Term Paper on "Media and Communication in Canada"

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Media and Communication in Canada

Description of media system

In the history of mass media in Canada there has been a position that it has been susceptible to the dominance of American media. "Canadian mass media began from a need for national communication and yet now serves as a fragmenting, regionalizing entity." (the Bonding and Fragmenting of Canada - in terms of Mass Media) This is a problem that remains even today as there is still no national newspaper though there have been attempts by Globe and Mail to be national newspapers. Instead of a national newspaper the country has a number of papers in regions which are owned by individuals. The effect in terms of money may be the same, as "The result is similar to national newspaper presence in that a small amount of newspaper owners are making all the money from sales, but each regional newspaper caters to the specific needs of their regions, and information may change drastically from paper to paper." (the Bonding and Fragmenting of Canada - in terms of Mass Media) Yet the country is developed and has 432 AM radio broadcast stations, 1527 FM broadcast stations and 6 shortwave stations as of 2003. According to estimates of 1997, there are 32.3 million radios. There are many television stations, as many as 1456 of them of whom 128 are originating stations, and 1328 are re-transmitters. Again the estimate is of 2003. The total number of television sets of 2003 is 21.5 million. Even in the most modern method of communication - Internet, there are 760 service providers as of 2000. (Communications in Canada)

Concentration of public media in Canada

The media in Canada is very well d

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eveloped but the product that is shown on the media is often dominated by imports from United States, and this is more for English programs than French programs. The media organizations are set up for making profit through advertising, subscription and similar earnings. The national government set up, "Canadian Broadcasting Corporation operates radio and TV networks in both English and French, and some provincial governments offer their own public broadcast services as well" (Media in Canada) the entire system of broadcasting in television has equal participation from public and private owners, and operates across both the UHF and VHF bands. Apart from the government network, there are four major private networks. Of them, CTV and Global are in the English language and distributed all over the country, whereas TVA and TQS are broadcast only in French and only in Quebec. The other channels of TVA are distributed all over the country. SRC is the French version of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and is available only in Quebec. According to some statements, "Most network stations are owned and operated by the networks themselves, although all networks except Global have some affiliates with different ownership." (Media in Canada)

We shall discuss this question later. All broadcasting networks of Canada have to show products made in Canada, at least some of them, the greatest quantity of local content is on Canada Broadcasting Corporation. The position in other channels have led to criticism and "Both CTV and Global have at times faced criticism over their level of commitment to producing and airing Canadian programming." (Media in Canada) the reason for this is probably that it is easier to buy American productions than finance Canadian production, as they are "often prohibitively costly for the comparatively small size of the Canadian market." (Media in Canada) for the channels in French it is less of a problem as the audiences in Quebec like the local programs much more than dubbed imports from America.

Is the budget of public media getting smaller? If yes, is there some form of deregulation?

In certain respects, this seems to be the case as "There are currently 739 licensed cable distributors in Canada" (Media in Canada). This is much smaller than the number of 2000 that existed about a few years ago. The change is not due to any action of the government, but the major companies have taken over smaller outfits. This is due to the penetration of over 90% that the medium exists in rules of CRTC through which cable operators who have less than 2,000 subscribers do not require full licenses. There is not much competition as "Most Canadian cities are served by only one Cable Company per market." (Media in Canada) the major companies in the market are Roger Communications, Shaw, Cogeco, Videotron, Persona Inc. And East Link. The methods of contact have now improved with the offer of direct cable links from Express Vu and Star Choice. The facility of DBS can be obtained illegally from American services, but these are not legal in Canada. (Media in Canada) the reason for the increasing importance of private media has been discussed later.

What kind of private media does it have? How big are the private group and how much does it own? What program does it use?

As has been mentioned, the strength of private media is about the same as government media. Let us now look at the people controlling these media. The first controller is Hollinger Corporation which owns newspapers in U.S., UK, Canada and Israel. This group "in Canada it owns 61 regional and community newspapers, including the National Port, a national daily started in 1998 to compete with the Globe and Mail." (Media Ownership Issues) Another group is BCE which owns Bell Canada Telephone and this has the Globe and Mail which reaches 20,878,000 readers every week, Bell Express which is a satellite TV service with 722,000 subscribers, CTV which is a private network reaching 99% of Canadians, etc. Can West Global Communication Corporation This is the group owned by Aspers and is renowned for its private TV service which is called Global Television, Can West Entertainment and Can West Interactive. This is a fast growing group as "in 2000 it acquired from Hollinger 14 daily newspapers, 126 community newspapers, and a 50% stake in the National Post. This makes Can West the largest daily newspaper provider in Canada." (Media Ownership Issues)

