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| Commissioner |
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| Inquiry period | September 3, 1980 (1980-09-03) – June 1, 1981 (1981-06-01) |
| Final Report | |
The Royal Commission on Newspapers, popularly known as the Kent Commission, was a Canadian Royal Commission chaired by Tom Kent. It was created in 1980 in response to growing concerns over concentration of media ownership in Canada. The Commission's final report was delivered in 1981.
Much of the impetus for the creation of the commission was the virtually simultaneous closure, on August 26–27, 1980, of two major daily newspapers: the Ottawa Journal (owned by the Thomson Corporation) and the Winnipeg Tribune (owned by Southam Inc.). These closures gave each chain a monopoly in the two markets, Southam with the Ottawa Citizen and Thomson with the Winnipeg Free Press. The resulting allegations of collusion prompted the Canadian government to launch the Kent Commission.
References
- "Concentration of Newspaper Ownership". Canadian Heritage website. Retrieved June 1, 2020.
Bibliography
- Canada. (1981). Royal Commission on Newspapers. Hull Que.: Available from Canadian Govt. Pub. Centre Supply and Services Canada. ISBN 978-0-660-10954-1.
- Creery, Tim (Spring 1984). "Out of Commission:Why the Kent recommendations have been trashed. An insider's report". Ryerson Review of Journalism. ISSN 0838-0651. Archived from the original on March 20, 2012. Retrieved April 13, 2012.
- Keshen, Richard; Macaskill, Kent (2000). "I Told You So": Newspaper Ownership in Canada and the Kent Commission Twenty Years Later". American Review of Canadian Studies. 30 (3). doi:10.1080/02722010009481056. ISSN 0272-2011.
- Kent, Tom (October 2002). "Concentration with Convergence-Goodbye, Freedom of the Press" (PDF). Policy Options. 23 (7). ISSN 0226-5893. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 21, 2007. Retrieved July 27, 2008.