Media and Communication in Canada

Media and Communication in Canada

Description of media system

In the history of mass media in Canada there has been a position that it has been susceptible to the dominance of American media. "Canadian mass media began from a need for national communication and yet now serves as a fragmenting, regionalizing entity." (the Bonding and Fragmenting of Canada - in terms of Mass Media) This is a problem that remains even today as there is still no national newspaper though there have been attempts by Globe and Mail to be national newspapers. Instead of a national newspaper the country has a number of papers in regions which are owned by individuals. The effect in terms of money may be the same, as "The result is similar to national newspaper presence in that a small amount of newspaper owners are making all the money from sales, but each regional newspaper caters to the specific needs of their regions, and information may change drastically from paper to paper." (the Bonding and Fragmenting of Canada - in terms of Mass Media) Yet the country is developed and has 432 AM radio broadcast stations, 1527 FM broadcast stations and 6 shortwave stations as of 2003. According to estimates of 1997, there are 32.3 million radios. There are many television stations, as many as 1456 of them of whom 128 are originating stations, and 1328 are re-transmitters. Again the estimate is of 2003. The total number of television sets of 2003 is 21.5 million. Even in the most modern method of communication - Internet, there are 760 service providers as of 2000. (Communications in Canada)

Concentration of public media in Canada

The media in Canada is very well developed but the product that is shown on the media is often dominated by imports from United States, and this is more for English programs than French programs. The media organizations are set up for making profit through advertising, subscription and similar earnings. The national government set up, "Canadian Broadcasting Corporation operates radio and TV networks in both English and French, and some provincial governments offer their own public broadcast services as well" (Media in Canada) the entire system of broadcasting in television has equal participation from public and private owners, and operates across both the UHF and VHF bands. Apart from the government network, there are four major private networks. Of them, CTV and Global are in the English language and distributed all over the country, whereas TVA and TQS are broadcast only in French and only in Quebec. The other channels of TVA are distributed all over the country. SRC is the French version of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and is available only in Quebec. According to some statements, "Most network stations are owned and operated by the networks themselves, although all networks except Global have some affiliates with different ownership." (Media in Canada)

We shall discuss this question later. All broadcasting networks of Canada have to show products made in Canada, at least some of them, the greatest quantity of local content is on Canada Broadcasting Corporation. The position in other channels have led to criticism and "Both CTV and Global have at times faced criticism over their level of commitment to producing and airing Canadian programming." (Media in Canada) the reason for this is probably that it is easier to buy American productions than finance Canadian production, as they are "often prohibitively costly for the comparatively small size of the Canadian market." (Media in Canada) for the channels in French it is less of a problem as the audiences in Quebec like the local programs much more than dubbed imports from America.

Is the budget of public media getting smaller? If yes, is there some form of deregulation?

In certain respects, this seems to be the case as "There are currently 739 licensed cable distributors in Canada" (Media in Canada). This is much smaller than the number of 2000 that existed about a few years ago. The change is not due to any action of the government, but the major companies have taken over smaller outfits. This is due to the penetration of over 90% that the medium exists in rules of CRTC through which cable operators who have less than 2,000 subscribers do not require full licenses. There is not much competition as "Most Canadian cities are served by only one Cable Company per market." (Media in Canada) the major companies in the market are Roger Communications, Shaw, Cogeco, Videotron, Persona Inc. And East Link. The methods of contact have now improved with the offer of direct cable links from Express Vu and Star Choice. The facility of DBS can be obtained illegally from American services, but these are not legal in Canada. (Media in Canada) the reason for the increasing importance of private media has been discussed later.

What kind of private media does it have? How big are the private group and how much does it own? What program does it use?

As has been mentioned, the strength of private media is about the same as government media. Let us now look at the people controlling these media. The first controller is Hollinger Corporation which owns newspapers in U.S., UK, Canada and Israel. This group "in Canada it owns 61 regional and community newspapers, including the National Port, a national daily started in 1998 to compete with the Globe and Mail." (Media Ownership Issues) Another group is BCE which owns Bell Canada Telephone and this has the Globe and Mail which reaches 20,878,000 readers every week, Bell Express which is a satellite TV service with 722,000 subscribers, CTV which is a private network reaching 99% of Canadians, etc. Can West Global Communication Corporation This is the group owned by Aspers and is renowned for its private TV service which is called Global Television, Can West Entertainment and Can West Interactive. This is a fast growing group as "in 2000 it acquired from Hollinger 14 daily newspapers, 126 community newspapers, and a 50% stake in the National Post. This makes Can West the largest daily newspaper provider in Canada." (Media Ownership Issues)

In addition to the media, it owns the Los Angeles and Toronto-based Fireworks Entertainment which finances, develops, and produces both films and TV programs. This group also has broadcasting units in New Zealand, Australia, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland under its direct control. The next in line is the Quebecor group which owns Sun Media which is "the second largest newspaper group in Canada, owning 8 metropolitan dailies, 181 local newspapers, and other publications in Canada and Florida." (Media Ownership Issues) There is also the "Torstar group of newspapers who own the Toronto Star, Hamilton Spectator, Kitchener Waterloo record and a total of 70 newspapers in the country." (Media Ownership Issues) Thus it is clear that apart from television, most of the other media are directly controlled by media groups, and most of them are international in nature with their media spread all over the Western world, mainly the English speaking countries.

Media History of Quebec and Canada

The media in Canada had started with newspapers and all cities have at least one daily newspaper in the city with many "community and neighborhood weeklies." (Media in Canada) When a city has more than one newspaper, at least one of them is in a tabloid format. The importance of French is recognized in cities which have large population of French origin persons and "bilingual cities like Montreal and Ottawa have important papers in both French and English." (Media in Canada) the two major national newspapers of the country are Globe and Mail and the national Post. In terms of circulation, the largest newspaper is the Toronto star. Most of the newspapers are owned by the large chains or media groups. As per present records, the largest of these groups is the Southam Newspapers chain which is a part of the Can West group. The other important group called Quebecor owns most of the tabloids and this is done through the Sun media organization that it controls. (Media in Canada)

History of French speaking and English speaking parts of Canada

The origin of the French in Canada is much older than the British. Looking at the history of Ottawa, one will soon realize that it is an anglicized form of the name of a group of aboriginals earlier residing in that area. These persons were traders and probably used the river in course of there trade, and thus passed on their name to the river, and then on to the area. The first among the Europeans to visit that area was Etienne Brule and he probably came to know of the river. His trip was soon followed, in 1610 by the famous French explorer, Samuel de Champlain. This led to the travel to the present capital and in 1613 "Champlain arrived in what is now the Capital and produced the first detailed maps of the region."(History of Canada's Capital Region)

The area was not used for settlement by Europeans till 1800 and this was quite late in Canada, considering that Montreal had been settled a hundred and fifty years before. The name of the town also changed from Bytown to Ottawa about fifty years later. The future of the town permanently changed when Queen Victoria decided to change the capital to the city in 1857 for the entire United Province of Canada. Then came the fires and "The Great Fire of 1900 started in Hull, turned into an inferno at the lumber mills and crossed the river into Ottawa." (History of Canada's Capital Region) This fire cut down half of the town and destroyed the main source of occupation for the town - lumber mills. It also destroyed over 2000 houses. Again the fire struck in 1916 and this time the attack was at Parliament Hill. Everything was destroyed and the only item left was the library of the Parliament. Yet the town was destined to be the capital and in 1958, the full area of 4,600 square kilometers was declared as the capital region. This included Quebec, Ontario and 27 other municipalities including Ottawa and Hull. (History of Canada's Capital Region)

The English speaking Canadians came from the American colonies between 1775 and 1783 and fifty thousand of them settled in Nova Scotia meaning Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island of today; Ontario and Quebec. The reason for their travails was the support for the British and this made them loose their properties in America. This changed the future of Canada, and helped in the continuation of monarchy in Canada for over 200 years. (the History of Republicanism in Canada) the departure of French Canadians continued from Canada and even during the period of 1840 to 1930 there were 900,000 persons who left Canada to settle in United States. This matter is no longer taken seriously by the present residents of Quebec. The movement was indeed surprising since the French language is dominant only in this part of the continent, and there have not been many more departure subsequently. (French Canadian Emigration to the United States, 1840-1930)

Does the French speaking part have separate media? Do they have to pay for it? Do they receive funds from the Canadian government?

The Canadians of English speaking type and French speaking type have specific stations which cater to their needs. These stations also air group opinions "regarding regional, provincial, national and international events." (the Bonding and Fragmenting of Canada - in terms of Mass Media) the presentation and value judgments differ with the group that the presentation is being made to. This sort of differential treatment according to language occurs in Canada in all spheres, and yet "It seems to fragment Canada yet simultaneously it preserves our nation as a multicultural country and provides support for some cultural identity on a regionalized or provincial level." (the Bonding and Fragmenting of Canada - in terms of Mass Media) Regarding the government, we have seen that they also follow this principle with regard to their television channel.

How effected is Canada by globalization? How much is the local industry acting and investing?

In Canada there has been a predominance of cultural fare from United States for more than a century. According to Mary Vipond author of the Mass Media in Canada "by 1914 almost every Canadian city and town had a movie theatre and more than 60% of the movies shown in them were American, the rest were from Britain and France." (on guard for Canada's culture) This was reflected even 1920s when there were large sales of magazines like Saturday Evening Post and ladies Home Journal in Canada. There was also the practice of listening to broadcasts of American drama and musical radio broadcasts. It is clear that there was widespread distribution of American culture for 90 years and the driving forces were first marketing strategies and then globalization in the present era. It is easy to transfer American culture to Canada - "70% of Canadians share a common language with Americans and almost 80% live within 100 kilometers of the U.S. border." (on guard for Canada's culture) There are also some justifications provided for use of American TV programs, and the main logic provided is that this provides TV programs at much cheaper rates than preparing Canadian programs. The viewer ship is also claimed to be high, probably to justify the use of these programs. The advertising charges remain the same and the profits thus improve. (the Bonding and Fragmenting of Canada - in terms of Mass Media)

Does Canada protect media in Canada from the U.S.A.

As per the rule in Canada, the networks from America are offered the choice of channels on a 4+1 basis. What the means is that an American cable TV network has to show one Canadian channel for showing 4 American channels. This is the rule for the basic network and other American channels have to be shown on a pay channel level. For most cities this means that "UPN and the WB are not available on basic cable, due to lower demand for those networks." (Media in Canada) at the same time, if the city is near the border, then they are free to offer on American channels on basic network, and the ratio is not of importance. There are also rules which say "cable companies cannot offer a new American service if a comparable Canadian service already exists." (Media in Canada)