No New Post This Week
Tuesday, July 28, 2026
I’m mid-renovation this week - a crew in the house, no time to write. Week 30 (”what to cut”) moves to next Tuesday.
Small irony: half of what’s behind my walls right now is the same test this newsletter keeps making - you don’t find out what’s actually load-bearing until you open things up and look. Same test applies to a media company’s assets. More on that next week.
If you’re new here or fell behind, three posts carry the current thread:
Rogers Didn’t Win the Argument. It Bought the Building.
Two things happened in Canadian media this past month, three weeks apart. One made headlines, the other explains why the headline was inevitable.
When the US Collects, Not If
On June 3, Ottawa announced it was replacing the CRTC’s Online Streaming Act ruling with $600 million in direct public funding. The government spent six years insisting platforms should pay. Thirteen days after the ruling, taxpayers were paying instead.
The Stack Audit
Last week’s post ended with an assignment: map your stack. Every layer of distribution, monetization, and infrastructure. Note who owns each piece. Note which pieces are US-controlled. Note which pieces you could replace in six months if you had to.
Read those three in order and you have the argument in full: administration isn’t capability, and the fix was never a policy ask.
Back next Tuesday with - what to cut, and why the assets you’re proudest of owning are usually the ones costing you the most to defend.
Low frequency. High signal.