A look at the level of media concentration in Canada compared with the United States.

Today I checked out U.S. media scholar/activist Robert McChesney's homepage, which pointedly asks visitors to learn more about proposed changes by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. These changes include "the rollback of some of the last regulatory checks on media consolidation", according to FAIR, a media watchdog group.

Five such changes are identified:

*Newspaper/Broadcast Cross-Ownership Rule. Prevents the owners of a broadcast station from owning daily newspapers in the same market, and vice versa.

* National Broadcast Ownership Cap. Is meant to prevent one company from owning broadcast stations that reach more than 35 percent of U.S. households. The courts have asked the FCC to provide a fuller justification of the rule, but the FCC seems ready to give it up.

* Local Radio Ownership Rule. Caps the number of radio stations a company can own in a single listening area to eight or less, depending on the area's size.

* Duopoly Rule.Limits a company to owning two broadcast TV stations in a given market.

* Dual Network Rule. Bars the major TV networks-- ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC-- from merging with each other.

[above is from FAIR's Action Alert]

Since I am not an American citizen, I instantly begin to wonder... what kind of regulations are upheld by the CRTC, Canada's Radio, Television and Telecommunications Commission?

According to the U.S. Based Center for Digital Democracy, the CRTC is a Defender of the Media, because "the CRTC just (August 2001) established new requirements for media companies with the goal of preserving diversity. Most significantly, they declared that news management structures of a company must be separate from those of its newspapers."

Have the folks from the CDD who wrote this ever read the Vancouver Sun? Or heard of CanWest Global?

I must quote from CanWest Global's Company Overview :

"...The Company's diversified media holdings include: Global Television, a coast-to-coast Canadian broadcasting network which reaches over 94% of English-speaking Canada, and CH, a second network located in Montreal, Hamilton and Victoria;

... CanWest is Canada's largest newspaper publisher with ownership of the National Post, 11 major metro daily newspapers, five smaller community daily papers and 48 paid and free weeklies in smaller communities across Canada."

Okay. So CanWest Global, under the "regulations" of the CRTC, has already gone beyond at least two of the changes in FCC regulations that FAIR is acting against; including the Newspaper/Broadcast Cross-Ownership Rule, and the National Broadcast Ownership Cap. Remember also that CanWest Global is only one of a handful of large media conglomerates in Canada.

Valorizing the CRTC in Canada as a model or example of fair and democratic media regulations is a poor idea. Perhaps Americans should look north to begin to understand some of the major pitfalls resulting from media concentration that have yet to manifest themselves to the same extent in the U.S. That will certainly be reason enough to keep fighting changes to the FCC.

------------9.30pm

Thought I should add this note, from Jeff at CDD:

I think you are overstating CDD position, and I wish you would
correct it. We may have written that the CRTC's rule is better than what's proposed, but we don't ever say on our site that Canada is a model.