Regulator said it believes Corus’s Global should receive ILNF funding
By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC is asking the public whether it should modify the Independent Local News Fund (ILNF) to expand eligibility, ensure news quality, and whether it should favour recipients operating in remote and underserved communities.
The commission launched Tuesday the consultation on revisiting the ILNF, which was spawned in 2016. It follows the regulator’s decision, as part of the Online Streaming Act, to force foreign and standalone online platforms to allocate five per cent of their prior year’s Canadian revenues toward content funds, including 1.5 per cent to the ILNF, which is administered by the Canadian Association of Broadcasters.
The CRTC now wants to know how to handle the fattened fund, which is estimated to see an additional annual influx of $42 million – out of roughly $200 million – from the new contributions.
In its current state, the ILNF only applies to private conventional television stations that provide “locally reflective news and information” and that are not tethered to the large broadcasting groups. (The CRTC said it will not entertain whether these large groups should get access to this fund in this current proceeding.)
The CRTC is now asking whether it should broaden the range of eligible audiovisual news providers and, if so, what criteria it should use; whether it should utilize incentives or measures to ensure that ILNF funds are focused on high-quality news, considering how difficult it’s become to produce that type of news; whether it should prioritize traditional and/or online platforms; whether there should be a mechanism to ensure a portion – and how much – of the funding is allocated to support the creation of French-language news; and whether the allocation should favour recipients operating in rural, remote, and underserved communities, and how.
Part of the review of the ILNF will be to maintain the quality of the product that emerges from the fund’s use. The CRTC is asking the public whether there should be additional measures to monitor the success of the fund, and whether all ILNF recipients should be required to comply with codes of conduct, including the Radio Television Digital News Association of Canada’s Code of Journalistic Ethics, the CAB Equitable Portrayal Code, and the Journalistic Independence Code, which are administered by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council.
The commission also said it holds the preliminary view that Corus’s Global News stations should be eligible to receive funding from the ILNF to compensate for the loss of funding when its affiliate Shaw, which provided it news funding as part of its regulatory obligations, was purchased by Rogers.
That said, the CRTC is also concerned about adding Corus to the list of ILNF-eligible entities because of its relative size, which could affect the existing recipients. Under the current system, funds to be received by each station are calculated based on the station’s expenditures of local news from the previous three years, with a 12 per cent cap for a group of stations operated by the same licensee in a market in the year.
“Under the current allocation method, the addition of stations like those that belong to Corus could affect the amount of funding available to existing recipients as the current model for allocating funding was not developed to accommodate the type and number of stations owned by an ownership group as large as Corus,” the CRTC said.
As a result, the CRTC is considering modifying the existing allocation method for such funding. It is asking how it should ensure the funding distribution is equitable with Corus’s inclusion and whether the CRTC should maintain a cap on funding from the ILNF.
“The goal is to have the additional funds from certain online contributors and the contributions from licensed BDUs dispersed in the 2024-25 fiscal year,” the CRTC said.
The regulator has already decided to temporarily lighten Corus’s regulatory obligations, after the media company said its financial health is making it harder to keep the boat above water. Indeed, the heads of the company said last week Corus will be looking at cutting more jobs by the end of August as it operates a leaner ship going forward.
The Canadian Media Producers Association has alleged in a court filing that Corus should’ve never been given relief because it is allegedly delinquent on its spending on independent productions.
Meanwhile, the Canadian affiliate of the Motion Picture Association said in its own court filings that the CRTC cannot force its members, which includes large streaming platforms, to pay into news.
Comments on the proceeding are due September 6.
