Mainstream Media Does Something Smart – Joins Amazon Prime

In a stunning move, the mainstream media actually did something intelligent by adding their offerings to Amazon Prime subscribers.

For many years now, mainstream media seemed to be doing pretty much anything and everything to undermine themselves. Whether that is continuing to push link taxes that has already resulted in them getting kicked off of Meta, constantly demonizing and ignoring whole generations of people younger than baby boomers, a nonstop effort to relentlessly sanewash Trump to appease an audience that they can never win over while turning off the viewers that they do have in the process, declaring war on free speech, or just attacking the internet in general, they’ve done quite a lot to ensure that as few people as possible will ever trust them and consume their content.

Indeed, cozying up to the very people who want to destroy you has never been a good strategy. In fact, some journalists are so out of touch that they decide that they should also be insulting their audiences intelligence by assuming that people don’t know what a journalist is. This as more and more outlets seem to get the insane idea that the only business strategy is to wall off their content behind paywalls and registration walls on top of it all. Really, you could end the series of dumb moves by mainstream media over the last few years by saying, “the Aristocrats!”

So, you can imagine my surprise when the mainstream media did something that wasn’t completely boneheaded. Even more uncharacteristically, it was actually a smart move which is certainly a nice change. Multiple outlets have apparently signed deals to start offering their live newscasts on Amazon Prime. From Mobile Syrup:

CBC/Radio-Canada have launched their all-news channels, CBC News Network and ICI RDI, on Prime Video in Canada.

This means Prime members can now get 24/7 live, breaking news coverage from CBC/Radio-Canada in English and French. You can subscribe to them as Prime Video Channels for $4.99/month each, with a seven-day free trial.

CBC News Network and ICI RDI join an ever-growing list of Prime Video Channels that includes Apple TV, Crave, Paramount+, StackTV, Starz, BritBox, and Citytv+.

This is, honestly, a good move as far as I can tell. Right now, the role of a lot of mainstream media has diminished significantly thanks to numerous mistakes along the way. Rather than look at the internet as an opportunity, mainstream media has spend many years fighting it like it’s a massive threat to their models. As a result, their visibility has gradually diminished over the years as people tune out or otherwise cut the cord as they don’t see value in the overpriced TV packages due to all the garbage programming. As many have said repeatedly over the years, you get over 100 channels, but you have nothing good to watch. The decline in quality in mainstream media news has been particularly notable over the last several years now.

One way you can combat that is by increasing your visibility again. Simply put, be where your audiences are. When your audience is on the internet, maybe it’s a good idea to be on the internet. I know, for a multi million dollar corporation, this is pretty mind blowing stuff.

Now, specifically for the CBC, whether or not this move is related to the recent revision of their notorious anti-internet ad where the ad no longer features anti-internet messaging remains unclear, but it would actually make sense that this is at least partly related if it was.

I know there will be some people out there who will not think of this as a good move. The argument I can see being made against this is that it gives “Big Tech” more power by putting your product on their services. Under the circumstances that we are in now, I disagree with that notion. I’ll explain why.

I’ve advocated for years that all of the major news channels should come together and create an open Canadian platform to feature Canadian content. This while allowing small Canadian creators to be part of this massive media platform as well. All of this under a reasonable subscription fee or perhaps allowing for advertising and waiving the fee entirely. This would give original Canadian programming a chance to compete on the world stage while having a platform to nationally call our own. The problem is that such an idea was a sensible one, so naturally, it was ignored completely.

Instead, mainstream media decided to copy the mistakes of the US TV networks and individually create their own streaming platforms. This for the reasons of greed more than anything else. As a result, you have numerous platforms like CBC Gem’s premium services, Crave, Sportsnet+, StackTV, CityTV+, and a whole bunch of others. Much like the American streaming platforms that proved to be unprofitable, Canadians are being asked to pay a subscription for most of these platforms individually. Thanks to the rampant poverty across the country, this was always going to be an impossible ask. As a result, Canadians found themselves, at most, picking and choosing which platforms because they can’t afford all of the subscription fees combined. Splitting all of that content up into the separate TV channel offerings was obviously a mistake, but a mistake that went ignored for years as the mainstream media collectively continued to wonder why their streaming platforms weren’t taking off like they thought they would.

