Major media owners in Canada are “crying poverty” to get regulatory concessions, according to Mark Edge, speaking at the Convergence and Society: The Changing Media Landscape (#cconf09) in Reno. And yet … they’re still making money.
His timeline of convergence in Canada, which limits foreign ownership:
See what happened to the over-leveraged firms before ….
… they went on a buying spree:
Their response to today’s recession:
Next month’s CRTC hearings will be interesting to watch, since CTV is threatening to close 10 stations, claiming that they are “not profitable.” And yet (1): analysis of their financials show that they made almost 10% profit last year. Moreover, most of the losses are “paper losses” because CTV has written down the value of their assets by as much as 75%. And yet (2): bidding for popular US programs has soared (up 43%) at the same time that TV owners are crying about being in the poorhouse.
