TORONTO – News Media Canada has released the results of a survey about Canadians’ views on the importance of local media.
The survey found:
– 90 per cent of Canadians believe it’s important that local media outlets survive;
– 79 per cent of Canadians agree that web giants should have to share revenue with Canadian media outlets; and
– 80 per cent of Canadians support parliament passing a law that would let smaller outlets negotiate collectively with the web giants.
“Canadians value their local news outlets, and they believe web giants should have to share some of their revenue with Canadian media outlets,” said Paul Deegan, president and chief executive officer of News Media Canada. Across partisan lines, Canadians believe Parliament should pass a law that would allow smaller outlets to negotiate collectively with web giants. It is time for parliamentarians to pass C-18, the Online News Act.”
“There is majority support for forcing web giants to share revenues with Canadian media outlets among survey respondents in both cities and rural communities, among both young and old, and across partisan lines.” said Dan Arnold, chief strategy officer at Pollara. “This means that Canadians who consume their news in many different ways can all come together and agree on the importance of this issue.”
This survey was conducted by Pollara Strategic Insights, on behalf of News Media Canada, via an online survey of 1,500 adult Canadians conducted between May 20 to May 26, 2022.
Data has been weighted by region, gender, and age based on the most recent census data, so as to be representative of all Canadians.
The margin of error for a probability sample of this size is plus or minus 2.5%, 19 times out of 20.
