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Media ownership in Canada is governed by the CRTC. The CRTC does not regulate ownership of newspapers or Internet media, although ownership in those media may be taken into consideration in decisions pertaining to a licensee's broadcasting operations.

Role within small markets

Due to Canada's smaller population, some types of media consolidation have always been allowed. In small markets where the population could not adequately support multiple television stations competing for advertising revenue, the CRTC began permitting twinstick operations, in which the same company operated both CBC and CTV affiliates in the same market, in 1967. This model of television ownership was restricted to smaller markets until the mid-1990s, when the CRTC began to allow companies to own multiple television stations in large markets such as Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.

National media conglomerates

As of 2007, almost all Canadian television stations are owned by national media conglomerates. Most, in fact, are directly owned and operated by their associated networks, although even private affiliate stations are mostly owned by non-network conglomerates rather than local companies. These acquisitions have been controversial; stations in smaller markets have frequently had their local news programming cut back or even eliminated. For instance, CTV's stations in Northern Ontario and in Atlantic Canada are served by a single regional newscast for each region, with only brief local news inserts for headlines of purely local interest. This, in turn, has contributed to the rise of independent local webmedia such as SooToday.com, The Tyee and rabble.ca.

Controls over mergers

Many, though not all, Canadian newspapers are also owned by the same media conglomerates which own the television networks. Companies which own both television and newspaper assets have strict controls on the extent to which they can merge the operations. The issue of newspaper ownership has been particularly controversial in Canada, especially in the mid-1990s when Conrad Black's Hollinger acquired the Southam chain. Black's 1999 sale of the Hollinger papers resulted in an increase in the diversity of newspaper ownership, with new ownership groups such as Osprey Media entering the business, but was even more controversial because the CRTC, waiving its former rules against broadcasting companies acquiring newspaper assets, permitted Canwest Global to purchase many of the Hollinger papers. The Toronto Star is a partial exception to this — it is owned by an independent company, but is itself a part owner of CTVglobemedia.

Radio norms

In radio, a company is normally restricted to owning no more than three stations in a single market, of which only two can be on the same broadcast band. (That is, a company may own two FM stations and an AM station, or two AMs and one FM, but may not own three FMs.) Under certain circumstances, local marketing agreements may be implemented, or the ownership rule may be waived entirely. For example, in Windsor, Ontario, Bell Media Radio owns most of the commercial broadcast outlets, due to the city's unique circumstances — being in the immediate environs of the Metro Detroit market in the United States, Windsor has historically been a difficult market for commercial broadcasters, so the CRTC waived its usual ownership restrictions to help protect the Windsor stations' financial viability.

When licensing a new broadcast outlet, the CRTC has a general (but not strict) tendency to favour new and local broadcasters. However, in the modern media context such broadcasters often struggle for financial viability, and are often subsequently acquired by larger companies. The CRTC rarely denies the acquisition applications. Canada also has strict laws around non-Canadian ownership of cultural industries; a media company in Canada may not be more than 20 per cent foreign-owned.

2008 rules

Under new rules announced in 2008, the CRTC limited companies to two types of media in a given market — a company may, for example, own television and radio assets in one city, or radio and newspaper, or television and newspaper, but may not own all three simultaneously. As well, with the ownership of cable specialty channels increasingly consolidating under the same few media conglomerates that own most of the country's conventional television stations, the CRTC also imposed a market share cap: no company can own broadcasting assets holding more than 45 per cent of the country's total television viewership.

CRTC's new policies 2008

In January 2008, Canada's regulatory body for broadcast, the CRTC (Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission) implemented new rules regarding media ownership in Canada to limit large broadcaster’s from buying up smaller companies following a year of unprecedented integration in Canadian media concentration. In the fall of 2007, the CRTC held a meeting to discuss the rules of media ownership and establish three new changes:

• No person or company is allowed to control more than two types of media in one local market, including local TV, local radio and a local newspaper.
• No company is allowed to control more than 45 per cent of the Canadian television audience in Canada. This could mean restrictions in terms of acquiring specialty channels by major broadcasters.
• Deals between television distributors, such as cable and satellite TV companies, will not be permitted if they result in one company owing the delivery of programming in a market.

