Don't Give Postmedia More Local Monopolies

Canada's three dominant newspaper chains will be reduced to only two -- one of them largely owned by U.S. hedge funds -- if the federal Competition Bureau allows Postmedia Network's proposed $316-million purchase of the Sun Media chain.

Postmedia already owns a partnership between the Vancouver Sun and Province. The deal would create four more joint publishing operations -- in Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa and Toronto -- between supposedly "competing" dailies. In three of those markets, Postmedia would own both daily newspapers and would thus dominate the market for print advertising as it has in Vancouver. (Toronto has four dailies -- the Star, Sun, Globe and Mail and Postmedia's National Post -- although the latter two are published nationally.)

Inside the $316-Million Postmedia-Quebecor Deal

Postmedia Network has struck a $316-million deal with Quebecor Media to purchase all of Sun Media's 175 English-language newspapers and digital properties.

The deal is subject to approval by the Competition Bureau, which will likely take several months. But if it goes through, it would give Postmedia a major presence in many Canadian cities -- such as Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa and Vancouver -- where it would own both the daily broadsheet and tabloid newspaper.

Postmedia-Quebecor Deal: Media Ownership Worries Are 'Beside The Point': Expert

TORONTO - Postmedia's plans to buy Quebecor's stable of English-language newspapers and websites may resurrect concerns about whether the concentration of media ownership in Canada will narrow the range of editorial voices the public relies on for information, experts say.

But some say it may be the only way to keep newspapers alive in an industry that's struggling to survive.

"What we're talking about here is one threatened company ... buying properties whose future was in doubt," said Ivor Shapiro, chair of the Ryerson School of Journalism in Toronto.

Internal memo to Harper defends CBC/Radio-Canada in spat with Quebecor

OTTAWA - The Harper government is defending the CBC in the public broadcaster's nasty spat with Quebecor over advertising dollars, an internal memo shows.

For more than two years, the president and CEO of Quebecor has claimed that CBC and its French-language arm, Radio-Canada, have boycotted the company's newspapers when choosing where to advertise its programs.

As recently as Jan. 23, Pierre Karl Peladeau suggested in a published letter that CBC may be trying to "punish" Quebecor for exercising its rights to free speech, an apparent reference to Sun Media's frequent criticisms of spending and secrecy at the public broadcaster.

Sun Media is the Quebecor unit that operates the Sun newspaper chain in major cities, as well as the Sun News channel.

"Such an attack on fundamental rights held dear by Canadians is all the more deplorable for having been conducted by a Crown corporation that is supposed to be accountable to Canadians," Peladeau wrote to Hubert Lacroix, president and CEO of CBC.

Crusade against CBC is no vendetta, Péladeau insists

Pierre Karl Péladeau reigns over an empire of scrappy tabloids and populist television channels catering to conservative meat eaters.

But the staples of the Quebecor Inc. (QBR.B-T34.04----%) chief’s news diet are Le Monde and the French CBC, media outlets that are perceived as left-leaning and are routinely attacked by his own publications.

To Mr. Péladeau, the suggestion that he is politically motivated and that Sun News is a platform for his political ideas, in essence making him Canada’s Rupert Murdoch, is offensive. Quebecor’s media properties are not vanity projects, he says, and he does not impose his tastes on his newspapers. He is concerned only with their profitability.

The media magnate insists that his crusade to force the CBC and its French-language arm Radio-Canada to release confidential data about their operations – including the salaries of Peter Mansbridge and other network stars – is not about politics or ideology. It is about taxpayer dollars, and how they impact Quebecor’s bottom line.

If Mr. Péladeau has personally taken up the cause – taking centre stage in October at a parliamentary hearing into the applicability of the federal Access to Information law to the CBC – it is because the stakes are mountain high for Quebecor.

CBC lashes out at Quebecor’s $500-million in public subsidies

The CBC is fighting back against Quebecor’s attacks on its $1-billion in annual federal funding, accusing the private broadcaster of receiving $500-million in public subsidies over the last three years without being accountable to taxpayers.

Having been accused for months of being a “money drain,” the CBC is going further than ever in a bid to defend itself, accusing Quebecor Media Inc. of using public subsidies to “make record profits.”

The CBC added that Quebecor president Pierre-Karl Péladeau has “sent over a dozen letters to the Prime Minister and others in government to complain that Radio-Canada does not spend enough money advertising in his newspapers.”

CBC officials refused to release their copies of the letters, adding their goal was simply to correct the impression that Quebecor gets nothing from the public while the CBC receives $1-billion a year in federal funding.

Quebecor publishes newspapers across Canada, runs the dominant TVA network in Quebec and has recently launched the all-news Sun TV, which is in competition with the CBC News Network.