Great idea. I would suggest, however, that the decline in support for the MSM has more to do with their biases, independent of subsidies. The Line and others provide opinion pieces, as advertised. The MSM pretends to be factual, but their language clearly demonstrates bias.
As an aside, this financial model should be used to support a range of currently funded government entities. Simultaneous removal of charitable status for programs that are clearly lobby groups can be thrown in for good measure. Start with the "green" charities.
That bias is pervasive and can't be waived away. It's one thing to stake out an editorial position, like the Toronto Star does on the left or the PostMedia papers do on the right. At least your audience knows what they are getting.
It's the supposedly "neutral" news outlets like the Globe and Mail, CBC, Global, and CTV and affiliates which are the worst. They present themselves as straight factual news but lean heavy on the scale for Liberal Party and pro-government talking points, often with their choice of stories and choice of prominence as much as any active editorial slant within an article or segment.
I noticed a shift toward the present situation around 2018/19, exactly when the media subsidies started to be introduced. This appeared in the 2019 election and was worse in the 2021 election, and I think contributed to LPC victory despite major campaign problems both times.
Prior to this the media environment was more balanced, as it very noticeably remains regarding provincial politics. The complete lack of fucks given in either direction by the media in the 2025 Ontario election was kind of amusing. Contrast this with yesterday's front-page story in the Globe about Poilievre's "Indian influence" story from two/three years ago that even the Star didn't find newsworthy and vaporized a day later like the morning dew.
I hear the arguments about publicly funding local news, French-language, or for northern communities, but in my gut I just want to blow the whole rotten system up and get government out of broadcasting altogether.
Co-sign your comments on bias. And today I heard that CTV has hired Rachel Gilmore of all people as as an "election fact-checker". Man, you can't make this shit up.
CTV's entire web page is nearly 100% stories about tariffs and the "trade war". It's a full court press to make this the only election issue. After almost a decade of utterly incompetent rule. Madness.
Biases are often inevitable. Now, having said that, it is truly important that a particular writer and a particular publication understand that and work hard to ensure that a) they do not allow their unstated biases to influence their work; and b) where they feel strongly about something that they state clearly their bias.
I follow some Substacks and/or other types of digital publications where the biases are stated out front and are terrifically clear. I don't always agree with the biases so I usually have to approach the particular "journalism" / "opinion" as simply more opinion. Nevertheless, I wish that more publications were truly unbiased.
As you state, the so-called independent / "unbiased" sources are the ones that I wish I could trust but I really do worry about most of them because I do so, so often detect bias in terms of simply what they cover, who they don't ask for commentary and so forth.
All in all, I think that we will go through a number of decades of bias that tries to camouflage itself before (if ever!) arriving at a more neutral (overall, but never entirely) media.
News media organizations have never been funded solely through subscriptions/donations, and the massive decline in their revenues is because the internet and specifically Facebook/Google took over classifieds and advertising, which were the actual primary sources of revenue for media organizations. The figure I've heard for print publications is that subscription revenue was at best 20-30% of revenues, with the remaining 70-80% split roughly evenly between advertising and classifieds.
So your assumption that declines in revenue are due to biases being rejected by the audience is based on a completely faulty premise.
Like many Canadians, the CBC has been irrelevant in our house for years. As others have stated, the bias is blatant and out of place for a state broadcaster.
But I think the media problem goes deeper than just supporting the CBC. The CRTC requires that, if I have a cable provider, I must at least have the basic cable package, which includes everything I never watch.
So, I have the internet. I can get my local Global news cast if I want.
I can get all the sports I want to watch. I can get the shows I want to watch and if I don’t like the channel I subscribed to I can cancel it the next month.
I like the freedom from prescribed channels, and I imagine cable TV will be a thing of the past in the coming years.
I have thought for years that the television arm of the CBC should be privatised, while maintaining public funding for the radio arm. At one point, it provided programming that was recognised around the world for its quality. Its quality has slipped recently, but it is still worth funding from the public purse. Television? Not so much.
As for Radio Canada, it should follow the same model. If it is so popular, then presumably people would be happy to buy a subscription. Or it could be funded from the budget of Québec. It could then be re-named Radio Québec, which is pretty much what it has always been anyway.