The new regulations had no effect on past mergers but were designed to stop the Canadian median landscape from greater concentration and to prevent further takeover of smaller media companies. Two notable exceptions are The Globe and Mail and The National Post, which the CRTC deem as national newspapers rather than local publications. As such, they do not impact the rule changes. The rule changes by the CRTC essentially preserve the status quo but there is one area that could see a big impact in years to come—the 45 per cent cap on audience share—because this would limit how many specialty channels a broadcaster can own. To determine audience share, the figure is calculated by adding up each broadcasting asset owned by a particular company based on BBM Nielsen ratings data then comparing it to the total audience based on the same ratings compiled across Canada. The rule change which restricts cable and satellite carriers from controlling the delivery of programming would effectively prevent Shaw Communications Inc., which owns Shaw cable in the West and the StarChoice satellite service from buying the rival Bell ExpressVu Satellite service.

The new rule changes in 2008 were implemented after a period of record deals in the Canadian media sector. CRTC chairman, Konrad von Flickenstein said these policies will help develop a clear approach to assessing future transactions in the broadcasting industry and preserve the plurality of editorial voices and the diversity of programming available to Canadians, both locally and nationally, while allowing for a strong and competitive industry.

Canadian media landscape

Astral Media

Based out of Montreal, Astral Media was founded in 1961 as Angreen Photo Inc., a photofinishing concession in Miracle Mart Stores. In 1963, it acquired Bellevue Photo labs. In 1971, the company went public as Astral Communications and shortly after launched many pay TV and speciality channels during the 1980s and 1990s. In 1999, Astral bought the radio and TV properties of Radiomutuel. In 2002, it bought 17 Telemedia and radio stations, making for a total of 84 radio stations in Canada, 24 pay TV stations such as The Movie Network, Mpix, Musique Plus, Family Channel and Disney Junior.

In April 2007, Astral struck a deal with Standard Broadcasting worth $1.08 billion in cash and stock to buy 52 radio stations and two TV stations. The company also entered a partnership with the Virgin Group in 2008 allowing for the exclusive use of the Virgin-Radio brand in Canada.

In March 2012, Astral signed a deal worth $3.38 billion to sell Astral Media to Montreal-based BCE (Bell Canada Enterprises).

Brunswick News

The Irving family in New Brunswick owns a near monopoly in print media in Canada. It owns all of the English-language daily newspapers in New Brunswick and 29 other publications.

Canwest Global Communications (now Shaw Media and Postmedia Group)

The Calgary-based Shaw Media group paid $2 billion to acquire all of Canwest's broadcasting assets in the spring of 2010. The deal included the Global TV network and specialty channels HGTV, Food Network, Showcase and History. Canwest's broadcasting properties are now known as Shaw Media.

In 2000, Canwest purchased 28 newspapers formerly a part of the Southam chain from Hollinger Inc. for $3.5 billion. At the time it was the biggest deal in Canadian media history. However, Canwest would file for bankruptcy in 2009 and eventually sold its newspapers to a group headed by National Post CEO Paul Godfrey for $1.1 billion. Canwest's newspaper properties are now known as the Postmedia group.

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)

CBC is the national public broadcaster in Canada and was created as a crown corporation in 1936. It operates TV and radio broadcasting networks and regional services in every province and territory in Canada. It broadcasts in both English and French, and in 8 aboriginal languages.

CBC also operates specialty channels such as CBC News Network, RDI, Bold, Documentary, ARTV and TV5MONDE. CBC radio international broadcasts around the world in 9 languages and CBC/Radio Canada operates many websites such as cbc.ca and is a partner in the Sirius Canada satellite radio service.

