Global News parent company Corus Entertainment is requesting the Canadian government provide direct cash grants to subsidize employee pay, according to Blacklock’s Reporter. .“Unlike other Canadian news and broadcast content, Canadian broadcast news is not entitled to ongoing, direct financial support from the federal government,” said Corus managers in a submission to the House of Commons Finance Committee. .“Corus urges the federal government to redress this inequity.”.Corus said it was seeking 25% payroll rebates..Parliament amended the Income Tax Act in 2019 to provide 25% payroll rebates to a maximum $13,750 per employee in newsrooms that applied for media subsidies and were approved by the revenue minister. The $595 million media bailout exempted TV and radio stations..Corus managers said the exclusion has never been explained. While support for print journalists is praiseworthy, they said it “remains unclear why Canadian broadcast journalists should be entitled to any less support.”.“Respectfully we are unaware of any evidence-based rationale for this policy inequity,” they said. .The request follows testimony by Corus Executive Vice-President Troy Reeb at the Senate Communications Committee in September, who said Global News was struggling. Global’s latest annual report detailed a 38% profit margin in television and 15% in radio..Reeb said its ability “to provide local, fact-based news in large parts of the country, in small markets, in places like the English-language minority community in Montreal, it all teeters on the brink.”.Private TV broadcasters since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic received $103.6 million in direct cash grants, including federal wage subsidies, according to an August Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission report. Regulators waived $36.5 million in mandatory industry licensing fees..“It’s a money losing business in television that is subsidized by entertainment programming,” said Reeb. .“It’s those cross-subsidies that can no longer be provided to news and we can only carry so many burdens.”.Global might be losing more money after Canadian Armed Forces veteran James Topp served a notice of libel against it, Corus, and reporter Rachel Gilmore in September for an article implying he is a white supremacist. .READ MORE: James Topp serves libel notice against Global News."We are publicizing this development to mitigate against the reputational harm Mr. Topp sustained by being called a white supremacist on the internet," said his team. .The notice of libel claims Topp, who marched across Canada to protest against vaccine mandates, was harmed by the Global News article: ‘Good PR': Why anti-hate experts are urging politicians to step up vetting practices.
