Canada Imposes 5% Tax on Streaming to Fund Local News, Diverse Content

Re:Canada Imposes 5% Tax on Streaming to Fund Local News, Di... by nequo on Thursday June 13, 2024 @10:01AM (#40669766)

This idea is not new nor uniquely Canadian. The purpose of all public media is to make programming and reporting possible that is seen as socially valuable but an advertising/click/like-driven business model cannot sustain.

The money for it needs to be diverted from somewhere. The UK has had TV licensing to fund the BBC:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_Un...

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Re:Canada Imposes 5% Tax on Streaming to Fund Local News, Di... by dmix on Thursday June 13, 2024 @10:38AM (#40670268)

That's great, almost no one is going to watch it still if they weren't already before. There's tons of existing subsidies that already at every level of gov.

This isn't the 90s when they could force feed us bad Canadian produced TV shows on Canadian TV channels. Netflix gives people the choice of global content now and there's more opportunity and money floating around for young up and coming filmmakers than ever before.

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Re:Canada Imposes 5% Tax on Streaming to Fund Local News, Di... by andrepd on Thursday June 13, 2024 @06:36PM (#40675634)

Perfect, you have the choice of 1000s of bland AI-written slop and no local (or even national) independent press. Peachy.

There is such a thing as a public good outside of the logic of The Market.

[ Parent | on HN ]