CHUM Ltd.

Founded by Allan Watters, it acquired its first AM radio station in Toronto in 1954. In the late 1950s and 1960s it acquired more AM and FM stations and ventured into TV in 1968 when it bought CKVR-TV in Barrie, Ontario. During the 1970s it added more radio and TV stations, and in 1978 bought Citytv in Toronto. During the 1980s and 1990s it added specialty channels such as MuchMusic and Bravo!

In 2004, CHUM bought the TV assets of Craig Media and sold one Toronto station to the CRTC to satisfy ownership concentration concerns. In 2006, it agreed to be bought by Bell Globemedia (now Bell Media) for $1.7 billion. In June 2007, the CRTC approved the deal as long as CTVglobemedia sold 5 Citytv stations that were part of the deal. Rogers media subsequently bought them. CHUM no longer exists but Toronto radio station 104.5 CHUM FM still uses CHUM as its station call sign.

Corus Entertainment

Corus was created from media properties originally owned by Shaw Communications. It was designed as a separate entity and began trading publicly in 1999. It owns 37 radio stations, many specialty channels such as YTV, Treehouse, W Network, CMT and Telelatino. It also owns nine multiplex channels including HBO Canada and the Nelvana animation group and the children's publisher, Kids Can Press.

Glacier Media Inc.

Glacier is a British Columbia-based company that publishes and prints trade magazines and community dailies. In 2011, Glacier acquired the Times Colonist, the Lower Mainland Publishing Group and the Vancouver Island Newspaper Group from Postmedia Network Inc. It also added 15 trade publications from Rogers Publishing Limited.

Maritime Broadcasting System

Found in 1969 as Eastern Broadcasting Ltd. The privately owned company owns 24 radio stations in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.

Transcontinental Media

Canada's second largest publisher of local and regional newspapers and a major publisher of consumer and specialty magazines. It is a subsidiary of Transcontinental Inc., which is Canada's largest commercial printer.

Transcontinental owns 10 daily newspapers and more than 200 papers. It also publishes more than 40 magazines and specialty publications such as Canadian Living, Elle Canada, Style at Home and The Hockey News.

Canadian media conglomerates

Bell Canada-BCE-$18.1 billion

• One of Canada's largest corporations that operates telephone, Internet and TV infrastructure. Its subsidiary Bell Media purchased the CHUM group of radio stations in 2006, and Astral Media in 2012. The company also controls CTV, making it a dominant media player in Canada. Bell Media owns the CTV network and its 27 TV affiliates and 6 A-Channel stations. It also has full or partial ownership of 30 specialty channels such as TSN, Discovery, The Comedy Network and Bravo. The media empire also includes all 33 of CHUM Ltd.'s former radio stations and many web products like sympatico.ca.

Woodbrige/Thomson Reuters-$13.8 billion

• Woodbridge is the holding company owned by the billionaire Thomson family. It controls 55 per cent of Thomson Reuters, one of the world's largest news services organizations. Woodbridge's revenue is not reported, but Thomson Reuters reported revenue of $13.8 billion in 2011.Woodbridge is the principal shareholder of Thomson Reuters, formed through a 2008 merger of the Thomson Corporation with the Reuters news agency.

Rogers-$12.1 billion

• Founded by Ted Rogers, Rogers Communications is a major player in cable TV and wireless services. The company controls Rogers Media, which operates 70 publications, 54 radio stations and a number of TV properties including Citytv and the Shopping Channel.

Quebecor-$9.8 billion

• Founded by Pierre Peladeau and run by his son, Pierre-Karl Peladeau, Quebecor owns the Sun Media Corporation and Osprey newspaper chains, cable provider Videotron Ltd., Canoe Inc.,TVA Publishing Inc., Quebec TV network TVA, 43 daily newspapers and 250 community newspapers which publish in both English and French.

