Printed Matter: Canadian Newspapers

Presented by: Bradley Karelson, Charlotte Peer and Greg Gerber

Table of Contents

• 1 – History/Overview

• 2 – Newspaper Consumption

• 3 – Newspaper Advertising

• 4 – Newspaper and Media

Ownership

Recent History Overview

• A century ago– Newspapers serving different

markets were independently owned by proprietors who themselves resided in those markets

• Today– Chain ownership; corporate control;

cross-media holdings

Recent History Overview

• Problems?– distortion across issuers

• In spite of this…– Canadian newspaper readership is

strong

• Newspapers as the foundation of Canadian information culture

Newspaper Consumption

• Widespread news distribution

• Consumed in very large numbers– 57% of Canadians over the age of 18 report

reading a paper on average each weekday– 64% read a paper on the weekend– 83% report having read one in the past week

Advertising

• Largest advertising medium in Canada

• Retail ads – 46%• Classified – 34%• National Ads - 20%

Advertising Revenue Breakdown

– Advertising rates set the size of circulation

– Cutting back on costs requires internal adjustments

– Paradigm…

Case Study

2001 Canadian Daily Newspaper Circulation by Ownership

Owner # of Papers Weekly Circulation Ave. Issue Circulation

Southam Publications 27 11,437,605 1,792,906

Quebecor Inc. 15 6,968,043 1,019,809

Torstar 5 4,621,724 686,851

Power Corp. of Canada 7 3,049,424 458,115

Bell/Globemedia 1 2,185,663 364,277

Osprey Media 18 1,536,963 247,021

Canadian Newspapers Co. 2 1,039,837 148,548

Halifax-Herald Ltd. 2 713,870 104,731

Brunswick News Inc. 3 675,278 116,472

Horizon 5 630,319 93,232

Hollinger Cdn. N.L.P. 10 326,277 59,361

Independents 5 314,700 57,078

Black Press 1 114,388 19,065

Annex Publ. & Printing 2 94,125 17,125

Newspaper and Media Ownership

• Past regulations:– The Davey Report (1970)– The Kent Commission (1981)

• Recent regulations:– New CRTC Regulations (2008)

The Davey Report (1970)

• Investigated the influence and concentration of ownership in Canada that was previously unregulated

• Recommendation of report: establish Press Ownership Review Board

Then Kent Comission (1981)

• First Canadian inquiry directly concerned with newspapers

• Series of studies to determine:– Extent of ownership across Canada– Responsibility of the newspaper

industry to the public– How the newspaper functioned as a

business– Functioning of the newsroom– Quality of public affairs reporting– Quality of journalism– Future of the newspaper industry

CRTC Regulations (2008)

• To restrict cross-media ownership as a way of ensuring a diversity of editorial voices in the same market

• A person or entity will be permitted to control only 2 of 3 types of media outlets – radio, TV, or newspapers – in a single market

Major Points• 1 – Newspapers are the foundation of an

information culture

• 2 – Newspaper revenues based largely on advertising

• 3 – The country employs regulations

(from The Davey Report and the

Kent Commission) to prevent

concentrated ownership and to

encourage journalistic diversity.