CBC pulls Postmedia ad campaign citing digital competition

The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. has pulled an advertising campaign that promoted Postmedia Network Canada Corp.’s rollout of a paid content model for its newspaper websites on the basis that it competes with the national broadcaster’s own digital news site, The Financial Post reports.
In conjunction with the introduction of Postmedia’s metered paywalls across all of its online publications, on May 14 it launched a national advertising campaign with print, digital and billboard spots as well as a handful of television ads.
Postmedia — which owns Canada’s largest chain of English-language daily newspapers including the National Post — said it planned to spend about $15,000 advertising with CBC television stations in Windsor, Regina and Edmonton.
In an email exchange with Postmedia on Monday, CBC’s media sales team said the ads ran for a period of time before an employee from the digital department at one of the stations complained that they seemed to be advertising a product that competes with CBC’s own digital news site, CBC.ca.
The national broadcaster’s sales management division agreed and the spots were pulled.
“Traditionally we do not run advertising for assets that we compete with,” Alan Dark, general manager of CBC revenue group in charge of media sales and marketing, said in an interview Wednesday.
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