I think it should be a (max) $1000 refundable tax credit vs tax deduction which would help those of us who, unfortunately, aren't in the group paying a 50% tax rate.
A tax credit makes sense, at least for a portion. We have a great many people living payday to payday right now, and a deduction wouldn’t help them much.
I like the ideas about all Radio Canada work having automated translation tools. Would love this.
Also agree with aiding the north. We need to do everything we can to help the north flourish.
A good first step with CBC would be to stop their collecting of advertising. This was a change largely sought by advertisers, and forced everyone else to compete with a subsidized organization for ads. If we can change nothing else, this should change.
Thank you to Peter Menzies for coming up with credible, practical solutions to salvage journalism. As a former journalist for private outlets and the CBC, I fear for the future of our society with a significantly weakened media. People value what they pay for directly. They have come to believe news is free. It isn’t. Peter’s recommendations seem like a way forward.
I realize I'm already funding CBC through my taxes, but I bristle at the idea of being compelled to pay a subscription fee for a TV channel I haven't watched in years. I simply do not see their current product as something I need to have, and their dismal ratings suggest most Canadians feel the same way.
Peter Menzies, those friendships at CBC that you lost over your stand re. CBC, do not grieve over those. In essence those people who ditched you as a friend have a hardcode totalitarian mindset that is incompatible with curious, questioning, exploring minds who prefer independent critical thinking. You gained new friends, some of whom you may never meet. Stay on your course.
Excellent ideas. Even when I loved the CBC and that was years ago, I knew that my pleasure was basically at the cost of someone who did not like it and never listened to it. It was never fair and it needed to be fair. And BTW, I don’t see why we should subsidize Radio Canada. I admit, it is MUCH better, but again, there are plenty of of people in Canada who will not watch or listen to it. They should not pay for it.
I would also like to note that I think that the distrust of legacy news media has little to do with the subsidies provided by the federal government. For any who want to look, major publications, such as the Globe and Mail and the National Post, are unsparing in their critiques of the federal government. I think that it is more likely due to the rise of “citizen” journalists who “do their own research” and malicious actors looking to destabilize the West.
Noo, that can't be it, how am I supposed to satisfy my victimhood mentality if the MSM can't clearly be demonstrated to be personally assaulting my worldview?
Change is incredibly difficult to manage. Some people will need to be dragged kicking and screaming. BUT it is more palatable to manage change than to have it forced upon us. Canada is crying out for leadership.
I fully agree with the majority of this piece by Mr. Menzies and also question the ability of the CBC to be a reliable & trusted source of news on this topic & unfortunately most topics discussed in this election.
I believe most politicians want to follow the mood of the public especially when heading into an election.
So my question to the group is; do you believe the majority of Canadians will accept significant change and the resulting reduction of subsidies to the CBC?
I agree with the proposed radical changes, and the user subscription model which would support good journalism.
I say, just do it. The majority of Canadians would hardly notice. The flavour of the news would change for the better.
My question is, what would be the "exit plan" for defunding the creative arm of CBC, what would be the new version of CBC Radio. Would we see a resurgence of local internet radio news outlets as part of the subscription model?
Great topic, complex, much-needed.
As I say, just do it. We'll sort ourselves out, like what Hudson's Bay Company is doing.
The symbol of Canada is not Canada. We can deal with it, I hope.
For me, its TikTok. People are using the app to get their news. And other apps. Putting the issue of bias to the side because that's a mug's game, change is being forced on all news organizations. Some saw the writing on the wall a long time ago, like the folks at The Line. Some will disappear. I certainly don't trust government funded media. I don't think anyone should. I don't like it, but now I question everything that shows up in my feeds, etc. I'd like to keep CBC but without knowing its television ratings, for example, it's hard to argue to keep it. Sure would love to see those ratings. And God knows, the kids in the high schools, CBC Gem is awesomesauce, said no-one ever. One thing for certain, CBC needs to move the hell out of downtown Toronto and into downtown Winnipeg. That absolutely needs to happen to get me watching it ever again.
