Media Concentrate

CBC Calls Out Quebecor, Raises Questions of Convergence

OpinionsMegan Dolski — Published October 24, 2011

When the media becomes the subject of the news rather than the source of it, someone isn’t doing their job.

Last week, words like ‘vendetta’ and ‘malice’ were thrown around by major Canadian media players—but instead of appearing in shocking news coverage, they were used by one news source in reference to another.

Last Tuesday, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation released a strongly worded statement entitled “Get the Facts” that defended the corporation’s own accountability and transparency with regards to those of their competitor, private corporation Quebecor.

The statement is both concise and catty, making it crystal-clear that the CBC has had enough of theconglomerate’s antics—which include attempting to have the its budget cut and being persistent in sending an influx of access to information requests its way.

Quebecor has since demanded the CBC apologize and remove the “defamatory” text from their website or face a lawsuit. The CBC has yet to do so, but say they will respond to Quebecor’s letter in due time.

To fully grasp the extent of this media mudslinging, it’s crucial to understand the scope of the opponents.

You have the CBC—Canada’s national public broadcaster, self-proclaimed as one of this country’s largest cultural institutions. The CBC provides Canadians with almost-exclusively Canadian content through television, Internet and satellite-based services.

On the other side of the scuffle, you have Quebecor, a massive conglomerate that owns both Sun Media and Osprey Media—headed by Pierre Karl Péladeau.

Take a look at the numbers and you’ll see that Péladeau has some 36 daily newspapers and more than 180 non-dailies and scads of additional outreach in the form of the publishing and broadcasting companies under his belt (Search ‘newspaper chain’ at quebecor.com to see the full list).

CBC’s statement makes three claims that, according to them, “Quebecor won’t tell you.”

It states that the media mogul has received “more than half a billion dollars in direct and indirect subsidies and benefits from Canadian taxpayers over the past three years, yet it is not accountable to them.”

It also suggests that Quebecor “uses this public subsidy and its dominant position in protected industries to make record profits, yet complains that its TVA television network ‘competes’ against Radio-Canada,” and finally that Péladeau has sent “over a dozen letters to the Prime Minister and others in government to complain that Radio-Canada does not spend enough money advertising in his newspapers.”

All of the above claims can be boiled down to a single common theme—dolla, dolla bill, y’all.

The media in Canada is no longer a mom-and-pop scenario consisting of a congregation of independently owned publications, but rather a struggle between a handful of far-reaching businesses that are actively cutting at each other’s throats while fighting for your eyes and ears—and wallets.

Péladeau defended his company’s attack of the CBC, stating, “The CBC is not a small entity in the media business in Canada and I think if you’re going to come out and challenge them, that takes some courage as a media player in Canada.” According to him, no other Canadian media organization is brave enough to take on the evil corporation.

Chances are he’s right—the media business has become a tangled web where breaks in the chain are few and far between. The current structure of media ownership is such that the suits on top of the food chain are so few that those at the bottom can’t call each other out without stepping on someone with the same boss’s toes.

So, regardless of who you think is in the right regarding the current media battle, as a reader you should take this as a lesson in awareness.

Realize that no matter how much news you read, listen to and watch, you may not be consuming as many viewpoints as you think. There’s a good chance that all of the information you receive comes from fewer head offices than there are fingers on the hand you just used to change the channel.