• by Ray Schultz , July 16, 2023

Canadian marketers are being urged to support local media in the face of declining ad sales and issues relating to the passage of  the Online News Act (C-18), a law requiring that tech platforms compensate publishers for linking to their content. 

“We are asking agencies and marketing leaders to pledge 25% of their total digital advertising investment towards local media,” writes Shannon Lewis, president, Canadian Media Directors’ Council “This would mean $380 million in new revenue for local media.” 

Lewis notes that this is “more money than Bill C-18 is projected to provide to news organizations, and it will be achieved through industry collaboration.”

Canada’s news business is facing “unprecedented challenges, with a continuing decline in investment towards Canadian news media publications,” Lewis continues. “In 2014, 23.1% of media investment supported Canadian and local news media – within five years, that dropped to a mere 5.7%. In the last 15 years, we’ve lost 473 local news operations across 335 communities.”

This is happening as the tech giants Meta and Google make good on their threat to block news content in the country following the passage of C-18, a bill that would require the tech platforms to compensate publishers for linking to their content.  

The Tyee, a publication based in British Columbia, ran into a problem on Tuesday when “its social media manager tried to post news stories and saw half of its posts had disappeared,” according CBC. 

CBC adds that The Tyee s entire Instagram account disappeared, with this statement:

"People in Canada can't see your content. This account is a news publication. Content from news publications can't be viewed in Canada in response to Canadian government legislation."

Meanwhile, Vancouver’s CHEK News tweeted, “At a time when the fire hazard on Vancouver Island is extreme, Meta is blocking access within Canada to all CHEK News Posts on its Instagram site. “As of Friday moroning, even urgent public information from CHEK News is restricted from view within Canada.

In apparent retaliation for these threats, the Canadian government said it will stop running ads on Facebook and Instagram. That spending totaled $11 million between April 2021 and March 2022. 

Google has not been targeted to this degree because it has been open to negotiation, the Toronto Star reported on Friday. 

Quebec also suspended advertising on Facebook, as have the cities of Montreal, Quebec City, Gatineau, Laval and Longueui, the Star reports.

In addition, the University of Montreal says it will “significantly reduce its advertising on the social media platforms Facebook and Instagram.”