At this point, the sensible solution of combining all of that content under one roof in Canada is not going to happen. So, what is the next best thing at this point? Go to a major platform that has already built up their audiences and put your offerings on those services. This way, the mainstream media can at least get some cash out of the deal. Is it ideal? No. Is it the most sensible solution at this stage? Absolutely.

For those of you who have followed me all the way back to at least the ZeroPaid days, a lot about this story is a very familiar one. In short, there is precedence for such a move.

Throughout the 2000s, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) had their own war on the internet. Music, movies, and TV started popping up on file-sharing networks. In response, the two organizations along with the Business Software Alliance (BSA) fought against the internet tooth and nail. People like myself argued from the very beginning that they need to change their business models because the internet has fundamentally changed the way people see content. This was met with outright refusal and the organizations launched massive litigation campaigns against their own customers, demanding hundreds of millions of dollars over non-commercial copyright infringement.

To paraphrase Cory Doctorow, the idea was basically to sue everyone so people would go back to buying music at the record store. This by figuratively mounting peoples heads on pikes as warning to others. The problem is the fact that there were safety in numbers. While the organizations were sending out thousands of lawsuits, file-sharers were numbering in the tens of millions of users. As a result, the deterrent factor was non-existent since the chances of even receiving a letter was widely seen as effectively winning a reverse lottery. Instead of seeding people with the idea of “OMG, I could be next”, it created an atmosphere of, “wow, how unlucky was that person! Oh well, probably won’t happen to me.”

The file-sharing litigation was always doomed to fail, but the organizations kept this up in a bid to turn back the hands of time and go back to a time when the only way you could purchase music was through brick and mortar record stores. At the end of the 2000s, online companies approached the record labels with offers of selling their music online (something that should’ve been done by the record labels in the first place, but I digress). Begrudgingly, the labels took the offer under the condition that the business model be neutered with Digital Rights Management (DRM). Since it was better than nothing, the deals were inked anyway with plenty of understandable complaints from the public.

As a result, you have services like Apple and Napster 2.0 selling music. This was especially successful for Apple as the iPod combined with iTunes arguably pulled that company from the brink of what was widely seen at the time: bankruptcy. Pent up demand thanks to a refusal to acknowledge that times have change was starting to get released and the money began rolling in for the record labels. As more deals were inked with companies like Spotify and others, more and more money began rolling in. While the litigation never fully went away, the labels finally learned that maybe it is a good idea to start selling their music online after all. Proving us critics right, the profits soared for the entertainment companies as well. It even got to the point where record labels largely don’t even bother with traditional radio any more as a means of promoting music since online is where it is at.

The wild success of the record labels finally changing their business models gave way to movie and TV organizations following suit. They used platforms like Netflix to reach online audiences (before screwing things up and splitting their catalogues across different platforms). Software companies that wanted nothing to to with the internet started offering their software online. Things ultimately got better for all involved minus the splitting of catalogues in the TV streaming space.

With mainstream media here in Canada putting their offerings on platforms like Amazon Prime, you can see the parallels with the record labels in the past. A notoriously anti-technology industry finally inking deals with online partners and giving a third party internet company a try.

Obviously, things aren’t going to change overnight. When the major record labels were first inking deals, they still largely maintained the idea that mass litigation was a good idea (it was not). Even multiple years in, there were lobbying efforts to push for more restrictive copyright laws such as the failed three strikes law. The same thing is probably going to happen with the mainstream media. They are still going to be very anti-technology for years still, but such a deal actually being inked suggests that there are some green chutes popping up. I think that, over time, as money rolls in, the mainstream media will find themselves gradually being less anti-internet over time, but such a transition will take years (and it’s hard to say if the anti-internet attitudes will ever go away completely).

Hopefully, this is a sign of positive things to come. There’s always a chance that such a deal will fall through and the mainstream media goes back to their self-destructive ways. Still, this move does strike me as a positive sign at the very least.

Drew Wilson on Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook.