Business
Retail Industry Slashed by Covid-19
How malls and stores across our city are taking measures to flatten the curve
Since The City of Calgary declared a state of emergency on Sunday March 15th, almost
every sector has been affected. This order brought immediate closures to all city owned
recreational facilities, the public library and any YMCA facilities including the Repsol
Centre sports complex.
Following this declaration, franchises and stores across our city have seen temporary
closures to combat any further spread of the virus. We can assume all of us are aware
of the major detriment this will have on our economy. Not often is there a communal
thought given to those who have welcomed our money for products or services.
The country wide chain of malls, Cadillac Fairview has reported to reduce their opening
hours and drastically improve cleaning. If we keep in mind that Cadillac Fairview owns
over 70 malls in 9 provinces, safe to say they will be hit hard. This is to say that tenants
are the ones to be hit the hardest.
How many times have you said the word “Social Distancing” in the last few weeks. This
comes to those as tenants or stand alone businesses in our city being directly affected.
Apple reports: “We will be closing all of our retail stores outside of Greater China until
March 27”
The Hudson’s Bay company stated on facebook that they are temporarily closing all
stores nationwide. Also stating “stores will remain closed for two weeks, and reopening
will be assessed at that time. We will continue to serve customers through thebay.com”.
A letter from the CEO of the Canadian Tire Corporation stated: “To encourage social
distancing, we are limiting the hours of operation at certain banners, such as at our
Mark’s and SportChek stores. Please visit their websites, or check with your local store,
for updated hours of operation. At this time, we plan to maintain standard hours at
Canadian Tire stores, allowing us to continue providing the essentials that Canadians
need”
Cineplex Inc. reports “it will be temporarily closing its network of theatres and
location-based entertainment venues across Canada starting March 16, 2020, through
to April 2, 2020”. You can read the full press release here – Press Release.
You may be concerned about what this means for grocery stores. We have all seen
photos and videos of empty shelves across multiple chains, but what are they doing to
drive down the chance of contracting the virus? Check out what Calgary Co-Op is doing
to proactively care for their customers – Calgary Co-Op Covid-19 Measures.
As some may not be aware of what is happening across the globe, one thing that struck
home for St. Patrick’s day. Every bar across the country of Ireland is closed for two
weeks, which has never happened in the history of the country. Those poor souls.
It is clear that there is a trend for other retailers following suit. There is no way to know
how the economy will be hit at this time. Sure to say that those panic buying and
stockpiling toilet paper may be ahead of the curve, but the severity of the issue will
continue to play out in the coming weeks.
A lot of us will be fearful of their own health and safety in a time like this. The best way
to keep yourself up to date on information is to follow updates from the World Health
Organisation. Another trusted source for those curious about where our province lies in
the spectrum of outbreak, Alberta Health Services will be reporting all new findings in
the province. They have created an online screening section of their website for those
who feel that may be under the weather. You can find the self screening application
here – Covid-19 Self Assessment.
Click here for more stories from Todayville Calgary.
Business
CBC’s business model is trapped in a very dark place
I Testified Before a Senate Committee About the CBC
I recently testified before the Senate Committee for Transport and Communications. You can view that session here. Even though the official topic was CBC’s local programming in Ontario, everyone quickly shifted the discussion to CBC’s big-picture problems and how their existential struggles were urgent and immediate. The idea that deep and fundamental changes within the corporation were unavoidable seemed to enjoy complete agreement.
I’ll use this post as background to some of the points I raised during the hearing.
You might recall how my recent post on CBC funding described a corporation shedding audience share like dandruff while spending hundreds of millions of dollars producing drama and comedy programming few Canadians consume. There are so few viewers left that I suspect they’re now identified by first name rather than as a percentage of the population.
Since then I’ve learned a lot more about CBC performance and about the broadcast industry in general.
For instance, it’ll surprise exactly no one to learn that fewer Canadians get their audio from traditional radio broadcasters. But how steep is the decline? According to the CRTC’s Annual Highlights of the Broadcasting Sector 2022-2023, since 2015, “hours spent listening to traditional broadcasting has decreased at a CAGR of 4.8 percent”. CAGR, by the way, stands for compound annual growth rate.
Dropping 4.8 percent each year means audience numbers aren’t just “falling”; they’re not even “falling off the edge of a cliff”; they’re already close enough to the bottom of the cliff to smell the trees. Looking for context? Between English and French-language radio, the CBC spends around $240 million each year.
