Once that happened, changes started happening fast, but they were for the most part cosmetic. Boilerplate notices have been changed (The Gazette's nameplate on Page A1 now says "a division of Postmedia Network Inc.", websites say "copyright 2010 Postmedia Network Inc."), the most noticeable of which is that Canwest News Service, as of about 4pm Tuesday, was officially renamed Postmedia News. Stories from that news service immediately started appearing under that name.

Because the Canwest trademark is under the broadcast side which has been purchased by Shaw, it's being scrubbed out of every nook and cranny of the publishing side (something few of my colleagues are feeling too upset about). This means changing names of divisions with Canwest in their names, removing references to Canwest to replace them with Postmedia Network, and most likely eventually mean everyone gets new email addresses too, a change many reporters will remember from when @thegazette.southam.ca became @thegazette.canwest.com.

I wish I could tell you of something more substantial behind the scenes, but (a) there isn't yet that I know about, and (b) if I do know about it, it's because it's been announced internally, and you'll quickly find it reported by other media. Expect announcements soon about new top executives, but I wouldn't look for any major changes that affect business at the individual newspaper level yet.

One important facet of this whole process is that the former Canwest papers and the Global television network (and other Canwest broadcast interests) are now owned by different companies. So I have no conflict in writing about Global, and no fear of being called into a boss's office if I point out that they spiced up a news report by adding unrelated footage.

In lieu of fascinating analysis by me, I'll invite you to read this Financial Post piece about the way Postmedia Network (a company whose name is not to be abbreviated, I'm told) came to be. How the National Post managed to get this kind of information about a company run by the man who was until now CEO of the National Post will remain a mystery...

Related Posts

• Canwest settles with freelancers over copyright lawsuits
• Good news for freelancers
• Shaw to buy Canwest
• Canwest study shows people like Canwest networks
• Does “Special Information Feature” clearly mean “Advertisement”?

One of the settlements is with Heather Robertson, who leads a rather massive class action lawsuit against a bunch of publishers, and whose case reached the Supreme Court of Canada - and a decision in her favour, which led to the Globe and Mail settling. The case is still pending against other defendants, including ProQuest, Torstar and Rogers.

You can read the Robertson settlement here (PDF).

The other settlement is with a group called the Electronic Rights Defence Committee, which is a group of Gazette freelancers suing Canwest over the same issues, and which had only gotten class-action status last year.

The settlements are valued at $7.5 million and $9 million respectively, but the amount of cash actually distributed will likely come down as Canwest continues to go through restructuring under creditor protection.

The freelancers can thank this process for pushing these ancient cases forward. As the court-appointed monitor overseeing the restructuring put it in his report on the Robertson case (PDF):

The Settlement Agreement greatly reduced a large claim against the LP Entities and the resulting uncertainty to the CCAA Proceeding and facilitated the approval of the Amended AHC Plan by the requisite majority of stakeholders at the Creditors' Meeting, which approval is vital to the successful restructuring of the LP Entities.

In the Robertson case, the original claim was for $500 million. In the ERDC's case, $33 million.

Because the restructuring process requires settling outstanding claims, the freelancers' lawsuits became an issue that it was easier to deal with quickly than fight.

The ERDC estimates it has about 800 writers in its class, which would work out to $11,250 each. This is above the $1,000 limit set for small creditors, which means they would not be getting cash payments in full, but an option for less cash or shares in the new company. The ERDC says it will hold that cash or stock in trust until the distribution is complete.

The settlement also would grant Canwest and its subsidiaries all the rights the freelancers were fighting to protect. In exchange for the cash, Canwest gets rights to use all articles submitted by all freelancers for whatever purpose it wants, including online publication or electronic archiving.

This means one of the primary goals of the ERDC, to render void these we-take-all-your-rights contracts that Canwest and others are forcing new freelancers to sign, will not succeed. Those freelancers who have signed such agreements, allowing Canwest to use their contributions for electronic media, are not considered part of the settlement group.

Players in the ERDC, including chair Mary Soderstrom, have kept quiet (except to announce the deal and promise more later) until the settlement reaches its final approval.

UPDATE (June 28): The ERDC has released a statement:

“We are pleased that freelance writers will eventually receive some compensation for their work used electronically, and that the other side explicitly acknowledges 'the importance of protection of electronic rights and fair compensation for the electronic dissemination of content',” said ERDC President Mary Soderstrom. “But we regret strongly that it has taken 13 years to get to this point, and that, because of the protection against creditors proceedings, freelancers will receive amounts much less than the face value of the settlements.”

She added that the ERDC also continues to maintain that contracts which freelancers have been forced to sign with The Gazette and Canwest are unfair.

A slight moral victory, I guess, though kind of empty if Canwest's freelancing contracts can still demand all these rights at no extra charge.