I have been getting news from places like Northern Perspective, The Line, Paul Wells and a couple others (there are lots of thoughtful folks on Substack alone).
CBC holds a 4.4 percent audience share for prime-time TV, meaning 95.6 percent of Canadians are opting out of CBC.
With so many better options, I can't see CBC being revitalized.
I’m a fan of most of those thoughtful people and outlets too, but they’re not giving us news. They’re giving us commentary on news that comes increasingly from the CBC as most other outlets with reporters shrink into oblivion.
The simple fact, Les, is that - relatively speaking - commentary is cheap and news is terrifically expensive.
I too find many of these sources to be quite useful in understanding things but I still have to find my news. What I would hope is that these various "comment sheets" [my pejorative phrasing] ultimately become sufficiently popular that they can start to deal with news.
I would point you to a US Substack, "The Free Press," which has started that progress. How far that goes, I don't know. I also see that many legacy newspapers are pretty vigorously putting themselves on the internet so, if we can get them to work on that old bias thingy, they might (a few, anyway) survive to provide that news.
True, for now. It is up to us to support the independents strongly enough that they can expand, however modestly to start, into collecting news and presenting them unfiltered.
Even as the CBC must shrink in certain ways, the CBC's scope should be expanded in others. For example, there should be municipal council reporters in every city over, say, 50,000. This is a valuable public service--useful for community- and nation-building--but the private sector will never pay for it because it's guaranteed to lose money. There are probably other examples of market failure out there.
The author's suggestion of auto-translation is an excellent one, and one is an example of how the CBC can and must be different in the 21st century.
What we have to ask is *why* is the CBC around. If we can answer this question, the issue of reform is largely solved.
This is a thoughtful and considered piece. However, I think that establishing a system of tax credits attached to new subscriptions would be politically fraught as the status-quo currently is, given the inevitable controversy over what constitutes a "news" organization that can qualify for a subscription-based tax credit. The selection of Official Journalists who would be chosen by government or a government agency would continue to be a problem.
My personal inclination is to be supportive of the reforms outlined in the paper section, "Option 1: Serious reform". I do not believe that an effective and fully public-funded CBC would necessarily squeeze out alternative voices if the rest of the industry lacks public funding, because that would mean that the CBC serves a particular niche that other media would merely need to stay clear of. If the CBC cannot and should not be all things to all people, likewise all the other media need not be competitive in all of the same spaces that the CBC is. The other medias' criticisms on this point can be safely tuned out.
This writer is an idiot. CBC Sudbury doesnt cover city hall. Sudbury.com sometimes sends a reporter to cover city hall. This reporter is funded through news media subsidies. Removing funding and the CBC means that city hall would do whatever it likes with no oversight. This is a bad outcome! I imagine this would be the same for small and medium cities all over. Any solution that doesnt cover city hall cost to coast is a bad solution.
And convincing people to pay money for something they get for free is not going to cover it. This guy is living in Looney-Land.
If it’s paid for by taxes it ain’t free - your observations are valid, but taken less seriously, I think, because you opened with an insult to the writer.
I will not say that it is you that live in looney-land, but the writer in entirely correct re. see-pee-see ( used to be known as CBC). Your piffle is a fart in a windstorm, because "CBC" became a journalistic and organizational obscenity years and years ago. If someone want to keep that thing alive, they can pay for it out of their own net income.
DV, if you follow Peter Menzies writing at all, you will know that he makes specific comment about the major outlets [CBC, newspapers, etc.] abandoning things like school boards, city hall, etc. but he does note that in place of that, many digital sources are starting up that do provide that information. Those new information sources are often nascent but to argue that you need to fund CBC, traditional media to have someone covering city hall, when those guys have abandoned city hall, is to ignore the new sources.
Put differently, you are right that someone needs to cover city hall, school boards, hospitals, yada, yada, yada, but we cannot count on these legacy organizations to do that as they are so overweight with administrative structures that must be funded that it is only the little guys that can do that currently and in the future.
Great idea. I would suggest, however, that the decline in support for the MSM has more to do with their biases, independent of subsidies. The Line and others provide opinion pieces, as advertised. The MSM pretends to be factual, but their language clearly demonstrates bias.
