The following quote caught my eye. It’s from CanWest CEO Leonard Asper, commenting on media giant CanWest entering bankruptcy. I suppose some people are just cup half-full type people who can see the good side of anything.
All of this affects the National Post, one of our two national rags, Global Television, MovieTime, Deja View, and Fox Sports World. The company is going to try to restructure over the next few months.
The Toronto Star also quotes Carleton University journalism school director Christopher Waddell. There are a lot of arguments for why that would be a good thing for the media … for competition and everyone else. He is suggesting that broken media empires could lead to a return to locally owned newspapers. I think that would be healthy, but I suspect it’s unlikely. It is so easy to gather a range of news online these days, I can’t see a positive future for the newspaper business.
On the broadcasting end of things, there is the problem of confidence. The Globe suggests that Global may not have enough tv shows in the bag to meet Canadian content regulations. Producers are apparently reluctant to work for the troubled network without payment up front. I can understand that. We’ve been reading that CanWest has been in trouble for some time.
27th Street 
I’m not a fan of either Globalwest or the National Post. Good riddance.
As for the newspaper business…well I believe what we’ve seen over the past ten years of people seeking information via internet, personal anecdotes in blogs and zines, on Twitter and alternative sources is very exciting and healthy. It’s good for these corporations to be humbled.
I like reading an occassional newsprint but isn’t it also interesting to measure the influence on consumerism, the environment and it’s cost/waste of computer and wood. Both the manufacture of computers and newsprint test the environment but I wonder overall which is less compromising to the earth?
I see this time as quite interesting because we might actually be winessing adaptation…a real time example of evolutionary theory of “punctuated equilibrium” in action.