The total economic impact of Canada’s media and advertising sector contributed $22.6 billion to the country’s GDP in 2024, but the sector faces critical job losses due to declining digital ad revenue, according to the latest Canadian Media Means Business report, released earlier this month.
“Foreign tech platforms are siphoning our ad dollars and starving Canadian media,” said Sarah Thompson, project leader of Canadian Media Means Business (CMMB), a consortium of media owners and industry associations, in a press release. “This industry is a massive economic engine, yet we are bleeding capital while the broader ad market grows. Canadian media demands sovereignty and investment, not surrender.”
In 2024, the media and advertising sector supported 193,120 jobs across Canada, 73,120 of which were directly supported by advertising sales, according to the CMMB study, which was developed by Nordicity on behalf of the consortium, which includes Adapt Media, Canadian Association of Broadcasters, Cogeco, Bell Media, Glacier Media, Friends of Canadian Media, La Presse, Pattison, ThinkTV and Village Media.
According to Statistics Canada data analyzed in the report, there were a total of 137,600 direct jobs in Canada’s media and advertising industries in 2024, making the sector a larger direct employer than auto manufacturing (126,000 jobs), telecommunications (117,000 jobs) and mining (83,000 jobs).
The report highlights that non-Canadian digital platforms now control nearly all domestic ad spending, which the CMMB says is the primary driver of the industry’s domestic decline. In 2024, it is estimated that 94 per cent of digital ad dollars flowed to foreign platforms, compared to 76 per cent in 2017. All told, from 2017 to 2024, $11.2 billion in Canadian advertising spend was diverted to non-Canadian digital platforms, according to the report.
Conversely, each incremental $1 million invested in advertising on Canadian-owned platforms is estimated to yield 8.23 jobs, $644,000 in labour income, and a $1 million contribution to Canada’s GDP, the report says.
A trend highlighted in the report is that digital infrastructure and agency roles are growing, while traditional media and news roles are contracting. The number of direct jobs in advertising, public relations and other information services increased by a combined 2,500 positions in 2024, according to the report. In contrast, newspaper, periodical and directory publishing lost 1,800 jobs, while radio and TV broadcasting lost 1,100 jobs in just one year, the report says.
Between 2019 and 2024, the three largest traditional media subsectors (newspapers, television and radio) lost more than 11,000 jobs, according to the report, which says newspapers were the most affected, shedding more than 30 per cent of their workforce since 2019.
The economic impact of Canada’s media and advertising sector varies regionally. Ontario remained steady, generating $5.3 billion in direct GDP and supporting 41,220 direct jobs in 2024, according to the CMMB’s report. Western Canada, however, saw a severe contraction: British Columbia, Alberta and Manitoba collectively lost 5,310 jobs and $710 million in GDP over 12 months. Manitoba faced the most severe relative collapse, losing 46.5 per cent of its media workforce, the report says.
In contrast, Quebec gained 1,950 media sector jobs, indicating that cultural protection policies can translate directly into economic resilience, the CMMB says. Nova Scotia also emerged as a primary growth engine in 2024, with media jobs increasing by 95.5 per cent to reach 1,310 positions, largely attributed to the expansion of provincial film and digital media incentive funds, the CMMB report says.
