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To: waldo who wrote (1891)	11/27/1998 9:13:00 AM
From: waldo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 37507

Friday, November 27, 1998 Torstar calls for online advertising protection Incentives needed By IAN JACK The Financial Post OTTAWA -- Canadian Internet sites should get the same advertising protection that newspapers have, the federal communications regulator heard yesterday. Incentives are needed because Canada lags badly behind the U.S. in Internet advertising, said Rocco Rossi, vice-president of new media at Torstar Corp. More than $900-million (US) was spent last year advertising on U.S. Web sites, while in Canada the figure was only $9.5-million. "That's no way near the ratios our traditional media have," Mr. Rossi told a panel of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission examining new media, mainly the Internet. "We believe the best way the government can help Canadian new media to flourish is to establish incentives that make it attractive to invest in Canadian new media services, and for advertisers to use these Canadian services rather than foreign services." His company wants a section of the Income Tax Act governing newspaper advertising extended to the Internet. Section 19 of the Act makes it prohibitively expensive for advertisers not to place ads in Canadian publications. It disallows tax deductions for advertisers if the publication they advertise in is not at least 75% Canadian owned. Other newspaper companies disagreed with Torstar. Hollinger Inc. doesn't think the tax legislation should be on the books at all, said Jack Boultbee, executive vice-president and chief financial officer. "It's a piece of legislation that should be ancient history. And it would be completely impractical on the Internet. They'd be asking the government to go on some sort of strange witch hunt to figure out who's Canadian." Hollinger, did not appear at the hearings. It controls Southam Inc., publisher of the National Post. Sun Media Corp., which was at the hearings, agreed there is a problem generating advertising revenue on the Internet. For instance, the company has been unable to interest a single advertiser in a joint buy, in which it would place ads in a Sun newspaper and on the firm's Canoe Web site. But Wayne Parrish, vice-president of strategic development, said he doesn't support tax incentives. "We're not sure that's the way to go." He is convinced advertising revenue will come to the Internet. "It has been slow to develop. But we think it will." Ad dollars will go where the best content is, he said. As with most of the other submissions, Sun Media said there should be little role for the commission in regulating the Internet. But Mr. Parrish said it should act to ensure Canadian content providers are given prominent billing on the sites of providers such as Sympatico or AOL.