Topic
Competition Bureau says move increases advertising competition — its only concern.
CanWest Global’s revelation that it will own all or part of two of Vancouver’s three free daily transit tabloids may disappoint readers looking for a truly competitive alternative, but there’s no law against it.
Metro, which launched March 14, was promoted as a joint venture between Torstar (owner of the Toronto Star) and Metro International, a European company that, since 1995, has built a 45-paper empire by inventing the free commuter paper. But on launch day CanWest announced it has an equal one-third stake in the new paper, and in future Canadian Metro papers.
Dose, which launches April 4, is wholly owned by CanWest. The third paper entering the Vancouver market this spring is 24 Hours, a Quebecor venture that will draw on copy from the Sun Media chain of tabloids.
While many critics lament CanWest’s dominance of news and information in the Vancouver market, where its two transit will join the Vancouver Sun, the Province and the National Post in its stable of locally available dailies. Although CanWest also owns a dozen weeklies and the dominant TV station, Canada’s Competition Bureau doesn’t have any interest in its effect on editorial competition.
The bureau deals with exclusively the economic aspects of competition. The social issues raised by media concentration, such as a whether citizens have adequate access to the information necessary to function in a democracy, are outside the scope of the federal legislation that governs the bureau.
Ownership not a key issue
A representative of the Competition Bureau, the agency set up to enforce the Competition Act, says that even though CanWest owns all or part of the two new papers, they actually create more competition.
Robert Lancop, assistant deputy commissioner of competition, says that [that] the Competition Act, like anti-trust law in other jurisdictions, is an economic statute that is designed to preserve competition in economic terms. While this doesn’t provide much comfort for readers who want a diversity of news sources, Lancop emphasizes that the bureau can’t investigate anything that isn’t covered by the act.
“The legal test is: is there a substantial lessening of competition? [Vancouver Metro] is a joint venture by partners who aren’t present in the Vancouver market — Torstar and Metro — and that looks like more competition,” Lancop explains. Although Torstar is present in B.C. in the form of a roughly 19 per cent share of Black Press, which prints Metro and supplies some of its copy, Lancop says this is a “minority interest.” An owner must control at least 50 per cent of a venture to be considered the controlling interest.
As for CanWest’s one-third ownership of — Lancop says CanWest is simply extending its reach in the market — and there’s no law against that, either.
“If a party extends its market there’s nothing under the merger provisions [of the Competition Act] that would trigger an automatic review.”
'Predatory pricing' must be proven
What does trigger a bureau investigation is if someone complains that a company has run afoul of the act. For example, a company could abuse its dominant position by engaging in “predatory pricing” — selling its product at an unreasonably low price in order to put its competitor out of business.
But in the case of news media this would be difficult to prove. The transit tabs, for example, are automatically cheaper to produce because they recycle most their news content from wire services or other papers. Their ad space is bound to be less costly than that of newspapers that deliver [original] local news coverage.
However, in cities such as Chicago the arrival of daily giveaways with lower ad rates has had an impact on what locally produced independent papers can charge for their ads. That in turn has affected local news coverage as publishers cover their losses by cutting their editorial budgets.
Dan McLeod, owner of the 38-year-old Georgia Straight, is one local publisher likely to feel pressure from advertisers to lower his ad rates as these cheap papers hit the streets. He believes CanWest’s market domination does constitute unfair competition, but he says he won’t bother filing complaints with the bureau because he believes it’s a waste of time.
Chance of action ‘zilch’
“Would a fifth CanWest daily in Vancouver be deemed a case of CanWest OverDose by the Competition Bureau? Probably not, in my opinion,” McLeod said in an e-mail interview from Mexico. “The Toronto Star is a major long-term supporter of the federal Liberals, and the Aspers donated $100,000 to Paul Martin’s leadership campaign, so I think the chances of the feds cracking down on this new partnership are zilch.”
Lancop says he understands people’s frustration over [the] social impact of media concentration but points out that it’s a problem that is outside the bureau’s realm.
“If we’re talking about the number of [different media] voices, I know there’s been a lot of concern about that, but that’s difficult to deal with in law,” Lancop says. Before 1986 the statute included a provision for activities that were of “detriment to the public,” but Lancop said that the phrase was so vague as to be impossible to prove in court and was removed when the law was revised.
