Canadian Heritage Committee on May 5th, 2016

[Luke Smith]

I was actually surprised to learn that the CRTC said 22% of Canadians stream a radio station, because I was under the impression that it is all streaming services such as Spotify. You save 22% of your data, like 22 times saving on data. Most smartphones, minus the iPhone, have an FM chip built in. Samsung won't turn it on, and some of the network providers in Canada won't turn it on either. I think it is about 5¢ per phone to activate the thing.

We are launching it this week, the “free my radio” campaign. We can provide more information in the follow-up, if that would help.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

If you please, Mr. Smith, that would be great. Thank you.

I now go to Mr. Samson for the Liberals.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Thank you.

I would just make a comment about your analysis of advertising. If I had known all that when I was running, I could have placed my ads in different spots, I guess. That would have been helpful. I won, but you never know. Everything moves—

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Douglas Knight]

We're here to help.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Next time.

I really appreciate your comment, Mr. Knight, that the strength of Canada is because of our diversity and not despite of it. That is so important, because what we, as Canadians.... Our opinions, our way of life, and our values are what should continue to influence Canadians, and the young Canadians. If we don't have that, we are in danger of not being able to share that strength and those opinions. We have come so far as a country, and we need to continue that, because that is the strength we have. I just wanted to comment on that.

As for the radio station, I am always so impressed with community in rural areas and how it survives. I was surprised, because when you were speaking about student jobs in the summer, I looked back and asked a few of my colleagues, and I didn't see any application from a community radio station for student jobs on the list of jobs coming out this year in my riding that I have seen. Maybe I just didn't tap in or they don't have the information, because I know the needs are there. Not only are the needs there, but it is a great opportunity for a young person to be able to benefit from that experience.

There are two things I would like to ask about quickly, and then I will share my time with Mr. O'Regan. The first one is advertising on the radio. Is that increasing or decreasing?

[Luke Smith]

It's interesting; I think on the whole it is decreasing. We just did a major report on it, and I can send that along. For community stations, about 48% of the revenue comes from advertising—the rest is grants and fundraising—and that is on the decline.

You mentioned the local plumber on Google. The local plumber has his ad on the tiny little station in that community. It is very often the place folks go to. I was talking to CJNU in Winnipeg—it is a nostalgia radio, aimed at seniors—and they said they had hearing aid companies advertising through their radio station, because it was the most appropriate venue.

On the whole, however, it is declining, yes.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Absolutely it's being listened to in small communities, more than anything else. It is quite impressive.

What's one recommendation you would make? If there is one thing the Government of Canada should look at or needs to do to support community radio, what would it be?

[Luke Smith]

It would be exploring ways to ensure more stable funding. Despite all the volunteer work that goes into it, we are not able to become charities, and that is a major barrier. The funding that we do get prohibits renewable funding, and it doesn't support station staff or equipment.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Is there any community radio in Nova Scotia?

[Luke Smith]

Yes, I think we have two or three members in Nova Scotia.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

You can share that with me afterwards.

Mr. O'Regan, go ahead.

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

I was a DJ at CFXU.

[Luke Smith]

That's a brilliant station.

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Thank you. Obviously I was there before it became brilliant.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

No, it was pretty good back then. It was the morning shift, but it was a civilized morning shift of 10 a.m.—quite civilized.

Mr. Knight, obviously you are looking at this from a broader perspective. We are attempting to look at local news, particularly television and radio news, from a local perspective, and they are languishing, unlike the magazine industry in this country.

What do we do in that context? As you quite rightly said, every time we add a solution, the media changes. You listed everything that has gone on from Mosaic leading right up to Google and Facebook. We are dealing with a Broadcasting Act that was written in 1991, back when Al Gore was still working on developing the Internet.

What do we do now? How do we create that environment? There is a demand for local news; we just don't know how to give it to people, it seems.

[Douglas Knight]

Absolutely there's a demand for local news, and frankly this is where digital truly has disintermediated the delivery of information. The challenge becomes whether it is accurate, whether you have the news discipline. I go back to the editor thing, which is just as important in news as it is in all the other areas. We have to make sure we can find and support those sources of local news and that we don't lose track of the good local news, run by professionals, run by the professional journalistic disciplines. It's fun to have crowdsourcing and all that kind of stuff, but frankly, if you're in a crisis situation, you want to have accurate and timely information, and you want to have it delivered on whatever device you have.

In the magazine industry, just to come back to that, it's easy to assume that all magazines are national, which of course is not the case. As you said, it's very much a niche thing. Many of our magazines are intensely local. In my own company, in maybe a dozen communities across the country we publish a magazine just for that community.

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Or just for that airport.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Douglas Knight]

Yes, just for that airport; and we have magazines just for provinces.

Magazines make a difference in the news environment. I'll give you one example. This is perhaps not the best, because I'm going to talk about Toronto as opposed to Victoria. If you think of a monthly magazine, how could a monthly magazine be in the news business, since you can't follow the news? Our mantra is that if you're a monthly magazine, you can't follow the news but you can make the news. In the last year, we've had six stories that have gone completely viral and global.

The Desmond Cole story on what it's like to be a black man on the streets of Toronto—that one story after years of journalistic coverage—changed carding in Toronto. Mayor John Tory will tell you that's the story that changed him. That's the story that was written by a wonderful writer named Desmond Cole, but more or just as importantly it was edited by an outstanding editor named Emily Landau. If there hadn't been that combination.... It was just the way that story was told.

We had the very complicated story of a young Vietnamese woman who ended up putting out a contract to kill her parents. She had lied to her parents about graduating from school, from university, and about getting a job. She was discovered, and the whole thing broke down and she took out a contract. It was an extraordinary story about the pressures on a new immigrant to perform and where that can go. That story went completely global. Those stories make news. Those are magazine stories.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Mr. Knight, thank you.

We have time to do a three-minute round, so maybe, Mr. O'Regan, since your name is down here for that second group, you might want to follow through with that question, if you wish.

We'll go to Mr. Maguire now for the Conservatives for three minutes.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Thanks, Madam Chair.

I noted with interest your comments on streaming, Mr. Smith, with regard to the 22% and radios in that area. As this continues to evolve, how do you see it building, and what is your group doing to prepare even more for that in the future?

[Luke Smith]

I'm actually really excited by the developments that are happening. VIBE, which is based in Toronto, has 45,000 online listeners a week. It's a phenomenal number and they have something like 10,000 Instagram followers. They've really reinvented themselves in the online space. We have some stations that are targeting perhaps the older crowd, and their main focus is still staying on, for instance, MTS in Manitoba. They're on one of the channels there. Some stations are really reinventing themselves to maintain an online presence, multiplatform presence, and they're seeing some great success. I think VIBE is very uniquely placed to be able to do that because it's in such a major urban area as well.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Not everywhere in Canada has a campus, but in the areas that do, I understand that you feel there's a fair bit of success. They have a much broader audience perhaps. In some smaller communities that I see in my area of Manitoba, and I think it's fairly similar in other areas, there are some newer radio stations starting up. I just wonder if you could elaborate on how you deal with them as well.