In addition to the media, it owns the Los Angeles and Toronto-based Fireworks Entertainment which finances, develops, and produces both films and TV programs. This group also has broadcasting units in New Zealand, Australia, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland under its direct control. The next in line is the Quebecor group which owns Sun Media which is "the second largest newspaper group in Canada, owning 8 metropolitan dailies, 181 local newspapers, and other publications in Canada and Florida." (Media Ownership Issues) There is also the "Torstar group of newspapers who own the Toronto Star, Hamilton Spectator, Kitchener Waterloo record and a total of 70 newspapers in the country." (Media Ownership Issues) Thus it is clear that apart from television, most of the other media are directly controlled by media groups, and most of them are international in nature with their media spread all over the Western world, mainly the English speaking countries.

Media History of Quebec and Canada

The media in Canada had started with newspapers and all cities have at least one daily newspaper in the city with many "community and neighborhood weeklies." (Media in Canada) When a city has more than one newspaper, at least one of them is in a tabloid format. The importance of French is recognized in cities which have large population of French origin persons and "bilingual cities like Montreal and Ottawa have important papers in both French and English." (Media in Canada) the two major national newspapers of the country are Globe and Mail and the national Post. In terms of circulation, the largest newspaper is the Toronto star. Most of the newspapers are owned by the large chains or media groups. As per present records, the largest of these groups is the Southam Newspapers chain which is a part of the Can West group. The other important group called Quebecor owns most of the tabloids and this is done through the Sun media organization that it controls. (Media in Canada)

History of French speaking and English speaking parts of Canada

The origin of the French in Canada is much older than the British. Looking at the history of Ottawa, one will soon realize that it is an anglicized form of the name of a group of aboriginals earlier residing in that area. These persons were traders and probably used the river in course of there trade, and thus passed on their name to the river, and then on to the area. The first among the Europeans to visit that area was Etienne Brule and he probably came to know of the river. His trip was soon followed, in 1610 by the famous French explorer, Samuel de Champlain. This led to the travel to the present capital and in 1613 "Champlain arrived in what is now the Capital and produced the first detailed maps of the region."(History of Canada's Capital… READ MORE

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Quoted Instructions for "Media and Communication in Canada" Assignment:

“

Project Description:

The media briefing project is designed to train you to write detailed and well written reports on the media system of a given country. I would like you to think assaignment as a report you have beeen asked to prepare to brief a newly-appoinment cultural/press attacé on a diplomatic mission in Canada. Part of this assignment will involve a discriptive presentation of the media system in Canada.

What you need to do:

The point of this handout is to provide some structural to help you write an effective and interesting report. Remember that your target audience, in this case the newly-appointed Cultural/Press Attaché does not know anything about the media system in Canada. Your assignment here is not to draft a 'boring' descriptive report that reflects no understading of the media system in Canada, but to show a mature analysis of the characteristics of that system in the light of the trends of world communication as you understand them from the readings and our class discussion. In this sense, I want you to focus on concepts like: privatisation, public service, deregulation, digitization, consolidation, media owndership, globalization, etc.

Since this report is meant to inform and analyze, you need to start with a description of the media system of Canada. Make sure you highlight any background information (political, social, cultural) before you begin to analyze the media. Do not assume the Cultural/Press Attaché knows the basic components of that system. Provide first a profile of the media organization in Canada - print, broadcast, film. Then, use some of the research parameters and tools international communication theorists use to analyze and evaluate the status of a media system. Look at the impact of the trends listed above, look for TV programming, print media circulation and ownership, films production and distribution, etc.

These guidelines were given by the Professor!

Start - Description of media system

- concentration of public media in Canada? If yes then why?

- Is the budget of public media getting smaller? If yes, is there some form of deregulation?

- What kind of private media does it have? How big is the private group and how much does it own? What program does it use?

- Media History of Quebeque and Canada?

History between French speaking and English speaking parts of Canada.

- Does the French speaking part have their own media? Do they have to pay for it? Do they receive funds from the Canadian government?

- How effective is Canada by globalization? How much is the local industry acting and investing?

- Does Canada protect their own media from the USA?

- What problems does the Canadian media system face today?

- How strong is local production? And how media does Canada import?

- What kind of mandatory media are/exist in Canada?

- How does the government accomodate the immigrants by leting foreign products in?

- Minority and multicultural media in Canada?

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1. Media and Communication in Canada. A1-TermPaper.com. https://www.a1-termpaper.com/topics/essay/media-communication-canada/8574550. Published 2005. Accessed July 3, 2024.

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