Those who want to opt out of the class-action settlement have the chance to do so, although I can't imagine why they would.

Related Posts

• Good news for freelancers
• Congratulations, you’re an unsecured Canwest creditor
• Front-seat driver
• I, for one, welcome our new Postmedia Network Inc. overlords
• Independent dependents

Frozen freelance cheque arrives ... now I can retire!

While many people are up in arms that Canwest asked for - and received - retention payments for top executives while it's under creditor protection, some good news is also coming for those at the other end of the scale.

Freelancers for The Gazette were resigned to the fact that invoices for work published before Jan. 8 would either not be paid at full price or might never be paid, because as independent contractors the freelancers were considered unsecured creditors after the creditor protection filing (all work done after that is covered under a separate agreement and is being paid as normal).

But recently, I'm told, the court-appointed monitor for Canwest LP has authorized the payment in full of outstanding invoices for freelancers. Many of those freelancers have already reported receiving cheques, and the photo above is one I got last week, covering a tiny bit of work that was frozen from the last invoice.

Meanwhile, on an unrelated note, Le Devoir's Stéphane Baillargeon talks about the agreement signed between Gesca (which owns La Presse) and the Association des journalistes indépendants du Québec, which covers freelance work done for Gesca.

Related Posts

• Congratulations, you’re an unsecured Canwest creditor
• Canwest settles with freelancers over copyright lawsuits
• I, for one, welcome our new consortium overlords
• Newspapers for sale!
• Canwest gets another break

Coverage at The Globe and Mail (of course, with analysis and more analysis), CBC, Reuters, Canadian Press, Wall Street Journal and Financial Post. Though financial terms won't be disclosed until after regulatory approval, Shaw is spending at least $65 million on this acquisition.

Canwest Limited Partnership, which owns the National Post, Montreal Gazette, Canada.com and other publishing assets, is unaffected by this. They will still be auctioned off as part of their restructuring.

Corus Cable Empire?

Assuming the deal goes through (and there's no big reason to believe it won't), the Shaw family will have control over a worryingly large number of specialty channels in Canada. They have a controlling interest in Corus Entertainment, a company spun off from Shaw to get around a CRTC rule about cable companies owning specialty services - a rule that no longer exists.

Corus owns or has a majority interest in (copy-pasted from Wikipedia):

• CMT Canada (90%)
• Cosmopolitan TV (67%)
• Drive-In Classics (rebranding to Sundance Channel on March 1, 2010)
• Dusk (51%, the rest owned by Canwest already)
• Nickelodeon
• SexTV: The Channel (rebranding to W Movies on March 1, 2010)
• SKY TG24 (50.5%)
• TLN (50.5%)
• tlñ en español (50.5%)
• Treehouse TV
• YTV
• Viva
• W Network

It also has a 50% share with Astral of the Teletoon channels.

Canwest owns - and Shaw would get:

• DejaView
• Fox Sports World Canada
• MovieTime
• Mystery TV - 50% and managing partner
• TVtropolis - 66.7% and managing partner

And the former Alliance Atlantis channels through a deal with Goldman Sachs:

• (Showcase) Action
• BBC Canada - 80% and managing partner
• BBC Kids - 80% and managing partner
• Discovery Health Canada - 80% and managing partner
• DIY Network - 68.1% and managing partner (Corus owns a minority stake in this channel)
• Food Network Canada - 57.58% and managing partner (Corus owns a minority stake in this channel)
• History Television
• HGTV Canada - 80.24% and managing partner
• IFC Canada
• National Geographic Channel Canada - 80% and managing partner
• Showcase
• Showcase Diva
• Slice

Add to all this minority stakes in mentv, One, Historia and Séries +, and you've got a pretty huge specialty empire here, 31 channels. That would put it ahead of CTVglobemedia's 29 channels, and way ahead of other specialty players Astral Media (9 plus The Movie Network and Super Écran), Quebecor Media (8) and Rogers (6).

It should go without saying that the specialty assets - and not the Global Television Network - are why Shaw is interested in this acquisition.

The release says that Shaw would operate Canwest as a standalone company (instead of, say, just taking its assets and giving them to Corus), but you have to think that some sort of consolidation is going to happen if they can get it past the CRTC.

Another (albeit minor) question is what happens to the few conventional TV stations that Shaw and Corus own. Shaw owns CJBN in Kenora, Ont. (a station with the distinction of being Canada's lowest-powered non-repeater, at 178 Watts), which is currently a CTV affiliate. Corus, meanwhile, owns CKWS Kingston and CHEX Peterborough in eastern Ontario, both of which carry CBC programming. None of the three stations are in cities with Global stations, so it's conceivable they could all become Global affiliates or even sold to Canwest and become Global owned and operated stations.