As an aside, this financial model should be used to support a range of currently funded government entities. Simultaneous removal of charitable status for programs that are clearly lobby groups can be thrown in for good measure. Start with the "green" charities.
That bias is pervasive and can't be waived away. It's one thing to stake out an editorial position, like the Toronto Star does on the left or the PostMedia papers do on the right. At least your audience knows what they are getting.
It's the supposedly "neutral" news outlets like the Globe and Mail, CBC, Global, and CTV and affiliates which are the worst. They present themselves as straight factual news but lean heavy on the scale for Liberal Party and pro-government talking points, often with their choice of stories and choice of prominence as much as any active editorial slant within an article or segment.
I noticed a shift toward the present situation around 2018/19, exactly when the media subsidies started to be introduced. This appeared in the 2019 election and was worse in the 2021 election, and I think contributed to LPC victory despite major campaign problems both times.
Prior to this the media environment was more balanced, as it very noticeably remains regarding provincial politics. The complete lack of fucks given in either direction by the media in the 2025 Ontario election was kind of amusing. Contrast this with yesterday's front-page story in the Globe about Poilievre's "Indian influence" story from two/three years ago that even the Star didn't find newsworthy and vaporized a day later like the morning dew.
I hear the arguments about publicly funding local news, French-language, or for northern communities, but in my gut I just want to blow the whole rotten system up and get government out of broadcasting altogether.
Co-sign your comments on bias. And today I heard that CTV has hired Rachel Gilmore of all people as as an "election fact-checker". Man, you can't make this shit up.
CTV's entire web page is nearly 100% stories about tariffs and the "trade war". It's a full court press to make this the only election issue. After almost a decade of utterly incompetent rule. Madness.
Biases are often inevitable. Now, having said that, it is truly important that a particular writer and a particular publication understand that and work hard to ensure that a) they do not allow their unstated biases to influence their work; and b) where they feel strongly about something that they state clearly their bias.
I follow some Substacks and/or other types of digital publications where the biases are stated out front and are terrifically clear. I don't always agree with the biases so I usually have to approach the particular "journalism" / "opinion" as simply more opinion. Nevertheless, I wish that more publications were truly unbiased.
As you state, the so-called independent / "unbiased" sources are the ones that I wish I could trust but I really do worry about most of them because I do so, so often detect bias in terms of simply what they cover, who they don't ask for commentary and so forth.
All in all, I think that we will go through a number of decades of bias that tries to camouflage itself before (if ever!) arriving at a more neutral (overall, but never entirely) media.
News media organizations have never been funded solely through subscriptions/donations, and the massive decline in their revenues is because the internet and specifically Facebook/Google took over classifieds and advertising, which were the actual primary sources of revenue for media organizations. The figure I've heard for print publications is that subscription revenue was at best 20-30% of revenues, with the remaining 70-80% split roughly evenly between advertising and classifieds.
So your assumption that declines in revenue are due to biases being rejected by the audience is based on a completely faulty premise.
I would encourage you to read the paper. Craigslist and Kijiji that took the classified revenue.
You are supposed to be able to discern between news and opinion. I can. Can you not?
Like many Canadians, the CBC has been irrelevant in our house for years. As others have stated, the bias is blatant and out of place for a state broadcaster.
But I think the media problem goes deeper than just supporting the CBC. The CRTC requires that, if I have a cable provider, I must at least have the basic cable package, which includes everything I never watch.
So, I have the internet. I can get my local Global news cast if I want.
I can get all the sports I want to watch. I can get the shows I want to watch and if I don’t like the channel I subscribed to I can cancel it the next month.
I like the freedom from prescribed channels, and I imagine cable TV will be a thing of the past in the coming years.
I have thought for years that the television arm of the CBC should be privatised, while maintaining public funding for the radio arm. At one point, it provided programming that was recognised around the world for its quality. Its quality has slipped recently, but it is still worth funding from the public purse. Television? Not so much.
As for Radio Canada, it should follow the same model. If it is so popular, then presumably people would be happy to buy a subscription. Or it could be funded from the budget of Québec. It could then be re-named Radio Québec, which is pretty much what it has always been anyway.
