Newspaper publishers see revenues nosedive, despite government subsidies

Despite raking in massive government subsidies, Canada’s newspaper industry is still in freefall, with revenues collapsing by almost 20% last year compared to 2022.

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Despite raking in massive government subsidies, Canada’s newspaper industry is still in freefall, with revenues collapsing by almost 20% last year compared to 2022.

Canadian newspaper publishers’ operating revenue fell to $1.6 billion in 2024, a drop of almost one-fifth (17.9 per cent) from 2022, when the Survey of Service Industries: Newspaper Publishers was last conducted, according to Statistics Canada.

This decline appears to be accelerating, compared with the 7.3 per cent decrease in operating revenue from 2020 to 2022.

Advertising sales, which generate the bulk of income for newspapers, also dropped, plummeting 26.1 per cent last year compared with 2022, marking a revenue loss of $722.8 million in 2024.

These declines were observed in both print and digital advertising sales.

“From 2022 to 2024, print advertising sales declined by just over one-third (-34.3 per cent) to $407.7 million. Meanwhile, digital advertising sales, which had been a source of growth for the industry over much of the previous 10 years, declined 11.9% to $315.1 million,” reads the Statistics Canada data.

“Circulation sales declined 7.6% to $541.1 million in 2024, compared with 2022. While digital circulation sales increased 4.0% from 2022 to 2024, print circulation sales fell $49.9 million, driven by an 11.0% decline in print circulation sales for daily newspapers.”

Many publishers cut operating expenditures to mitigate their losses, with operating costs seeing an overall cut of 19.1 per cent from 2022 to 2024.

These cuts slightly outpaced the rate at which operating revenue decreased, resulting in a marginal increase in the industry’s operating profit margin, up from 1.9 per cent in 2022 to 3.2 per cent in 2024.

“From 2022 to 2024, newspaper publishers cut spending on salaries, wages, commissions and benefits by 17.6 per cent, reducing this expenditure to $655.7 million; this figure represents 42 per cent of the industry’s total spending,” the report said.

Additionally, a number of publishers reduced their print operations, with some adopting entirely digital models.

Meanwhile, news outlets have received millions in funding from the Canadian Journalism Collective, which distributed a total of $1,799,241 to 36 news companies earlier this year.

After Google was ordered to pay news outlets under the Liberal government’s legacy media subsidy program, Corus Entertainment, the company behind Global News, received nearly $1.8 million.

The previous round of funding saw 79 news businesses receive $8,755,818 in funds from Google.

This included legacy media organizations like Rogers Media, receiving $2,107,002; French outlet Le Devoir with $824,591; Cogeco with $428,140; and Quebecor brands MédiaQMI and NumériQ with $1,057,913 and $551,185 respectively.

Pagemasters North America, a subsidiary of The Canadian Press, received $523,933, while APTN received $216,749 and CPAC received $245,006.

Any outlet that meets the government’s distinction as a qualified Canadian journalism organization is eligible for the program upon application.

Since the fund’s inception, the collective has dispensed $48,338,987 to 245 media organizations.

In the weeks that the media fund has been dispersing funds, the collective’s biggest beneficiary was the CBC, being paid over $6.8 million. Bell Media became the second-largest beneficiary, receiving $5.2 million.

Meanwhile, most Canadians do not support government funding for media, and additional subsidies have failed to restore trust in the industry.

A poll conducted by Public Square Research aimed to gauge the public’s trust in different types of Canadian news media and views on government subsidization of the industry.

It found that 70 per cent of Canadians did not support government subsidies for the salaries of private news organizations.