Good afternoon. I'm Matt Hatfield. I'm the campaigns director at OpenMedia, a grassroots community that works for an open and accessible Internet. I'm joined today by our lead Internet access campaigner, Erin Knight.
I am speaking from the unceded territory of the Sto:lo, Tsleil-Waututh, Squamish and Musqueam nations. My colleague is calling in from Treaty No. 1 territory, the traditional territory of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples and the homeland of the Métis nation.
We're here today to talk about the Rogers-Shaw deal and how it will impact local news. I need to emphasize that no government body in Canada is looking squarely at the full implications of this deal, the sixth-largest in Canadian history—not the CRTC looking at broadcast implications; not the Competition Bureau, armed with our anemic Competition Act; and unfortunately, not this hearing.
We are not economists or lawyers—we're a citizens' group—but we want to highlight what should be obvious to everyone, that Rogers' plan to buy Shaw is a disaster for competition, diversity and innovation in our country. It will lead directly to increased consumer prices for telecom services, loss of jobs in news media and in telecom, and a consolidation of power over our media like we've never seen. It will put one man, Edward Rogers, in charge of the Internet and broadcast service of nearly half of English Canadian Internet users. It will further concentrate and reduce diversity of perspective in a media market already ranked the third-most concentrated amongst 28 countries in a recent study. As a point of comparison, while the top four media companies in the U.S. hold 29.8% of market share, in Canada the top four hold an astonishing 52.3%.
I don't have to tell anyone here that news, and particularly local news, is in trouble. Some people will tell you that this is because Internet platforms are stealing their news content, but the reality is that quality news production has never been profitable. News used to be bundled with all of people's needs for classifieds, entertainment, sports and more. Now that those non-news functions are fulfilled by dedicated online services, the budget the market provides for news alone isn't up to the task.
That's hurting all news outlets, but it is devastating local news. From 2008 to 2021, over 450 media outlets closed, the vast majority of them small community papers. Of course, open your phone and you're bombarded with more news than ever, but we increasingly lack crucial local news that connects us with our neighbours and holds local government and corporations to account.
Approving the Rogers-Shaw deal means further slashing into local news. We know that this will happen directly through cutting Global News funding to give it to CityNews. We also share the concern of other stakeholders that Corus will be forced to seek support from the independent local news fund, which could potentially absorb 60% to 80% of those very limited funds that are intended for small outlets.
Even if those concerns are addressed, further unannounced news cuts are predictable and inevitable. To afford the purchase, Rogers is taking on immense levels of debt—debt that needs to be paid off by cutting costs or raising prices. Given that local news is already barely economically viable, that won't come from increasing news prices. It will come from slashing programming and jobs.
Rogers' previous CEO made a number of promises to expand news content and hire indigenous reporters as part of the deal. We'd suggest to you that these are sops, an attempt to bamboozle you, not meaningful commitments to local news. They're entirely short term, legally unenforceable, and likely to be ended as soon as the company can.
The combined Rogers-Shaw will be a company of unprecedented power in Canadian history. Canada already has an unusually serious problem with vertical integration, in which key telecom companies like Rogers and Bell sell both access to wireless networks and a great deal of the content Canadians consume on those networks. High levels of vertical integration create strong incentives for clearly anti-competitive behaviours that hurt smaller media and telecom competitors and also consumers. A combined Rogers-Shaw would exert market power on another level, with 47% of English-language subscribers and broadband service reach to 80% of Canadian households. The last thing we need in Canada is this further concentration.
Canadians know that. We do not, as group, want this deal. Public polling has consistently found that a majority oppose the deal, particularly in the west, where Shaw does business. Last year over 61,000 people signed petitions calling on the federal government to block the Rogers-Shaw deal. The Competition Bureau set new records for public engagement around it.