The bureau receives about 80,000 complaints a year, mostly from consumers, and Lancop says they welcome complaints. “Our investigations [are] complaint-driven, we usually hear about a situation either through complaints or through the media.”
Anyone can register a complaint — by phone, letter, or e-mail. The Competition Bureau web site outlines the legislation, and defines what constitutes anti-competitive behaviour.
But Lancop emphasizes that companies have to contravene the act in some way before the bureau can investigate — and merely owning most of the print media in town is not a crime.
CanWest refutes speculation
CanWest’s involvement in Metro has also sparked speculation that the company won’t launch Dose, the commuter paper aimed at under-34 readers, in Vancouver on April 4 as planned.
Michael Williams, president of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, says that’s not true, in an e-mailed response to The Tyee’s inquiries. “DOSE launches on April 4th in five cities across Canada at once. CanWest remains unwavering in its commitment to the success of Dose,” Williams stated. “We fundamentally believe that Dose is a substantially different product than the Sun, the Province, and Metro. Targeted at saavy [sic] twentysomethings, and produced by the demo it serves.”
Local CanWest news staff were surprised by the Metro-CanWest’s partnership. As one wag put it: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Another journalist complained that the editorial staff was left in the dark: “All that worry about Metro coming into the market and CanWest buys in for 33 per cent!?!”
Williams said negotiations with Metro and Torstar had been going on for about four months.
The other speculation within the media is that the Province and the Sun will merge. The rumour has circulated since the late 1950s when the Sun and the Province first became a couple by sharing their presses. In was raised again in 1980 when Southam, which owned the Province, bought the Sun. But to prevent the fast-growing Toronto Sun and its sister papers from invading Vancouver, Southam decided to remake the Province as a tabloid.
To some skeptics, the rumour now sounds plausible. In terms of style and audience, the free transit tabs offer something similar to the Province, making its circulation vulnerable. And about two months ago, Sun scribes were told that they could not write stories longer than 15 inches long (about 600 words) without permission, which is closer to standard tabloid form.
However, Williams insists the papers themselves will not merge.
“The Sun and the Province are already as merged as they ever will be. They share a common infrastructure and support mechanism and they share a common publisher. The editorial staffs and product decision making functions are today and will remain separate,” Williams wrote.
Of course, it’s probably fair to say that CanWest may have few more surprises planned.
CanWest chief executive Leonard Asper said in January that the company has been considering taking its newspaper operations public as an income trust to help reduce its $2.75 billion debt — most of which was incurred when CanWest bought chain of major daily newspapers from Hollinger in 2000.
“It’s one of the things that people are suggesting we do to further reduce our corporate debt and I haven’t rejected it…. It’s not a simple equation. It’s something that requires significant consideration before one does it,” Asper said.
Shannon Rupp is a frequent contributor to The Tyee. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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Anonymous
8 years ago
Someone needs an editor... and another topic to beat to death.
Stuart (not verified)
8 years ago
CanWest owns----- Vancouver Sun, Province, Victoria times colonist, 17 community papaers and Global TV. In general this is the most important issue facing our democracy as we know it. The messengers are shaping our agenda and maintaining the status quo. I was so excited to have Metro, the only paper that is not CanWest, but now its just the same old status quo.We have issues like say the RAV line which is going to cost 2 billion plus, what a surprise , no dissenting voices in the media. SO, the issue is where do we go from here, please lets have some real ideas and not the same old intellectual chatter which is practically good for nothing.
Kurt (not verified)
8 years ago
Re: Shannon Rupp’s inquiry about my experiences with London’s Metro. Perhaps the following anecdote will explain my enthusiasm for this commuter tab format.
I used to look forward to London's Evening Standard and didn’t mind paying 35 or 40p because I got entertained. I didn’t always agree with the columnists (the main reason I bought it) but they were uniformly provocative: I would wince in pain or roar with laughter.
No more. I won’t buy it. Their new columnists are pedestrian. Perhaps the main reason their paid-circulation is falling? And in December they launched a free, smaller version called Evening Standard “Liteâ€, which is given away to promote their 40p afternoon edition. They claim it’s working (Audit Bureau of Circulation figures dispute this claim), and last week the Guardian followed suit by publishing a “Lite†edition of their Manchester Evening News to arrest their circ declines. (Not coincidentally, the Evening Standard’s owner, Associated, has the Metro franchise in London and several other cities, while the Guardian has the Metro franchise in Manchester, their old home town).