I think it should be a (max) $1000 refundable tax credit vs tax deduction which would help those of us who, unfortunately, aren't in the group paying a 50% tax rate.
A tax credit makes sense, at least for a portion. We have a great many people living payday to payday right now, and a deduction wouldn’t help them much.
I like the ideas about all Radio Canada work having automated translation tools. Would love this.
Also agree with aiding the north. We need to do everything we can to help the north flourish.
A good first step with CBC would be to stop their collecting of advertising. This was a change largely sought by advertisers, and forced everyone else to compete with a subsidized organization for ads. If we can change nothing else, this should change.
Thoughtful column, thank you.
Thank you to Peter Menzies for coming up with credible, practical solutions to salvage journalism. As a former journalist for private outlets and the CBC, I fear for the future of our society with a significantly weakened media. People value what they pay for directly. They have come to believe news is free. It isn’t. Peter’s recommendations seem like a way forward.
I realize I'm already funding CBC through my taxes, but I bristle at the idea of being compelled to pay a subscription fee for a TV channel I haven't watched in years. I simply do not see their current product as something I need to have, and their dismal ratings suggest most Canadians feel the same way.
Peter Menzies, those friendships at CBC that you lost over your stand re. CBC, do not grieve over those. In essence those people who ditched you as a friend have a hardcode totalitarian mindset that is incompatible with curious, questioning, exploring minds who prefer independent critical thinking. You gained new friends, some of whom you may never meet. Stay on your course.
Excellent ideas. Even when I loved the CBC and that was years ago, I knew that my pleasure was basically at the cost of someone who did not like it and never listened to it. It was never fair and it needed to be fair. And BTW, I don’t see why we should subsidize Radio Canada. I admit, it is MUCH better, but again, there are plenty of of people in Canada who will not watch or listen to it. They should not pay for it.
I would also like to note that I think that the distrust of legacy news media has little to do with the subsidies provided by the federal government. For any who want to look, major publications, such as the Globe and Mail and the National Post, are unsparing in their critiques of the federal government. I think that it is more likely due to the rise of “citizen” journalists who “do their own research” and malicious actors looking to destabilize the West.
Noo, that can't be it, how am I supposed to satisfy my victimhood mentality if the MSM can't clearly be demonstrated to be personally assaulting my worldview?
Change is incredibly difficult to manage. Some people will need to be dragged kicking and screaming. BUT it is more palatable to manage change than to have it forced upon us. Canada is crying out for leadership.
I fully agree with the majority of this piece by Mr. Menzies and also question the ability of the CBC to be a reliable & trusted source of news on this topic & unfortunately most topics discussed in this election.
I believe most politicians want to follow the mood of the public especially when heading into an election.
So my question to the group is; do you believe the majority of Canadians will accept significant change and the resulting reduction of subsidies to the CBC?
I agree with the proposed radical changes, and the user subscription model which would support good journalism.
I say, just do it. The majority of Canadians would hardly notice. The flavour of the news would change for the better.
My question is, what would be the "exit plan" for defunding the creative arm of CBC, what would be the new version of CBC Radio. Would we see a resurgence of local internet radio news outlets as part of the subscription model?
Great topic, complex, much-needed.
As I say, just do it. We'll sort ourselves out, like what Hudson's Bay Company is doing.
The symbol of Canada is not Canada. We can deal with it, I hope.
For me, its TikTok. People are using the app to get their news. And other apps. Putting the issue of bias to the side because that's a mug's game, change is being forced on all news organizations. Some saw the writing on the wall a long time ago, like the folks at The Line. Some will disappear. I certainly don't trust government funded media. I don't think anyone should. I don't like it, but now I question everything that shows up in my feeds, etc. I'd like to keep CBC but without knowing its television ratings, for example, it's hard to argue to keep it. Sure would love to see those ratings. And God knows, the kids in the high schools, CBC Gem is awesomesauce, said no-one ever. One thing for certain, CBC needs to move the hell out of downtown Toronto and into downtown Winnipeg. That absolutely needs to happen to get me watching it ever again.
