No more waffling, big Canadian media
This has in many ways been a horrible summer for big Canadian media.
CBC announced massive cuts. TorStar killed The Grid. Bell cut lots of jobs (and this has reverberated in places like CTV Montreal). Rogers has been cutting people on its publishing side, and elsewhere. Postmedia continued to deliver pretty dismal quarterly results in terms of revenue growth. TorStar, too. Even promising mobile Sports information company The Score cut six staffers from its feature desk.
But it has also been an important summer and year-to-date to set the stage for the future of big Canadian media.
Four (and a half) of the biggest players have stepped up and done something I’ve been waiting years to see: they made a bet.
There is finally a sense of clarity as to how the leadership of these companies think they are going to survive, and perhaps even thrive.
The past four to five years have, in my view, seen a lot of waffling from those in leadership positions at big media in Canada. They have been cutting things and people to try and stay profitable, or even in business, in the face of digital transformation. That is not a sustainable strategy.
But now:
1. CBC. After years of funding cuts and struggles to generate ad revenue to replace those cuts, the CBC has faced facts and embarked on a major transformation. I’ll side with Jesse Brown for the moment and say I honestly have no idea what all the gobbledygook coming out of CBC management actually means in terms of tangibles, aside from cutting jobs and in-house production. (I also don’t expect them to completely open the kimono right now, or in the very near future. But in the meantime they better get the rank and file on board…)
At least CBC leadership is saying they recognize the challenge and have created a strategy. There is no way to transform the CBC without making serious cuts. In basic terms, they have to do some things, and not do others. They need to make hard choices. This is a huge undertaking, and it’s about time they admitted it needs to be done, and start doing it.
2. Postmedia has announced and committed to its “four-platform” strategy. It began the rollout in Ottawa and will continue things in Montreal this fall. People are moving into new jobs to support this. The company is getting its big city papers on board. This is a big, big deal for Postmedia. The company emerged from bankruptcy four years ago years this summer with what it seemed to think were some splashy new apps for its papers. They relaunched Canada.com. And then… nothing.
That’s my view, of course. I know that Postmedia Labs has launched at least three new products and there have been other initiatives. (The Vancouver digital folks deserve credit for always trying new things, too.) But I haven’t seen anything like the company-wide bet they are making on the “four-platform” strategy. Until now, I didn’t see much of anything in the way of a strategy.
Either this new gambit is going to chart a real path for them to grow their digital revenue and audience, or Postmedia is going to be in serious trouble.
3. Rogers spent big, big money to lock up rights to the NHL. This is not just about their TV business. They have paid enough that Rogers has to bring its NHL product into every facet of the company, as much as is possible. It needs to help their publishing division, among others.
This is not just a move related to the Canadian fascination with hockey. Live events are arguably the best defense against Netflix, YouTube, torrents and other things unbundling cable and content. (I’m primarily a Videotron subscriber because of hockey and other live event TV.) But it’s not enough to just play defense and try to keep your subscribers by giving them hockey. Rogers needs to find a way to build products that take advantage of its NHL exclusivity and have that set a course for growth. Let’s see if the bet pays off.
4. The fourth example is well known: La Presse. They have made a bet on tablets, and on delivering rich multimeiia and content (and ads!) in their La Presse+ app. La Presse’s owners can’t wait to get rid of the print edition. There is no turning back.
4.5 TorStar has yet to reveal the full details of its bet, but it has done three things this year that signal a strategy is in place, or being developed. So I’m making them a .5 on the big bet scale.
They sold off Harlequin to pay down some debt and to have cash on hand to deploy as needed. Harlequin was a wonderful cash cow for many years, but it seems TorStar realized they need to shed non-core assets and focus on where their future is. That means its journalism business, with the Star being the king of the hill.
Then they shut down The Grid, which was losing money and apparently had no path to profitability. Again, a non-core asset.
They made changes to their Metro operation.
Now, this week, news came out that a Star editor is moving over to lead a tablet edition. I hadn’t heard about a Star tablet initiative. I'm personally very cautious about the idea of tablet editions becoming big cash cows for news orgs. But, again, at least the Star is working to bring new things to market.
They are shedding the things they can’t keep doing in order to do the things they must. I’m waiting to hear more information about what the company priorities are, and what they will bring to market. But it’s clear they are setting the stage for something. (God, at least I hope so!)
Now, there are other big players. I’m sure Bell has a strategy, but I’m not clear on it. This may be more my fault than theirs. Shaw is probably also ready to act, but I haven’t seen anything remarkable yet. Quebecor just did a big reorg of their media group, but so far the biggest thing happening at Quebecor is cuts. The Globe has a new top editor in place. What’s the plan? What else will they launch for their core business/investor audience?
What’s for sure is the bets from CBC, La Presse, Rogers, TorStar and Postmedia will result in countermoves and urgency on the part of their competitors. This is a good thing, though it will likely result in more job losses and other painful things in the short term.
The truth is some these companies will die or go bankrupt trying to decide what to do. Or they will simply cut their way to oblivion.
It’s time for the leadership at big CDN media to make their best bet and show they can execute.
Interesting times are ahead.
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Kicker uses “interesting times” in the Chinese sense of the term:
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