The Buggles released the hit single Video Killed the Radio Star nearly 45 years ago. The song bemoaned the end of radio-based stardom for musicians as music videos hit the scene. It's approaching half a century since the song came out and music-based radio stations are only just now starting to fade away. It’s streaming music options such as Spotify that led to the change rather than music videos and the stars aren’t gone. They have just moved on to new platforms. Even if every radio station was to shut down tomorrow, Taylor Swift would remain a household name and would pack stadiums for her shows.Musicians in the early 1980s who weren’t willing to embrace videos were often left behind. Especially once MTV became huge. Artists willing to change with the times found videos provided a whole new platform to reach audiences and make money. Video served them well.Every technological change brings out people claiming it will wipe out jobs or destroy an industry. While tech-inspired transitions can be disruptive, markets, products and industries evolve and jobs remain for those willing to do things differently. I used to work as a surveyor in oil exploration and had been trained in using a transit. GPS made that mode of surveying obsolete quickly and I had the choice to adapt or lose my job. I adapted.Mechanized agricultural practices put millions of farm labourers out of work. The Joad family depicted in Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath was initially displaced by new tractors working the cotton fields. While new agricultural technology caused a lot of social and economic upheaval for a time, should governments have tried to block the evolution or subsidized people to continue to plant and harvest crops by hand?Technological advances have increased agricultural production to the point where famine is rare in a world with eight billion souls on it. The evolution caused pain but was worthwhile in the long run and labour balanced itself as people embraced new skills.Stage performers feared moving pictures would wipe out their industry. Broadway is still going strong today. Movie stars feared television would wipe out their industry. Movies and the stars associated with them are still doing quite fine. Artists willing to flex were provided with a broader spectrum of performance platforms.Netflix began as a movie rental company that delivered DVDs and changed to a streaming service later. Blockbuster stuck to its roots as a movie rental company. Blockbuster went from an industry giant to oblivion while Netflix became a company worth an estimated $240 billion today.Changes can hurt and the transition periods can be messy, but change is inevitable. People need to adapt to change rather than try to fight it or worse; get the government to fight the change on their behalf.This brings us to the state of today’s news media.Conventional news media has been in a state of steady decline for nearly twenty years now. The collapse of the industry has been accelerating and the recent spate of layoffs in Canada by CTV drove that point home.Instead of seeking rational ways to facilitate the transition of an industry in flux, Prime Minister Trudeau had an absolute temper tantrum during a news conference where he indignantly declared, “I’m pissed off!” How long does Trudeau expect a business to continue without a viable business model? Of course, it is a bit much to expect Trudeau to understand even the most basic of business or economic principles. If he hasn’t caught a glimmer of sense on those issues by now, he isn’t going to.Trudeau’s government has been pumping incentives and direct subsidies into legacy media outlets for years. Ostensibly, it’s to save an industry deemed too important to fail. In reality, Trudeau is more motivated in buying the love of media for his embattled regime.While many in legacy media have indeed been giving Trudeau a pass as they focus on holding the leader of the official opposition to account, they still can’t afford to operate under their outdated models. The layoffs and closures will continue.If anything, Trudeau’s handouts to media outlets have made things worse for them. Legacy media outlets quickly became dependent upon subsidies rather than looking at ways to adapt to changing times. Trudeau’s failed cash grab upon social media giants such as Facebook not only failed to garner funds, but it took away a means of drawing traffic to media sites causing them all, large and small to lose revenue. Outlets counting on cheques from Facebook suddenly realized the money isn’t coming and began cutting.Print newspapers are never coming back. People aren’t paying for classified ads again and families no longer gather around the TV to watch the evening news. The market isn’t gone, but it is diluted as people have so many new means to seek entertainment and information.We just don’t need some of the services news outlets are trying to provide. I can find the weather forecast for my area or anywhere else in the world within seconds on my phone. Why are TV stations still bothering with staff meteorologists? I can go directly to websites to find information I used to have to get from newspapers and broadcast outlets.People still want to read, view and listen to news and opinion. They are willing to spend money to do so as the Western Standard’s subscription model has proven. .Outlets need to be lean, targetted and efficient now though. No more giant buildings, large studios and printing presses. As with every other industry, the news media will adapt to a working model though many outlets will fall by the wayside during the transition.Subsidizing existing outlets is doing little more than animating a corpse at this point. As with most things, all the government needs to do with media is to get out of the bloody way. It will take care of itself. That is unfortunately contrary to the authoritarian nature of the Trudeau regime. Let’s hope the next administration knows how to back off.
