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Being the creative type, I don’t have much of a head for business. It’s a well-known fact that the two can’t happily inhabit one body. So I spend precious little time thumbing through the financial pages. The newsprint gets my fingers all dirty.
It’ll come as no surprise, therefore, that one recent business related item slipped my notice when it transpired just before Christmas: the purchase of Alliance Atlantis by CanWest Global. Ho-hum, just another media conglomerate eats another media conglomerate story. Synergy, they call it, heightened opportunities for multi-platforming and branding, what used to be called ‘oligopolistic’ back in the day. But, like I said, I don’t have a lick of business sense, so what the hell do I know?
That’s what the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) -- the governmental agency that oversees all things to do with media -- is mandated to regulate. To make sure the letter of the law is followed with regards to ownership rules, content and other stuff that would be interesting only to pure policy wonks, not us creative types. If the CRTC declared the CanWest acquisition of Alliance Atlantis to have passed their smell test, then surely the deal couldn’t stink in any way, shape or form.
Our press certainly agreed with the ruling, declaring it to be a win-win-win-win situation for everyone concerned. The Financial Post -- the business arm of the National Post which itself is the flagship newspaper of the aforementioned CanWest Global Communications Corporation -- hailed the decision. Who am I to dispute what is surely a journalistically objective opinion, free of any conflict of interest? To my admittedly rather limited knowledge, there have never been any accusations of ownership interference or influence on CanWest’s news gatherers or opinion makers.
The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business also weighed in approvingly from its vantage as the newspaper of record for another corporation, BCE Globemedia which itself had recently engaged in a frenzy of buying and selling of various media outlets. If anyone should know about the benefits and pitfalls of these kinds of mergers and consolidations, it would be the people who work for a paper owned by a company directly involved in such proceedings. That just stands to reason.
I mean, if we can’t trust our newspapers to deliver information free of ulterior motives and/or self-interest, we’d have to admit to being pedalled mere propaganda. Propaganda is what non-democratic regimes dish out to their citizens. Since we are enlightened members of a great and healthy democracy, therefore, ipso facto, we don’t truck in the propaganda business. Again, that just stands to reason.
In case you haven’t already noticed (or read in the newspapers or watched on the television news), everybody’s concerned these days about globalization. What exactly does this mean? Having as little comprehension of business basics as I do, I can’t say for sure but all the experts who write business columns and shout out at me from the business channels say that in a global economy, you have to be big. Why? To be competitive. It’s not only simple economics but also pure rhetorical gold. By using a word like “competitive” which lacks an absolute definition, it can mean slightly different things to different people but we can all agree that it’s something we aspire towards. Who doesn’t want to be competitive? Only layabouts and socialists, that’s who, and what have they ever done to make the world a better place?
Even dunderheads like myself realize the biggest are always the smartest, the toughest, and the most likely to be voted class valedictorian. Exceptions like the dinosaurs or George Foreman’s beating by the much smaller Muhammad Ali in their Rumble in the Jungle only go to prove the rule. So, we should let -- no, encourage -- our media conglomerates to bulk up in a steroidal frenzy so that they can step out onto the international stage and do battle with foreign media giants in order to protect us from having to listen to foreign news or music or watch foreign films. From the sidelines, we’ll cheer our boys on, hoping against hope that they emerge victorious as the single conduit for entertainment and information the world over. And with one voice (fingers crossed it’s ours), there will come clarity, simplicity and a glorious golden age.
Now, I already know how you nay-sayers and cultural nationalists are going to counter this argument, and I’m quoting, “What do you mean, ‘our boys’? In order to seal the deal and buy Alliance Atlantis, the already debt-ridden CanWest had to bring in the American equity firm, Goldman Sachs which ponied up over 60% of the $2.3 billion price tag, clearly contradicting the long established 20% ownership ceiling of domestic media that foreign firms cannot exceed.” Take a deep breath, pal, and read the fine print.
Goldman Sachs may have controlling financial interest in the new company but they don’t have a voting majority. We all know that money never trumps votes in business or real life. In addition, CanWest has every intention of eventually meeting the 20% foreign ownership regulations by buying out Goldman Sachs which will walk away with some money in their pockets and the warm fuzzy feeling of having helped a little Canadian mom-and-pop media outfit get a leg up against its competition. The business plan is right there for everyone to read and business plans never ever go astray.
Besides, the CRTC is throwing another bone to all those self-interested cultural lobbyists baying for blood. It has dictated that CanWest must spend over $200 million to produce Canadian content for television over the next 7 years. Like CanWest needs to be told to do that, what with its long track record of making and promoting groundbreaking TV shows that tell Canadian stories to Canadian audiences. Right off the top of my head I can think of at least.. well.. wasn’t House created by a Canadian guy living in Los Angeles? That’s a huge hit for Global which they market tirelessly. Don’t tell me they need further incentives in that direction.
Some dead Frenchman once said (obviously before he died): free speech matters little if They own all the microphones. I don’t know who the ‘They’ is he’s referring to but I do know that the microphones have to be owned by somebody and it might as well be our somebody. So, merge on, CanWest Global and BCE Globemedia, our noble and fearless media conglomerates. Wade boldly and big-ly into the fray, safe in the knowledge that we’ve never learned anything of any use from any dead Frenchmen.
