Media Beat, Aug. 23, 2021

By David Farrell

Jonathan Pie’s reaction to the Afghan withdrawal

Hidden in plain sight on major Canadian news sites

For the past couple years, every major Canadian news outlet has been quietly publishing a registry of all the political ads they run online during federal elections. It's required by law.

Each organization does it differently, tucking it away into a different corner of their site. Sometimes, a link is buried in a footer menu. Other times, locating it involves a bit more effort. 

So as a public service, we're compiling a list of where you can find all the election ads that are running on Canadian media websites. – Danielle Paradis & Jonathan Goldsbie, Canadaland

Bell Media layoffs

Bell Media cut staff at its Queen Street location Aug. 17, resulting in 27 jobs lost and another 22 jobs being reclassified. Unifor, Canada’s largest union in the private sector, representing 315,000 workers suggests that the layoffs show the need to level the playing field as foreign Internet broadcasters operate outside existing regulations.

"The tremendous financial pressure placed on Canadian broadcasters because of Internet giants getting a free ride in this country leads to these kinds of so-called efficiencies," Unifor National President Jerry Dias said.

"We need legislation to stop this tremendous pressure. The previous Bill C-10 was aimed at levelling the playing field between Canadian broadcasters and behemoth foreign counterparts Netflix, Amazon and others." – Press release

CBC receives added financial support

Canada’s Federal budget for 2021 focused largely on child care, recovery benefits, and old-age security, but it also addressed the CBC’s declining ad revenues, in turn proposing $21 million in “immediate operational support” for 2021-2022 to ensure the national broadcaster’s stability during the pandemic.

According to the broadcaster’s report for Q3, which ended on Dec. 31, over the previous nine months, the broadcaster had a $30.6 million (8.2%) decrease in revenue. – Media In Canada

SpaceX’s Starlink satellites near-misses with other spacecraft are getting ‘out of control'

SpaceX’s Starlink satellites are responsible for over half of all near-collisions in space, according to the head of the Astronautics Research Group.

Craft from the space company, which was founded by Elon Musk, are involved in approximately 1,600 close encounters every week, says Hugh Lewis, the head of the research group. A close encounter is when two craft pass within one kilometre of each other. Excluding the company’s own craft, Starlink passes a craft 500 times every week.

And from Australian comedy troupe SkitHOUSE, 2015