Canadian Press is news cooperative no more; bought by three major media companies

Long a cooperative news agency, Canadian Press has now after 93 years been effectively turned into a for-profit business.
Torstar Corp., the Globe and Mail and the publishers of La Presse (Square Victoria Communications Group) have capitalized Canadian Press Enterprises Inc. which takes over the entire operations of the service. 

This is not a surprise, since the troubled institution announced a year ago that it was going to change it business model, a decision ratified by its membership. The principal problem for CP was a $35 million shortfall in meeting its pension obligations to employees and retirees. It required dispensation from the tax authorities to negotiate a way out of this shortfall. The co-op's problems were exacerbated by the exit of two of its biggest stakeholders -- CanWest Global Communications Corp. which started its own news service, Postmedia and Quebecor Media Inc's Sun Media -- and the consequent substantial loss of membership revenue. According to a story in the Globe and Mail

“CP is a very important national institution,” The Globe’s publisher and chief executive officer Phillip Crawley said Friday. “The government was right to recognize that this needed special support.

The co-operative’s board will now be replaced by a board consisting of two representatives for each of the new owners; including Mr. Crawley, Toronto Star publisher John Cruickshank, and Guy Crevier, president of Gesca and president and publisher of La Presse. The new board will have its first meeting on Monday.

Working together as an ownership team guarantees that CP will be able to continue its tradition of delivering quality content across Canada in the years ahead,” Mr. Crevier said in a statement.

Canadian Press was established in 1917 to be a national exchange for news and information from and to its members who owned it. It was the principal conduit for news from south of the border, from Canadian Press's equivalent the Associated Press. In its early days, the service was subsidized by the government. It created a subsidiary called Broadcast News to deliver information, newscasts and audio to radio and television. And in 1951, it launched a French service. 

CP has one of the largest archives of, now historical, news pictures and was the arbiter of written "CP style" through its ubiquitous Stylebook and Caps and Spelling book.

Canadian Press, a 93-year-old co-op, is to be privatized by its three biggest members

In what is being presented publicly as a victory, but is really a defeat, Canadian Press is now being privatized by its biggest stakeholders. Torstar, CTV Globemedia and Gesca Ltee (owners respectively of the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail and La Presse) have agreed to become equal partners in a for-profit entity to be called Canadian Press Enterprises, according to a story in the Globe. 

With this outcome, largely driven by the defection of the bankrupt CanWest Media in mid-2007 and Sun Media in March 2009, comes to an end a noble and important venture as the not-for-profit co-op has apparently proved unsustainable. 
It essentially closes a barn door through which the cows have long since exited and may provide a solution to a problem, but is less and less relevant in the age of shrinking news holes and struggling print. It's not a unique situation -- the AP in the U.S. (which syndicates CP copy, and vice-versa) -- is in turmoil, too. This privatization decision is of marginal importance to magazines, granted. But it is lamentable for everyone who values collaborative news-sharing in this country. RIP CP.

Two examples of how playing well with others seems to be an endangered concept

I've never made any secret of my belief in collaboration in the magazine industry; or in my belief that cooperation makes good sense, financially and in terms of the greatest good for the greatest number. Now, in one day, we have two object lessons in short-sighted thinking in other media to remind us (if a reminder is necessary) of the virtues of togetherness: the announcement that Sun Media Corp. is pulling out of Canadian Press; and the announcement that the Canadian Association of Broadcasters is going to shut down.

The Sun decision, as reported in the Ottawa Citizen, was driven by the penny-pinching ways of its parent Quebecor Media Inc., and was not unexpected. But regardless of whether the decision will save "millions" (as the parent claims) by creating its own news-sharing system, it can only be another blow to quality news delivery. We already have the example of CanWest, which did the same, and CanWest News Services has never lived up to the expectation of its masters in terms of delivering top quality information to readers. Quebecor apparently believes that cooperation is a mug's game.

The CAB decision is the outcome of apparently irreconcilable differences between the broadcasting and cable television portions of their membership. It is the latest fallout from the push by big broadcasters like CTV and CanWest to obtain "fee for carriage", a charge to cable companies to carry their over-the-air television signals. What had been for many years a forum for developing a unified voice and message on behalf of all broadcasters  has now simply fallen apart. Again, short-term thinking in which, having allowed the industry to blow apart, the various parts will now have to find ways to create some new structures within which they can ally to defend their own interests. An unnecessary waste of time and energy that could have been avoided.

Both decisions give a new dimension to the definition of a cynic as someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Not to be too self-congratulatory, but the magazine business has been steadily moving in the opposite direction, towards a more collaborative approach. The merger a few years ago of Magazines Canada and the Canadian Magazine Publishers Association into a reconstituted Magazines Canada is but one example, as well as the closer cooperation between various industry groups -- including the Canadian Business Press and Magazines Canada -- in a large, annual conference. And the close collaboration between the two large industry awards programs -- the consumer-oriented National Magazine Awards and the trade pubs' annual Kenneth R. Wilson Awards. It seems that the magazine industry not only accepts the "big tent" approach, but is working actively to nurture and grow it. Which is something worth celebrating on a day when other media industries seem to have forgotten how to play nice together.