Research and data-driven analyses of internet, telecoms and media markets in Canada
Have telecom, media and internet markets become more concentrated over time, or less?
The Canadian Media Concentration Research (CMCR) project addresses this question through its data-driven analysis of media concentration in more than a dozen sectors of the telecom-media-internet (TMI) industries in Canada.
Mobile Wireless Revenues
Mobile wireless services stumbled for the very first time, sliding from $29.2 billion to $28.1 billion, last year.
Film & television production
Internet access services revenues rose by a billion dollars to $13.9 billion year-over-year.
Growth in the Network Economy
The network media economy stayed roughly the same as a year earlier, $91.1 billion
Project Approach
The CMCR project is led by Dwayne Winseck, Professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, with a cross appointment at the Institute of Political Economy, Carleton University. MA and Ph.D. students in the School of Journalism and Communication also play a vital role gathering, analyzing and presenting the data, creating a Canadian Media Industries Database, maintaining the website, and presenting evidence and analyses in a range of published forms. Students applying to the MA or Ph.D. program are encouraged to apply for research assistant positions with the CMCR project.
Independent
Data-driven
Empirical
The CMCRP project builds on work done by its principal investigator, Dwayne Winseck, since 2009 as the lead Canadian researcher in the International Media Concentration Research (IMCR) project. The project has been generously funded and supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Methodology
The CMCR project offers an independent academic, empirical and data-driven analysis of a deceptively simple yet profoundly important question: have telecom, media and internet markets become more concentrated over time, or less?
This is a perennial and controversial issue, with some charging that a handful of media giants dominate telecoms, media and internet markets while the opposing side argues that the question is no longer even relevant in the age of the internet. However, while opinions are rife, high-quality data on the issue is remarkably scarce, both in Canada and indeed worldwide.
“Our goal is to create a systematic, comprehensive and long-term body of data that covers 13 sectors of the network media economy in Canada. We want to understand the direction of trends one way or another, and the pressures and forces that are driving whatever changes are occurring.”