Shaw-$4.74 billion

• Western Canadian cable TV giant Shaw entered the media big leagues with the 2009 purchase of several CTV affiliates and the 2010 purchase of Canwest's broadcasting assets. The company was founded by Jim Shaw and is still controlled by his family.

Torstar-$1.48 billion

• Torstar's flagship property is the Toronto Star, Canada's largest newspaper. It owns the Metroland chain of free daily newspapers in Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Edmonton, Halifax, Winnipeg and London. Torstar owns 95 community newspapers in southern Ontario and the internationally popular Harlequin novels and the Sing Tao daily, the largest Chinese-language newspaper in Canada.

Postmedia-$1.1 billion

• Created in 2010 when the bankrupt Canwest media chain was forced to sell its newspaper assets. Postmedia owns the National Post, Ottawa Citizen and Calgary Herald, The Province, Edmonton Journal, Sprouter, Windsor Star, The Gazette, dose.ca, The StarPhoenix, Leader-Post and Vancouver Sun.

Recent mergers in Canadian media

2012

In March 2012, Bell Canada, Canada’s largest telecommunications company, purchased Montreal-based Astral Media Inc. for $3.38 billion, giving the company more control over content for its cellphone, internet and land-line services. Astral’s assets will reinforce Bell’s French-language content significantly as Astral takes in more revenue from its Quebec operations than does Bell Media. The combined viewership of Bell and Astral in the province of Quebec is roughly 32 per cent which is just shy of Quebecor who leads with 36 per cent of viewers. Astral Media founder Ian Greenberg will join BCE’s board of directors as part of the deal. BCE will assume $380 million of debt from Astral as part of the merger.

2011

In December 2011, Rogers Communications Inc. and Bell joined forces and bought a majority stake in Canada's largest sports franchise, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. Each company paid the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan $533 million for a 37.5 per cent share in MLSE who owned the NHL's Toronto Maple Leafs, the NBA's Toronto Raptors, the AHL's Toronto Marlies, and Major League soccer team Toronto FC. Bell Media is owned by BCE as the result of a $1.3 billion buyout on March 7, 2011.

2010

In September 2010, Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE) agreed to acquire full ownership of CTV Inc. in a deal that cost $1.3 billion and dramatically reshaped the Canadian media, telecommunications and the ownership structure of the Globe and Mail. With BCE and CTV merging, this means that Canada’s largest telecom carrier and the number one broadcaster become one. BCE acquired all of CTV’s assets, such as CTV network and specialty channels TSN, Bravo and the Business Network. The merger breaks apart CTVglobemedia Inc. which was created when CTV merged with The Globe and Mail. Woodbridge Co. Ltd.regains majority ownership of The Globe and Mail with an 85 per cent stake. BCE will retain its current 15 per cent share of The Globe and Mail which is Canada’s largest circulating newspaper. By joining forces with BCE, this ensures that CTV will have a spot in the 130-year-old telecom company’s national communication lines. This includes TV, Internet and wireless networks. As television audiences increasingly turn to watching television online and Bell with its millions of Internet users, this could mean significant profits for CTV broadcasters.

The media company who bought the National Post and 10 other major newspapers from Canwest Global Communications re-branded them under Postmedia Network Inc. In addition to the National Post, the network will also include the Montreal Gazette, Ottawa Citizen, Windsor Star, Regina Leader-Post, Saskatoon StarPhoenix, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Vancouver Sun and Vancouver Province, and Victoria Times Colonist. Postmedia will also operate more than 20 community newspapers, online operations and other publications. When the sale was announced in May 2010, the new company Postmedia said they would maintain all existing newspaper operations, employment and employee pension and benefit plans.

