Before I lay some of this out, if you plan on using this to support your insane left/right-wing extremist agenda, fuck off.

This isn’t about politics or freedom, this is about Bell/Rogers and big media monopolies working with the Canadian government to punish content creators for being smarter, better, and more principled than they are.

Radio Revenue is down 60%

TV revenue is down 40%

Print is down 80%.

The labour force from those three traditional media outlets is down 80% combined.  

Bell has cut its way to profitability, taking hundreds of millions in government handouts while putting a bullet in the majority of its broadcasters.

CORUS has been fucked for years because they don’t sell phones.

Rogers’ entire financial report was about 5G and taking wireless to indigenous peoples of Canada.  They buried their radio nightmare by calling revenue ‘soft’.  You don’t fire half your labor force because things are ‘soft’…

Bell, Rogers, Corus, and other corps who own ALL of Canada’s traditional media have been working with Trudeau’s policymakers through lobbyists to punish online and on-demand online portals by regulating and possibly licensing ‘online undertakings’.

Big media in Canada stuck with 49 newspapers and 52 shitty radio stations want to expand CRTC regulatory authority to ‘online undertakings’ for two reasons.

1) They know they can’t compete with an unregulated show or ecosystem (that’s where people are because it’s real content).

2) They are trying to protect what’s left of their assets by forcing the Canadian Government to step in and punish bloggers, podcasters, and independent portals into living by the same 70-year-old out-of-date bullshit fugazi regulations they willingly submit to.

The issue isn’t about freedom or government overreach, it’s about big media using the pandemic as an opportunity to command revenue by removing EVERYONE ELSE’S competitive advantage through increased regulation.

I’m not making this up.  It’s in the Government’s actual fucking proposal.

Let’s break that whole load of shit down.

“The provisions aim to establish a fair competitive environment for online and traditional broadcasting services in Canada, in the context of changing market trends that have not been favourable to traditional broadcasters”.

Oh, really?  Bell, Rogers, and Corus spent billions on in an attempt to control narratives, news, and information favorable to them.  That’s the actual reasoning behind this bill.   They are very angry at podcasters, blogs, non-traditional outlets, and it’s IN THE FUCKING DOCUMENT.  Two months ago Bell fired HUNDREDS of content providers, banishing them to the same internet they want regulated to protect themselves and their bottom line from the tech they ignored.

Suck on that this afternoon.

Traditional broadcasters remain a key source of information and programming for Canadian consumers, including francophones and those living in rural and remote communities.

No, traditional broadcasters are not a key source of information and programming.  They contracted local programming out to American and Canadian aggregators years ago.  The Owners of Traditional media have shuttered 50% of Canada’s local newspapers and 70% of the broadcast labor force over the past 10 years.  People get local information from their FB groups and neighbors.  People in Stratford, Ontario don’t clamor for the local paper to find out about the weekend weather or grain prices.  This is how the Government and traditional media owners make this bill look like they’re trying to save ‘The Rosetown Eagle’.   They don’t give a fuck about the Rosetown Eagle.  They care about controlling narratives and future revenue.

By leveling the regulatory playing field, the provisions will help ensure that traditional broadcasting services remain viable and accessible to Canadians.

Leveling the playing field?

Rogers made 3.5 billion in the first three months of the year.

Bell? just a shade over 5 billion.

Corus needs to level the playing field because they can’t do radio but still employ people who think they can do it for some reason.

Big media don’t want to level the playing field, they want to control it.  They want to kick the living shit out of independent content providers for embracing new tech before they did.  They want to work with the government to force all online content providers to be subject to the same ridiculously outdated CRTC regulations and licensing procedures they willingly submit to that have killed their assets.  They don’t want to evolve, big media wants to prevent everyone else from evolving.  Despite making BILLIONS, they want to crush the threat of outside content.

They don’t like Canadaland, Quillette, or BlogTO.  They hate Podcasters who generate revenue through programmatic advertising because they don’t know ANYTHING about programmatic advertising, CPM, etc.  They HATE strong content providers and personalities who drive and control an audience that opposes or takes something from them they think they are entitled to.

So instead of standing up to FB, Google, etc as Australia did, they are taking the easy way out.  Working with the Canadian government to punish and protect their way to the autonomy of influence by begging the government to regulate ‘online undertakings’.

These Bills don’t just ‘appear’.  Canada’s major broadcasters and owners of traditional media have been working with government officials through lawyers and lobbyists to regulate online content through CRTC regulations for years.

The reason Bill C10 is being pushed NOW?

Big media and Trudeau’s government are using the pandemic for cover and it’s being presented as a cultural bill meant to make Canadians’ lives better which is a total fucking joke.

We have hate crime laws that cover digital hate speech.

We have laws that cover slander and libel in digital form.

CRTC rules and regulations are some of the world’s most oppressive and vague. Further regulation in the digital space wouldn’t make content sharing and creation better, it would make it worse.

There’s a reason literally NO ONE listens to the radio anymore.  It sucks ass.   Radio in Canada is owned by 4 broadcasters who use it to protect and promote the stuff they really want to sell.  Same with TV, and print has been dead for years but that hasn’t stopped the Canadian Government from handing out $600 million in taxpayer money to big media since 2019.

This year, Bell used $122 million in taxpayer $ to pay dividends to shareholders while gutting their traditional media labor force.

Rogers did the same, but they were quiet about it.

Now, their goal is to harangue ‘online undertakings’ into being forced into the same regulatory body, thereby removing any competitive advantage independent content providers have had to produce genuine, unbiased content.

Traditional media has been crushed by their only ego and sense of entitlement.  Bell and Rogers specifically.  They’ve been so concerned with protecting their brands and $ by controlling the narrative, they didn’t evolve like everyone else did so now they’re pissing in the wind to protect themselves from something they caused.

Now they want to put the genie back in the bottle by going back in time because they are losing to people they refuse to hire operating in a space they refuse to invest in.

They have had teams of lawyers working to gain political support for increased regulation for years and are using the pandemic to try to fuck Canadian content providers who operate outside their traditional media corporate circles.

So, speak up against the bill.  Don’t believe their opinion pieces heralding C10 as anything but a money/power grab by a few CEOs and their government besties who ply each other with trips to Turks and Caicos or boxes of Italian merlot.

Good thing web 3.0 (Blockchain) is here 6-10 months from now.  The CRTC won’t be able to touch it :).

See you at the Ethereum finish line.

Dean