Unlike online platforms, CHCH operates under a federal licence because we provide an essential public service delivered freely over public airwaves.
With that licence comes serious obligations.
We are bound by ethics and standards established by the Radio Television Digital News Association to ensure we tell our viewers, readers, and listeners the truth. Our advertising must be honest, we must manage vulgar or violent content appropriately, and we are required to broadcast emergency alerts.
We are also required to air a minimum number of Canadian content hours and spend a significant portion of our revenue on it. Most of CHCH’s Canadian content investment goes directly into local news. While our licence sets the floor for us at just three hours of TV news per week, we’ve produced 28 hours weekly, in addition to our podcasts, stories on chch.com, newsletters and social channels.
We dramatically exceed the prescribed levels because we believe deeply in our mission to serve our community with thoroughly researched, vetted, professional local journalism. Our news standards set us apart from social media garbage and AI slop.
This model was sustainable because advertising returns were once strong enough to support a robust business. Once.
Today, the economics of media have been co-opted by foreign attention-miners focused on maximizing your screen time rather than informing you. CHCH now competes with these massive foreign tech platforms for local attention while remaining bound by our regulatory obligations. Those platforms face no such obligations. Meta has no requirement to ensure what’s on Facebook or Instagram is true, fake videos abound on TikTok and YouTube and foreign streaming services have no mandate to fund or feature Canadian stories.
Meanwhile, Meta, Google, and Amazon capture more than 75 per cent of digital ad dollars in Canada while stealing our content to train their AI models. CRTC data shows that since 2018, ad revenues for private Canadian TV broadcasters like CHCH have fallen 25 per cent, a loss of nearly $400 million across the industry.
To address these massive imbalances, the Canadian government passed the Online Streaming Act and the Online News Act. The CRTC established frameworks requiring foreign platforms to contribute a small portion of their Canadian revenues to Canadian content, including news, albeit at a far lower level than Canadian broadcasters.
Under the Online News Act, Google contributes $100 million annually to Canadian local news, from which CHCH receives about $460,000. Meta chose to block news links on its platforms altogether to dodge its obligations.
In June, however, Prime Minister Mark Carney instructed the CRTC to rethink key policies following American trade pressure, setting aside what the commission had decided to do with the Online Streaming Act, raising concerns across the industry that federal support under the Online News Act could also be rolled back.
Compounding these challenges, the CRTC expanded access to the Independent Local News Fund (ILNF) in 2025 to include Corus Entertainment’s 15 local stations. The fund, financed by a 0.3 per cent contribution from traditional TV subscription bills, is meant to support independent local stations.
CHCH previously received more than $2 million annually from the ILNF to produce local news. That funding has been cut by 45 per cent because additional stations were added without expanding the fund’s overall budget. The impact is being felt industry-wide: Thunder Bay’s TBayTV eliminated its weekend newscasts earlier this year, and Pattison Media and Stingray closed three local stations combined.
CHCH has absorbed these shifts as long as possible, but continuous revenue reductions require structural changes. While the federal government announced $600 million in media support, the timeline and allocation details for stations like CHCH remain unclear.
We do not seek ongoing taxpayer subsidies. Foreign platforms extracting hundreds of millions of dollars from the Canadian market should contribute to funding Canadian news and culture, just as local broadcasters do.
As the federal government navigates trade and cultural policy, it must ensure foreign streaming entities support the local news ecosystem they benefit from.
We are hopeful now that the federal government has shut down negotiations that it will reset its thinking on the Online Streaming Act, let the CRTC complete its work and force the foreign giants to contribute.
But in the immediate term, financial realities require us to cut operating expenses. Effective immediately, our “Saturday Evening News” at 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. has been cancelled. In its place, we will air our podcasts from 6 to 7 p.m. and 11 to 11:30 p.m. Local news, sports, and weather updates will continue to stream on the screen ticker throughout the broadcast.
Our journalists will continue gathering news on Saturday for chch.com and for our Sunday show. “The Evening News” will continue broadcasting Sunday through Friday, “Morning Live” will maintain its regular schedule and “Trending Now” will return in October as planned.
We recognize the impact this change has on those who rely on our Saturday broadcasts and we are so grateful to our viewers, readers and listeners for sticking with us. For more information or to share your feedback with us, please visit chch.com/protectyourlocalnews.
