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David Crow

Connector of dots. Maker of lines. Rider of slopes.

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Building Media Empires

by davidcrow

Is it possible to build a new Canadian media empire?

  • Techvibes
  • MobileSyrup, BetaKit, InsideTimmies
  • Yummy Mummy Club
  • BlogTO
  • Vice (Does Vice Media still count as Canadian? Vice was founded in Montreal in 1994, but has been headquartered in Brooklyn since 2001)
  • The Dominion
  • Rabble
  • CanadaLand (might be time to give Jesse Brown some money. Is media criticism the same as building a media business?)

I’m not even sure what a media empire looks like. People still want content. And content needs distribution. It feels like the majority of distribution in Canada is controlled by a small number of players:

  • Postmedia
  • Torstar Corporation
  • Rogers Media
  • Corus Entertainment
  • Astral Media
  • St. Joseph Media
  • Now Communications
  • Blue Ant Media
  • DHX Media (thanks @johntoryT0 for the correction)
  • plus more

I still don’t really understand the economics of distribution and monetization of traditional media. But this seems like a start to understanding about the Canadian landscape. In 2014, there was a lot of VC money (yes, yes, VC dollars is not the only metric of success) going into journalism companies (I  really like the CB Insights description of fat content companies): Buzzfeed, Vice, Huffington Post, First Look Media, Pando Daily, Vox and others. Canada seems to be stuck in the online properties of traditional media outlets.

We produce interesting/engaging content including YouTube stars:

  • Epic Meal Time
  • Unbox Therapy
  • AsapSCIENCE
  • The Bajan Canadian
  • Matthew Santoro
  • IISuperwomanII

I want to build a better understanding about content creation, distribution and monetization in Canada. Where should I start?

/me goes to spend more time consuming CANADALAND.

 

 

Posted on January 13, 2015 Filed Under: Articles, Canada Tagged With: Canada, canadaland, media

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