2007

In June, the CRTC approved CTVglobemedia’s purchase of CHUM but orders them to sell all five of the Citytv stations it acquired in the deal that cost $1.7 billion. CTVglobemedia was forced to sell Citytv stations in Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver because it would violate the common ownership policy that prevents a broadcaster from operating more than one commercial TV station in one language in a market, because CTV also runs television stations in those cities. In April, Astral Media Inc. agreed to a deal worth $1.8 billion to buy the privately owned Standard Radio Inc., a merger that created the largest radio broadcaster in Canada. In January, CanWest Global Communications Corp partnered with private equity firm Goldman Sachs Capital Partners to buy Alliance Atlantis Inc., one of Canada’s largest entertainment companies.

2004

CHUM purchased Craig Media, acquiring A-Channel in Edmonton, Calgary and Winnipeg, as well as a station in Brandon, Manitoba, and a few digital special channels. CHUM sells its share in Toronto1 to Quebecor who rebrands it as Sun TV.

2001

Rogers Communication buys Sportsnet and 15 Ontario radio stations.

2000

• In 2000, BCE (Bell's parent company) bought CTV Inc., and a few months later made an alliance with Thomson Corp. worth $4 billion that shook the Canadian media landscape. The alliance looked to combine a huge range of broadcasting, publishing and online media to capitalize on convergence opportunities.
• BCE purchases the CTV television network and The Globe and Mail. A new company called Bell Globemedia is created.
• CanWest buys Hollinger’s 13 daily newspapers, 125 community papers, 50 per cent of the National Post and canada.com. CanWest would later acquire the remaining 50 per cent of the National Post from Hollinger.
• Quebecor buys Quebec cable company Videotron.

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1990s

• In 1999, CTV Inc. buys Netstar Communications who owned the Discovery Channel, TSN sports channel and its French equivalent RDS.
• Quebecor buys Sun Media and sells four of its local newspapers to Torstar.
• In 1996, Rogers sold Sun Media to a group of employees.
• In 1994, Rogers Communication acquires Maclean-Hunter and its Maclean’s magazine, Sun Media properties, 21 radio stations, two TV stations and minority stake in CTV.
• Conrad Black’s Hollinger buys 23 per cent interest in the Southam chain from Torstar Corp., becoming the single largest shareholder of Canada’s largest newspaper chain.

Future of public broadcasting in Canada

After two months of pressure from the ruling Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Parliamentary Secretary, Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro and media giant Quebecor, a study was conducted and released in November 2011 by independent media consulting firm Nordicity Group Ltd., to determine the effects of removing the CBC's ability to advertise. Nordicity concluded the following:

• CBC would stand to lose $532 million per year if forced to give up advertising in both the English and French language in order to make room for private networks.
• The CBC would face a $368 million hole in its budget and would require new programming to fill the void, most likely in the lucrative NHL market but this would increase operating costs by $532 million.
• The chain reaction that would be started by the loss of advertising revenues at the CBC would have a devastating impact on the Canadian television production industry and could lead to loss of up to 3,600 full-time jobs and a drop of $165 million in Canada’s GDP.
• The CBC, including the French-language Radio-Canada, receives about $1 billion per year from the government, which is amongst the lowest on a per capita basis of government funding for public broadcasters in North America and Europe, and most public broadcasters around the world carry advertising or are engaged in commercial activities.

The Federal budget of the Conservative government will be looking to cut 10% of CBC's funding, which will mean a loss of $110 million by 2014-15. The CBC is currently receiving $1.1 billion in direct federal funding. During the 1980s and 1990s; $1 billion of the CBC $1.7 billion operating expenses went to paying employees’ salaries.

In 2011, Deloitte, one of Canada's leading professional services firms that provides audit, tax, consulting, and financial advisory services, estimated that the CBC adds $3.7 billion to the Canadian economy. The report also noted that CBC/Radio-Canada creates additional economic value for other broadcasters and the wider creative sector in Canada through its role in implementing new technologies, promoting digital content and third-party distribution by its support to Canadian artists.

See also

• Concentration of media ownership
• Mass media
• Media activism
• Media democracy
• Media in Canada
• History of Canadian newspapers
• List of all Canadian media companies with the media they own, from Sources