Toss into this mix the fact that journalism has been waylaid by PR hacks. I don’t read GQ but was incredulous to see its editor, Dylan Jones, without a hint of shame, tell a March 14 PR conference that more than half of the copy in GQ is driven by PR firms.
"In the last issue of GQ, of 155 editorial pages, over half were originally generated by PR. GQ is full of PR-generated material and this usually stems from personal relationships," said Jones. "Papers can still come over all pious, accusing the entertainment industry of collusion but so what? Frankly I don't see what all the fuss is about." (The Guardian, March 15)
My brother-in-law in London has worked for Reuters and other news organizations, and until recent years worked on the editorial desk at the Daily Mail (also owned by Associated). It was a fairly good job and a decent paper, despite the ruthless savaging Fleet Street took from Rupert Murdoch and Maggie Thatcher, which has resulted in a huge disparity between what the upper and lower echelons of British newsrooms earn.
So, just over a couple years ago, my bro-in-law and a few compatriots at Daily Mail took leave and set up a PR firm. They had some very good clients and soon were earning two-three-four times as much writing spin as they did writing news.
One of their clients was the Tesco supermarket chain, and their job was to write bumph about groceries and jeans for submission to newspapers as “news†copy. One very silly night at a pub, I offered to help him come up with a PR story about these extra-large avocadoes Tesco wanted to flog. Many Guinnesses later we developed a comprehensive PR package which basically compared the avocadoes to J.Lo’s tush.
I couldn’t believe it when bro-in-law called up to say thanks, Tesco had gone for the idea, but he didn’t seem surprised, as it had all the elements of good star-quality PR. Never did hear whether any papers had used the story (no doubt, one of Richard Desmond’s execrable tabs went for it), but I can tell this story now because my bro-in-law finally quit the PR business, after suffering entirely too much disgust and self-loathing.
So, there you have it: Why would I buy a paper that a) doesn’t have great columnists and b) publishes PR as “news� (This is where the Dose format gets it all wrong, but then I don’t fit their market demographic.)
Especially when I can get a copy of Metro -- unvarnished and basically truthful news stories, which I can take or leave -- for free?
kj (not verified)
8 years ago
If society is so manipulated & controlled by talking heads and nonsensical scribes because they're too f'ing busy to do the heavy work of checking into matters of conscience then guess what? There's an ice-berg ahead with this society's name on it! Ah yes of course. That's it. Let's have others figure out things for us,'cause after all my part of the social contract is to shoot, shovel and shut-up (- thanks Ralph Klein) & cash my pay cheque, courtesy of the company no less. The very one lining the pockets of the BC Libs, Canwest (thru ads), and other no account shysters! It's been 40 years since the "revolution" and what's really changed? They lost the social fight to some degree but instead have claimed the economic one, which, afterall, is the only one that really mattered to them. Now they can while away in their gated communities. Meanwhile big labour is there lapping up the overflow and lobbying for more cream. This society wouldn't know how to fight if it was kicked in the groin. The "people" are eunuchs! Whereas the Elders of the Tahltan Nation...
allan (not verified)
8 years ago
Why the shock and horror that the Competition Bureau won't consider customer-driven complaints?
Perhaps it's because of this illusion that we have a "free-press", which so many of us seem to relate to something warm and fuzzy and protective of some citizens' right.
The very term is an industry-driven piece of double-talk that ought to be a warning signal when heard that you are about to be inundated with, at best, self-serving rhetoric and quite likely something even more sinister.
The competition bureau is a wingless bird put in charge of ensuring corporations play nicey-nicey with other corporations. Would it surprise you that these same corporations helped draft the rules to keep themselves in line - and unfettered by the rights of commoners?
While you and I might think of such a convenient little arrangement to be conflict-of-interest of the most obvious and pork-barellish kind, we again give the federal government far too much credit for really caring one iota about consumer or citizens' rights.
Quit deluding yourself that anything trumps profits, especially ill-defined ideals born of BS.
The Kent Commission, which Rupp mentioned, came down with some good recommendations a quarter century ago when Southam and Thomson corps. were caught trading horses right in the middle of a race.
That commision might have been mistaken for a consumer-driven body, but the fact that none of it was ever implemented shows how much the federal governemnt cares about our concerns as citizens or consumers.
On the other hand, if you are a corporation and can afford the courtroom jesters, then the fact that another company unfairly trampled on your press-freedoms or in more practicle terms, your right to profit as you wish, the minions in Ottawa will be on the next plane.
