Witness: Ben Wood, Publisher, allBusiness Online News Group Submission to the Senate Committee on Transport & Communications. Hello Senators: I'm the publisher of a chain of online newspapers serving a growing audience of thousands of paying subscribers who enjoy our daily coverage of business and politics in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland & Labrador, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan.

I would like to propose an amendment to Bill C-18 for targeted financial support for small-to- medium news organizations, since evidence from Australia suggests a disproportionate amount of the benefits from the proposed legislation will flow to the handful of large news organizations that already dominate the domestic market. We launched allNovaScotia.com in with the belief that news is worth paying for and have grown our operations to over staff reporters and editors working in six newsrooms across the country.

Virtually all of our staff are shareholders in our company, a team that is focused on expanding our trusted brand of in-depth journalism to new Canadian markets. Our business model - providing top quality information to paying subscribers behind a hard paywall - is proving that there is a good future for in-depth, balanced journalism in this country. But I have to stress that it has been a slow process to get where we are today because we know that giving away information for free - even relatively small amounts for promotional purposes - halts most subscription growth.

Our slow and steady business model wouldn’t impress Bay Street investors, but 84% of our revenues now come from circulation, enabling us to grow our coverage every year and pay our people salaries that are fully industry-competitive. Now that is all about us; this is why I am appearing before you today. Bill C-18 is not going to be a game-changer for us because our hard paywall precludes us from posting any of our articles online. We do not give away our content - the lifeblood that sustains us. A link to a paywall will never go viral.

But the legislation will provide a shot in the arm for our competitors – big organizations like the CBC, Bell Canada and PostMedia – which post content for free and which we compete with for new hires and subscribers.

Experience with Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code suggests some smaller organizations will struggle to strike lucrative deals with large social media companies and some may be left out altogether.1 This being the case, we say smaller news organizations, including subscription-driven players like us, will be damaged by Bill C-18, unless the government ensures the continuation of some sort of level playing field.

One such option would be the continuation of the Labour Tax Credit that was introduced by the federal government in 2019, which could be instead targeted at qualifying news organizations with fewer than journalists, or perhaps capped at a certain number of journalists for each recipient organization to lower the overall cost of the program. Targeted support for small news organizations will also encourage podcasts, newsletters and other disruptive and promising business models that may not fully benefit from arrangements with large social media companies.

In our view this is critical to the new journalism Canada needs. So critical that there has to be a commitment by the government to continue this support, writing it into Bill C-18, as an integral part of the legislation. Bill C-18, if it becomes law, cannot be allowed to leave us out in the cold. Thank you for your valuable time. I am now open to questions.

Ben Wood https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/the-big-tech-companies-are-hard-to-deal-with- senator-bragg-20210602-p57xfw.html https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/may/23/rod-sims-says-facebook-should-be-forced-to- negotiate-with-sbs-under-news-media-bargaining-code