North American media, especially Canada's, are gasping for breath at the end of February. They may be on respirators by the end of March.
In the US, Friday marks the last day for Colorado's oldest paper, the Rocky Mountain News. Gannett, the largest American newspaper publisher, has seen Moody's downgrade its stock to junk.
And the New York Times, despite its $1.1 billion in debt, says it at least has enough money to survive 2009.
Here at home Torstar, owner of Canada's biggest newspaper, announced an administrative shakeup on Thursday. The company had a net loss of $180 million last year. Its net debt grew to $627 million. Torstar stock closed Thursday down 34 cents to $6.05.
Meanwhile, The Star reported that CBC President Hubert Lacroix is ready to sell some assets to survive the sudden fall in advertising revenues.
Unimpressed, The Secrets of Vancouver, a right-wing blog, says: "Harper should tell [the CBC] to go to hell...Let's have a referendum on the CBC - decide if they are even relevant anymore. CTV and Global seem to be getting all the viewers."
But with shares of CanWest Global at 34 cents (up 2 cents on the day), Canadian viewers may soon have little to watch except video clips on Al Jazeera English.
Correction: Inaccurate information about CTV Globemedia appeared in the original version of this post, and has now been removed. Apologies for the error, and thanks for the correction.
Crawford Kilian is a contributing editor of The Tyee.
8
Login or register to post comments
NicS
2 years ago
Goodbye CanWest - Hello Balanced Media
The right is in flight. Good riddence to them. What we'll be left with in Vancouver should be interesting. The WestEnder, The Courier, Georgia Straight.
Just goes to show, if as a journalist, you blindly tow the line of the status quo, eventually you may loose your job, because the general public is tired of controlled media that puts out half baked truths, lies and just plain omits much of the important news.
What would or will the likes of Gordon Campbell's Liberals do without the CanWest support they have so obviously recieved in the past?
DJT
2 years ago
NicS quote: "What would or
NicS quote:
"What would or will the likes of Gordon Campbell's Liberals do without the CanWest support they have so obviously recieved in the past"?
Yep, I guess no more third party advertising conveniently exempt from Gord's gag law. What would they do indeed?
cocean
2 years ago
I'll take Al Jazeera
I'll take Al Jazeera English. Fantastic network.
pmac
2 years ago
factually incorrect information
Uhm...not sure how CTVglobemedia shares are down since it is not a publicly traded company. The stock quoted in this article is a company called Commscope Inc.
CTVglobemedia is privately held.
Someone didn't do their homework.
Name
2 years ago
Good news
Great! High time for a new model that is community-based, less dependent on advertising and not purely driven by corporate greed!
And Canadians won't let the CBC go down - though I'd love to see Harper try that.
Go Tyee! Go Public Eye! Go Courier!
Gustav
2 years ago
The Courier
"Good riddence to them. What we'll be left with in Vancouver should be interesting. The WestEnder, The Courier, Georgia Straight."
The Courier is owned by CanWest, a point that is evident from its increasingly right-wing slant (e.g., Mark Hasiuk, Fiona Hughes). It hasn't been the same since the recent change in management.
Gustav
2 years ago
As I was saying...
Further to my previous post, I should have mentioned that the Courier's heyday came to an abrupt end last year with the firing of its respected publisher, Peter Ballard.
http://www.straight.com/article-131198/i-was-not-corporate-enough-peter-ballard
Gustav
2 years ago
One last thing...
CanWest further sullied its reputation last year by forcing The Courier to stop running Kevin Potvin's column:
http://www.republic-news.org/archive/184-repub/184_potvin_asper.html
If freedom of the press applies only to those who own the press, the good news here is that Potvin's Republic of East Vancouver is still going strong--and more necessary than ever!