Media Beat: August 09, 2018

By David Farrell

Stingray acquisition of NL Capital to spin off $31M in tangible benefits

Pursuant to the the Arrangement Agreement, the purchase price for all issued and outstanding shares would be $505,652,061. The applicant proposed a value of the transaction of $524,297,181, including assumed leases and assumed debt. As part of the transaction, Stingray would acquire radio and television undertakings and non-regulated operations. As indicated in Simplified approach to tangible benefits and determining the value of the transaction, Broadcasting Regulatory Policy CRTC 2014-459, 5 September 2014, the applicant proposed an allocation of the value of the transaction according to the proportion of revenues generated by each type of licensed undertaking relative to the total revenues from all assets that are part of the transaction. Accordingly, the proposed tangible benefits package includes 6% of the value allocated to the radio operations ($502,066,980), representing $30,124,019, and 10% of the value allocated to the television operations ($8,598,474), representing $859,847, for a tangible benefits package of $30,983,866. – CRTC Notice

Quebecor's revenue flat as telecom growth gets offset by media decline

Growth at Quebecor’s Videotron cable, internet and wireless business boosted revenue from telecommunications to $847.2M, from $826.6M last year.

Revenue at Quebecor’s media arm fell to $186.6M from $199.5M while revenue from the sports and entertainment division was relatively unchanged – Canadian Press

Most Canadians don’t want to pay for news

Nearly half of Canadians (47% don't visit any news sources that charge for online access, and 31% stop going to online news sources once they've hit a paywall or free article limit and fewer than 10% are paying to read the news online, according to a study conducted by Vancouver-based Research Co.  

When it comes to radio and television, 41% of Canadians say they get their news and information from local television newscasts and news channels. A slightly smaller proportion (37%) watch national television newscasts and news channels every day. One-in-five (26%) listen to local radio newscasts daily, and 11% listen to national radio newscasts every day.

La Presse haemorrhaging cash, analyst finds

In mid-July, La Presse was officially detached from Power Corp. to become a non-profit organization. The new entity intends to appeal to governments and public donations to maintain its activities at their current level. Power Corp. committed $ 50 million to the new corporation and assumed the current liabilities of the pension plans.

In a note published in May, shortly after the announcement of the transaction (which had been hitherto under the radar), a CIBC World Markets analyst estimated that on an annual basis La Presse generated losses from $ 30 million to $ 50 million. – François Pouliot, les affaires

 Saudi media attacks Canada’s human-rights record in bizarre videos

In a series of videos published by Al Arabiya, the outlet calls into question Canada's arrests of several "prisoners of conscience," and suggests its practices are not up to international human-rights standards. – Rosie Perper, Business Insider

Tribune withdraws from Sinclair merger, saying it will sue for ‘breach of contract’

Tribune Media said Thursday that it would withdraw from its US$3.9 billion merger with Sinclair Broadcast Group, adding that it would sue Sinclair for “breach of contract” over its failed negotiations with regulators over the deal.

The breakdown of the deal reflects a reversal of fortunes for Sinclair, which had announced the tie-up last year as a “transformational” event and the biggest acquisition in its history. – Washington Post

Paul Manafort: A case study in how you can still go broke while earning millions

Manafort’s bookkeeper testified that “his seven-figure lifestyle lasted until about 2015 when the cash ran out, the bills piled up and he and his business partner began trying to fudge numbers to secure loans,” The Post reported. “Prosecutors allege that Manafort made $60 million between 2010 and 2014 while working for various interests in Ukraine.” – Michael Singletary, Washington Post

To save free speech, we must broadly censor free speech

Earlier this year, we wrote about a thought-provoking article by Zeynep Tufecki discussing how some people were deliberately trying to use the open "marketplace of ideas" to effectively attempt to poison the marketplace of ideas. Also mentioned in that article was an excellent Yale Journal Article called Real Talk About Fake News by Nabiha Syed, which raised similar issues, and wondered if we needed a new framework for thinking about free speech online. We later had Syed on our podcast to discuss this further. Both Tufecki and Syed were raising important, thought-provoking issues that were not at all like the usual attacks on free speech -- because neither was an attack on free speech. Instead, they were attempting to protect free speech by pointing out that the way we often frame these discussions may not be the most effective way of thinking about these issues -- and that might actually lead to the silencing of voices. – Mike Masnick, Tech Dirt