CRTC says decision on Google’s Online News Act exemption expected this fall

Canadian media outlets won’t likely see money from Google’s multimillion-dollar media fund this year as this country's broadcasting regulator misses a deadline from the fund’s distributer. Money from Google’s media compensation fund has yet to be distributed to newsrooms in this country nearly a year after the tech giant reached a deal with the federal government. Google agreed to make annual payments to news companies for sharing Canadian news online. For money to start flowing to eligible media “within the 2024 calendar year,” the Canadian Journalism Collective (CJC), the organization in charge of distributing the funds, said the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) had to approve Google’s Online News Act (ONA) exemption by Oct. 7. Despite missing the CJC’s deadline, the CRTC told The Hill Times that it's looking to have a decision on Google’s exemption made this season. “We are working quickly toward issuing the decision on Google’s exemption, and we are aiming to publish our decision this fall,” said Mirabella Salem, a CRTC spokesperson, in a statement to The Hill Times. What do the feds say about the funding situation? The ball is in the CRTC’s court. “It’s in the hands of the CRTC,” said Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge (Brome-Missisquoi, Que.) after The Hill Times asked for an update on Google’s media fund. The Canada-Google deal was announced last November. Google said it would provide eligible media $100-million annually over five years if granted an exemption to the Online News Act, the federal legislation that would force tech giants to negotiate deals with media outlets to compensate them for platforming their news content. Google said the money for the fund “will come into effect on the date the exemption is granted.” The CJC said it “anticipates distributing funding to eligible news businesses approximately 60 days after the CRTC issues Google an exemption to the Online News Act.” But given the wait, some groups are stressing the urgency of the situation for Canadian media and for democracy. “Given the news crisis that we are facing in this country, and the fact that the Googles of this world greatly contributed to this situation, fund distribution needs to be a top priority. Independent and local news, including that provided by the CBC, must be properly supported, particularly in the lead-up to a federal election. Our democratic discourse depends on it,” said Marla Boltman, executive director for Friends of Canadian Media, in a statement to The Hill Times. What about Meta? The federal government created the Online News Act in an effort to level the playing field for Canadian newsrooms struggling against online tech giants, but the legislation has yet to live up to its stated purpose. While Google opted to create a media fund to be exempted from the Online News Act, Meta opted to block news content in Canada in order to escape being subject to the legislation. Other tech giants like X (formerly Twitter), Microsoft, and Apple are currently not subject to the Online News Act given the legislation applies to large platforms with “a significant bargaining power imbalance” with news businesses. It was in the summer of 2023 when Meta, which owns social media platforms Facebook and Instagram, ended access to news from Canadian and international outlets to users within Canada. But Meta’s attempts to remove itself from the ONA’s net might be in vain since the CRTC is investigating the platform’s compliance with the legislation. “ CRTC has been made aware of reports that news content from Canadian news outlets continues to be available on Meta’s platforms in Canada,” wrote the commission to Meta on Oct. 4. The CRTC gave Meta a deadline of Oct. 11 to respond to how the platform is complying with the ONA, and to confirm whether news is still being made available to users in this country. A Media Ecosystem Observatory (MEO) report on the impacts of Meta’s news ban found that news is still being shared on Facebook and Instagram through “work-around strategies” like screenshots, or sharing news links to posts via X. “Thirty-six per cent of Meta-platform users in Canada report seeing content from news organizations or news links on the platforms in the past six months,” said the August MEO report titled Old News, New Reality: A Year of Meta's News Ban in Canada. Since Meta’s news ban, MEO also found that one-third of local news outlets are now inactive on any social media—Canadian media as a whole “lost 85 per cent of their engagement on Facebook and Instagram. This loss has not been compensated by increases on other social media platforms.” CRTC’s next moves While the CRTC has yet to make a decision on Google’s exemption to the ONA, the regulatory body is moving forward on other aspects of the legislation. First, the CRTC put out a tender notice earlier this month seeking an independent auditor to prepare an annual report of the ONA’s impact on “the Canadian digital news marketplace.” This requirement for an independent audit was set out in the ONA legislation. Second, the CRTC is also looking to make good on the legislation’s requirement to establish a bargaining framework. On Oct. 8, the CRTC launched public consultations on the proposed code of conduct that will “help ensure online platforms and news organizations bargain in good faith and make informed decisions during negotiations.” The public has until Nov. 7 to comment on the proposed ONA code of conduct. Dwayne Winseck, a professor at Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Communications, said that these recent actions by the CRTC show that the regulator is not “dragging its feet” on the ONA. “All this stuff is being created from scratch, and if you think it's going to happen overnight, that just ain't going to happen,” said Winseck, who is also the director of the Global Media and Internet Concentration Project, to The Hill Times. “I think all the mechanics are getting up, getting put into place, they're up and running, and things are starting to land. And so I don't see any need for undue hand-wringing.” Michael Geist, a University of Ottawa professor, previously told The Hill Times that Canadians shouldn’t be “surprised that it’s taking quite a while to get all that operational.” “Even by basic design, it was always going to take at least a year to get to the point that you had a lot, in effect, with platforms subject to it,” said Geist, who specializes in internet and intellectual property law. The Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ President Kevin Desjardins agreed that delays don't fall at the feet of the CRTC, but pointed to the distributors of Google’s media fund. “I don't think that it's really the place of the CJC to dictate to the the CRTC the timeline for its decision. Ultimately, the CRTC has a process in terms of decision making. And the CJC also asked for multiple extensions throughout the process that actually dragged things along,” said Desjardins to The Hill Times. “We think that the CJC should be willing to adjust its own schedule to ensure that is able to distribute this compensation to journalism organizations in this calendar year.” In a statement to The Hill Times, the CJC’s interim board director Jean La Rose said that it is “committed to distributing funds as quickly as possible. Because we don't have information about the CRTC's timeline, we can't comment further.” The press’ perilous situation Since the ONA received royal assent in June 2023, there have been major layoffs at TVA, CTV News and its parent company Bell Media, Global News and its parent company Corus Entertainment, Metroland Media, Vice, and Saltwire, Atlantic Canada’s largest private newspaper chain. Boltman attributed part of the media industry’s woes to the rise and dominance of tech giants like Google and Meta. “They now dominate the flow of traffic and engagement and have used their global reach and unregulated market advantage to cannibalize digital advertising revenues. Over $13-billion in advertising revenues are being extracted from the Canadian economy annually,” said Boltman. Desjardins also cited decreased ad revenues as a challenge for the industry. “The landscape is incredibly challenging for broadcast news at the moment. The costs of being able to deliver the quality of news that Canadians have come to expect is growing, and the revenues are increasingly challenged, not because news isn't very popular, but it's just the advertising revenues have been flooding out of the Canadian market to online platforms like Google,” said Desjardins. But Winseck said there is hope for the industry as recent media “revenue has stagnated,” adding that this is “much better than what's been happening for the last 15-18 years, which is a steady, unbroken decline.” The Hill Times