Canada Media Group Asks Advertisers For Spending Pledge

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.