Radio-Canada refuses to commit to stopping buying ads on Facebook and Instagram, Quebecor and Cogeco announced this morning.
• Also read: Ottawa is suspending the purchase of ads on Meta
• Also read: News Blocking: Quebecor and Cogeco stop advertising on Meta
“We are closely monitoring this situation and are currently considering possible options,” Leon Mar, Radio-Canada’s institutional spokesman, responded when asked by Le Journal if the state-owned company would also stop buying ads on Facebook. -Instagram.
“For reasons of competition law, we are not allowed to pass on this information,” it said.
Earlier in the day, Radio-Canada’s director general of information, Luce Julien, said that “Google and Meta must drop their threat to block access to Canadian media news.”
“Meta had sales of US$118 billion (CAN$156 billion) in 2021. Google recorded $209 billion (CAN$276 billion) in advertising revenue that same year,” she said. underline.
If we rely on the 2021-2022 Annual Report, remember that Radio-Canada had $1.1 billion in public funding for its operations.
- Listen to Alexandre Dubé’s interview with Jean-Hugues Roy, Professor at the University of Quebec’s School of Media in Montreal QUB radio :
Ottawa is on the move
In protest against threats from Facebook and Instagram, the federal government announced on Wednesday afternoon that it was suspending ad buying from Meta, which wants to block journalistic content as soon as the Online News Act comes into force.
On Wednesday morning, Quebecor and Cogeco got the ball rolling by taking turns announcing that they would stop buying ads on Facebook and Instagram, almost a week after banning journalistic news on meta-platforms.
“Quebecor also encourages corporations, governments and institutions to express to Meta their rejection of this utter affront to public policy and the news media by making consistent ad placement decisions,” said Pierre Karl Péladeau, CEO of Quebecor, owner of the Journal de Montréal and the Journal de Québec.
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