I have been getting news from places like Northern Perspective, The Line, Paul Wells and a couple others (there are lots of thoughtful folks on Substack alone).
CBC holds a 4.4 percent audience share for prime-time TV, meaning 95.6 percent of Canadians are opting out of CBC.
With so many better options, I can't see CBC being revitalized.
..... and too many are entirely missing these facts.
I’m a fan of most of those thoughtful people and outlets too, but they’re not giving us news. They’re giving us commentary on news that comes increasingly from the CBC as most other outlets with reporters shrink into oblivion.
The simple fact, Les, is that - relatively speaking - commentary is cheap and news is terrifically expensive.
I too find many of these sources to be quite useful in understanding things but I still have to find my news. What I would hope is that these various "comment sheets" [my pejorative phrasing] ultimately become sufficiently popular that they can start to deal with news.
I would point you to a US Substack, "The Free Press," which has started that progress. How far that goes, I don't know. I also see that many legacy newspapers are pretty vigorously putting themselves on the internet so, if we can get them to work on that old bias thingy, they might (a few, anyway) survive to provide that news.
True, for now. It is up to us to support the independents strongly enough that they can expand, however modestly to start, into collecting news and presenting them unfiltered.
Even as the CBC must shrink in certain ways, the CBC's scope should be expanded in others. For example, there should be municipal council reporters in every city over, say, 50,000. This is a valuable public service--useful for community- and nation-building--but the private sector will never pay for it because it's guaranteed to lose money. There are probably other examples of market failure out there.
The author's suggestion of auto-translation is an excellent one, and one is an example of how the CBC can and must be different in the 21st century.
What we have to ask is *why* is the CBC around. If we can answer this question, the issue of reform is largely solved.
This is a thoughtful and considered piece. However, I think that establishing a system of tax credits attached to new subscriptions would be politically fraught as the status-quo currently is, given the inevitable controversy over what constitutes a "news" organization that can qualify for a subscription-based tax credit. The selection of Official Journalists who would be chosen by government or a government agency would continue to be a problem.
My personal inclination is to be supportive of the reforms outlined in the paper section, "Option 1: Serious reform". I do not believe that an effective and fully public-funded CBC would necessarily squeeze out alternative voices if the rest of the industry lacks public funding, because that would mean that the CBC serves a particular niche that other media would merely need to stay clear of. If the CBC cannot and should not be all things to all people, likewise all the other media need not be competitive in all of the same spaces that the CBC is. The other medias' criticisms on this point can be safely tuned out.
This writer is an idiot. CBC Sudbury doesnt cover city hall. Sudbury.com sometimes sends a reporter to cover city hall. This reporter is funded through news media subsidies. Removing funding and the CBC means that city hall would do whatever it likes with no oversight. This is a bad outcome! I imagine this would be the same for small and medium cities all over. Any solution that doesnt cover city hall cost to coast is a bad solution.
And convincing people to pay money for something they get for free is not going to cover it. This guy is living in Looney-Land.
If it’s paid for by taxes it ain’t free - your observations are valid, but taken less seriously, I think, because you opened with an insult to the writer.
This guy deserves an insult. He wants to leave me without local news!
I will not say that it is you that live in looney-land, but the writer in entirely correct re. see-pee-see ( used to be known as CBC). Your piffle is a fart in a windstorm, because "CBC" became a journalistic and organizational obscenity years and years ago. If someone want to keep that thing alive, they can pay for it out of their own net income.
DV, if you follow Peter Menzies writing at all, you will know that he makes specific comment about the major outlets [CBC, newspapers, etc.] abandoning things like school boards, city hall, etc. but he does note that in place of that, many digital sources are starting up that do provide that information. Those new information sources are often nascent but to argue that you need to fund CBC, traditional media to have someone covering city hall, when those guys have abandoned city hall, is to ignore the new sources.
Put differently, you are right that someone needs to cover city hall, school boards, hospitals, yada, yada, yada, but we cannot count on these legacy organizations to do that as they are so overweight with administrative structures that must be funded that it is only the little guys that can do that currently and in the future.
Brilliant! I hope these bold ideas will be embraced by our future government, but unfortunately, I don't think this will happen.