The best we as citizens can rely on is that old standby "caveat-emptor".
Shannon Rupp (not verified)
8 years ago
Hi Kurt,
Could you contact me at
? On the subject line please put "forward to Shannon."
Many thanks,
S.
stretch (not verified)
8 years ago
Heartbreaking. Even if it were, in all probability, never to amount to anything substantial. To have this scuttled right from the start.
Money and Democracy, eh?, don't mix. Obviously. PR is all now, corporate agendas, glossified and hiding as legitimate information. And we will be told that Democracy is grand and great, and to be treasured, and be sure to vote because its IMPORTANT. But its all bullshit in essence. Brute Force shall prevail by virtue of... "You're eyes are getting heavy." and repetition of directives of right thinking from the absolutely ordained order towards facilitating slaves working to be free.
The REAL barking mad fox channel (not verified)
8 years ago
Aw, cheer up, stretch! You can always go into publishing ...
Seriously, papers are in their death-throes. Online editions are becoming more user-friendly and popular. People who want to hold onto something while they scarf their morning coffee and granola are going for magazines.
The question is how to open up and keep cyberspace clear for dissidents.
D. Waldman (not verified)
8 years ago
I like this series of articles. But I don't think that partial ownership will really have a bearing on the Metro when it comes to content. That paper is nothing but a handful of three inch stories, with less than a half dozen of them being original content, all the international news comes from Reuters and the vast majority of Canadian content from Torstar.
I know that a lot of people don't like giving their money to Canwest, but this paper is free. Read it on the bus in the morning and stick with this site for alternative news.
AJ (not verified)
8 years ago
More Canwest dominance or society shaping ?? That should make Liberals happy, more press to trumpet everything they do ..while burying all the harm they promote to most of the population. Watch for less and less govt watchdogging and more spinning than a room full of tops. More to help the continuing decline of BC.
kurt (not verified)
8 years ago
Papers are "in their death throes"? Where's your evidence? Or is this just wishful thinking?
T Shanks (not verified)
8 years ago
There was a cat that was walking. And then the cat stopped and looked at a tree. Then the cat kept walking. Can somebody make sense of this ? I just need answers to my cat problems.I saw a cat shit on a province newspaper, that was neat.
The REAL barking mad fox channel (not verified)
8 years ago
Just google "newspapers decline," kurt, and dozens upon dozens of sources pop up. The wonderful article by Carlin Romano "Who Owns the Fourth Estate" published in thenation.com archives is my preference (cut-&-paste the URL below).
http://tinyurl.com/6qco3
I used the term 'death throes' because my last experience of Canwest papers was where they tried to hand them out for free at the C-Train stations in Calgary, and people backed off as if they were contaminated. All except the street people who, I guess, probably use them to cover themselves when there's no room left at the shelters.
B. Sotted (not verified)
8 years ago
Ooooh! When I look into Lenny's eyes in that photo up top, I can't help but want to be dominated on a daily basis!
kurt (not verified)
8 years ago
Appreciated the link to thenation.com. Interesting but in exchange I think you'll find Salon's editor in chief, Joan Walsh's March 9 column extraordinarily good ("Who killed Dan Rather... old media isn't dead yet and new media can never replace it"). Just go to salon.com and use their search engine (it's worth getting a $35 US annual subscription but you can get a free one-day trial sub to read this piece). Walsh covers a lot of territory in the piece, all of it brilliant:
"I feel like a traitor to new media in admitting I'm a little alarmed by the glee in some corners of the blogosphere about the stumbles of the MSM (mainstream media)... While there might be a blogosphere without the Times and the rest of the MSM, it's safe to say it would be enormously less important and interesting. And the blogosphere alone is incapable of providing us with a full picture of the world, or of doing the sort of longterm, often unrewarding but occasionally world-changing investigative work that blogs just can't support."
"And some bloggers today only play journalists on the web, without the commitment to fairness and accuracy that still distinguishes the best of the MSM. Just as time and timeless journalistic principles revealed the flaws in the CBS report, so too will they weed out the pretenders in the blogosphere. The truth always wins, eventually."
kurt (not verified)
8 years ago
P.S. Walsh also said: "I'm rooting for the reform and reinvention and increasing relevance of the MSM; I'm not rooting for its demise." Amen.