Those listeners aren’t just disappearing without a trace. the CRTC also tells us that Canadians are increasingly migrating to Digital Media Broadcasting Units (DMBUs) – with numbers growing by more than nine percent annually since 2015.
The CBC’s problem here is that they’re not a serious player in the DMBU world, so they’re simply losing digital listeners. For example, of the top 200 Spotify podcasts ranked by popularity in Canada, only four are from the CBC.
Another interesting data point I ran into related to that billion dollar plus annual parliamentary allocation CBC enjoys. It turns out that that’s not the whole story. You may recall how the government added another $42 million in their most recent budget.
But wait! That’s not all! Between CBC and SRC, the Canada Media Fund (CMF) ponied up another $97 million for fiscal 2023-2024 to cover specific programming production budgets.
Technically, Canada Media Fund grants target individual projects planned by independent production companies. But those projects are usually associated with the “envelope” of one of the big broadcasters – of which CBC is by far the largest. 2023-2024 CMF funding totaled $786 million, and CBC’s take was nearly double that of their nearest competitor (Bell).
But there’s more! Back in 2016, the federal budget included an extra $150 million each year as a “new investment in Canadian arts and culture”. It’s entirely possible that no one turned off the tap and that extra government cheque is still showing up each year in the CBC’s mailbox. There was also a $93 million item for infrastructure and technological upgrades back in the 2017-2018 fiscal year. Who knows whether that one wasn’t also carried over.
So CBC’s share of government funding keeps growing while its share of Canadian media consumers shrinks. How do you suppose that’ll end?
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ESG
Can’t afford Rent? Groceries for your kids? Trudeau says suck it up and pay the tax!
Watch Canada’s Prime Minister tell an anti-poverty group, your ability to buy “groceries for my kids” is less important than sacrificing to pay his carbon tax.
In case you still thought there might be even the tiniest chance Justin Trudeau might come around.. well this settles it. He is as they say, ‘beyond the pale’.
Sure we’ve pieced this together over the last number of years, but it’s still SHOCKING to see him say it directly, proclaim it proudly. This week Trudeau received applause from an audience of the intellectually suffering at something called the “Global Citizen Now” panel discussion on the sidelines of the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Rio.
Much appreciation for the first short video below to Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre who shared his ferocious reaction to Trudeau’s anti-human comments, challenging the current PM to call an immediate election.
Or course there will be no quick election call. To Justin, it’s more important to cling to the undercarriage of a taxpayer funded jet so he can fly the globe stunning audiences unfortunately already stunned by their utter terror of losing the planet.
In their horror at their inability to turn the switch off and let us all freeze/starve to death this winter, they applaud lovingly for their intellectual leader/sock model as he describes how hard it is to convince angry, hungry people they really need to suck it up.
If only he read a history book.. any history book.. apologies, any book at all. Truly even spending some time with the literary version of an Al Gore video rant would at lest keep JT occupied so he couldn’t speak for a few moments. I’m pretty sure every time he opens his mouth, the temperature in Canada rises as millions of frustrated hotheads (hello there) explode, spewing steam high up into the upper atmosphere where water particles do much more damage to our planet than the final exhaling of a non grocery-eating-planet-loving-Canadian.
Watch Pierre Poilievre’s video and assuage the ensuing headache by mapping out your route to a polling booth. If this doesn’t sell a couple of those ‘Axe the Tax’ shirts for the Poilievre team, well.. enjoy your stroll to the foodbank.
Here’s a link to his entire discussion. If you have a strong stomach and 20 minutes of your life to donate to a higher cause… No silly, not the intended cause of the anti-poverty group… But to the intellectual cause of understanding just how twisted the logic has become for those who fly around the world to wine and dine, only to break long enough to tell us they think it’s perfectly fine if we can’t buy groceries for our kids.
By the way, please save a bit of your shock and disappointment for the hapless host of the ‘anti-poverty’ Global Citizen. This was apparently on the sidelines of a G20 Summit. I would expect this drivel to be called out at a respectable middle school debate. Apparently the ‘anti-poverty’ Global Citizen people aren’t overly concerned with poverty. Do we need to say that not being able to afford groceries is in fact THE definition of poverty? Or course not. It would be much easier for them to change their name to Former Global Citizens.
You were warned.
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