It’s like a cancer that ends up metastasizing everywhere. At the beginning, more or less alarming signs force you to take action. The media organization as a whole adapts, compensates, makes cuts here and there, finds subsidies when it can. Or lose your footing. Métro Média has fallen by the wayside. TVA mutilates itself.
Advertising has been migrating to the Web for a while now and the public has been fragmenting accordingly. Gone are the days when the family television brought the little family into the living room. Everyone finds themselves glued to their own screen in front of the entertainment that drives them, the opinion that ignites them. At home, the common core is fraying, conversations become dialogues of the deaf. The influence of American platforms is strengthening, all generations combined, in defiance of national or local culture. Disinformation rushes into conquered territory. The individual evolves in his own bubble, to the detriment of collective interests. Hence his rage. We see it in class. So many children explode at the slightest annoyance in front of already overworked teachers. On social networks as on the cow floor, adults insult each other. Their offspring bathes there. The school loses authority. She screams “help!” »
Internationally, the images on the news are set ablaze in the rain of iron, fire, steel and blood that Jacques Prévert depicted in Barbara. Some people, unable to bear the ravages of war and climate change, cut themselves off from the world, which will catch up with them soon enough. News buffs are dying of ink. Where is the planet going? And Quebec in there?
Although we may cry out against Justin Trudeau’s excesses, what would become of culture and the media under the Conservative government whose victory is looming on the horizon in 2025? CBC is in Pierre Poilievre’s sights, Radio-Canada will lose its feathers. And help for the media is a long time coming. The leader of the Conservative Party also defends the Web giants who strangle at will the content of a press that reflects society. Even if fragile agreements were signed under the Liberals between Ottawa and American megaplatforms, to ensure national royalties, would these achievements be maintained under a far-right government?
The media crisis is fueled by a social, ethical, cultural, political and visionary crisis. Newspapers are looking for their marks as much as TV, without any more invigorating imagination. How can we catch up with a readership that is changing and vibrating elsewhere? In the cultural field, many are taking populist turns, “peopolizing” their content, focusing on “star” productions. In the midst of a race for clicks, less salesy topics become suspect. Sharper art falters. Essential yet in all its fibers. Like French being undermined by galloping globalization. And here is artificial intelligence making its way into press rooms. Other changes in sight. In what tone should you inform? Should we flatter the public’s tastes to better seduce them or lead them elsewhere?
When the head of TVA announced that he was cutting 547 positions, ceasing his in-house productions in favor of external sources and preparing to overhaul the information sector, all the media felt a cold wind blowing at their backs. These radical cuts, even caused in part by errors by the Quebecor empire, do not fall from the sky. They follow a general movement that has already begun and predict its acceleration.
When TVA stumbles, it is a popular culture that fades with actors and hosts with whom the general public identifies. At Montreal Journal, many voices rightly criticize Radio-Canada, which pockets both advertising revenue and federal subsidies. Especially since state TV, in its variety program, broadcasts many salads with the same taste as in the private sector.
However, the public broadcaster also produces quality broadcasts. We do not want it to find itself in a monopoly situation, while hoping for its long-term survival. Because with an announced cut of 100 million in the next budget for the CBC/SRC, the company will have to face the music soon. All the old models hit a wall. What do we want as a society? Accept digital yokes from elsewhere without rebelling? The weakened media are the reflection of misguided people. Let us therefore fight for their diversity by inviting them to put their imagination to power, like everyone deep down. Do they not carry our fragile collective identity on their rickety stilts?