 Thanks, Corey.

00:17:39.760 You can become a Western Standard member for just $10 a month or $99 a year for unlimited access.

Western Standard - July 14, 2023

Former CRTC Vice Chair and newspaper executive Peter Menzies on Bill C 18 and the state of Canada's

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