Shaw's second chance to prove its point

My favourite part of this story comes out of a quote from Canwest chairman Derek Burney (emphasis mine): “We look forward to benefitting from Shaw’s participation in a reinvigorated Canwest, as it is a strong business partner with a proven commitment to the Canadian television broadcasting industry. This significant investment in conventional television should be seen as a big vote of confidence in the industry and its future.”

Of course, Shaw and Canwest have been on the opposite side of the ugly fee-for-carriage debate, with each side spouting half-truths at each other in a bid to scumsuck public support.

Remember those "cable company cash cows"? Funny how useful one of them has suddenly become now that the TV company needs a bailout.

But as much as this is ironic for the Local TV Matters people, it also forces Shaw to prove its point about how conventional television isn't in need of financial support from cable and satellite companies.

Last year, after Shaw sarcastically offered to buy three stations from CTV for $1, and CTV sarcastically accepted, it later pulled away from the deal, claiming that due dilligence showed the stations were hollowed out shells and work had been outsourced to other stations.

Shaw can't make that excuse this time. While many Global stations are little more than a newsroom, a couple of editing suites and a green screen, Shaw gets the broadcast centres that control them, and can do with them as they wish.

So will Shaw back down from its tough talk about fee for carriage? Will Canwest pull out of the Local TV Matters group, stuck in the same awkward position as CityTV and TVA where the parent company cares more about protecting cable profits than local television?

We'll find out within the next few months. (Though by the time Shaw's acquisition is final, the fee for carriage debate might be over.)

UPDATE: The Financial Post explores a big thorn in the side of this deal: Goldman Sachs, which is still fighting with Canwest over the company that owns the former Alliance Atlantis channels.

Related Posts

• Global, CBC join CTV’s “Save Local TV” campaign
• CRTC okays CJNT, CHCH purchase
• CRTC Roundup: They saved local TV!
• Rogers et al pissed at CTV “Save Local Television” campaign
• Worthless stations sold sarcastically for $1 (UPDATE: NOT!)

A cynic might notice that Canwest-owned networks, including Food Network, HGTV, History Television, Showcase (and its sister networks), National Geographic, Mystery TV and TVtropolis, improve their scores under this measurement. Under pure ratings, only one Canwest network (HGTV) comes in the top five, and only three (with History and Showcase) in the top 10. In the other metrics shown, Canwest networks have 2-3 of the top five and 4-6 of the top 10.

That cynic might wonder if Canwest would have released this study if Canwest-owned networks hadn't fared so well.

Related Posts

• CRTC Roundup: Global, porn and death
• CRTC roundup: broken television
• Ratings: CFCF dominates, but CBMT’s happy
• Some truth about Sun TV News
• I, for one, welcome our new Postmedia Network Inc. overlords

Coverage by Canadian Press, Fast Forward Weekly, Marketing Magazine.

Shell ad in The Gazette last Saturday

Their complaint is that the advertisement, like most advertorials, tries to pass itself off as news. It's got headlines and sidebars just like a newspaper page. It's not obviously trying to sell anything, but instead is presenting information in a journalistic sense. And the word "advertisement" doesn't appear anywhere.

Instead, it's described as a "special Canwest information feature on climate change, in partnership with Shell Canada", lending Canwest's name (and, presumably, its journalistic integrity) to the advertorial.

What's interesting to me is that the Sierra Club isn't complaining to Canwest or to a press council or the Canadian Association of Journalists or Canadian Newspaper Association. Instead, they're complaining to Advertising Standards Canada.

In other words, they're not arguing that the newspaper acted unethically. They're arguing that the advertiser acted unethically, and they're appealing to the advertiser's code of ethics.

It really says something, I think, when an advertiser is expected to have better journalistic ethics than a major newspaper chain.

The Sierra Club's complaint is essentially one about labelling. It's not labelled as an advertisement or advertorial, but as a "special information feature", which could mean anything and isn't clear.

Canwest's response, to Canadian Press and others, is this:

Canwest communications director Phyllise Gelfand said the stories were printed in a different typeface and laid out in a different style than the rest of the paper. Shell's "partnership" was referred to at the top of the page.

"That's enough," she said. "The average reader would notice the difference."

I don't agree. I'm a (former) newspaper editor, and a media critic, and it's tough for me to understand sometimes what is editorial and what is advertising.

Advertisers and newspaper publishers have come up with all sorts of euphemisms to refer to advertorial content (the word "advertorial" itself, for one). Special information feature. Advertising feature. Marketing feature. Joint venture. Advertising section. Do any of these really clearly say "advertisement" to you, the average reader?

(And the argument about it being in a different typeface holds in print, but not online, where it looks like any other news story except for the byline and the Shell ad)

Of course, if clarity were the goal, it would just come out and say "advertisement". But the goal isn't clarity, it's confusion. It's for the advertiser to piggyback on the journalistic integrity of the publication and convince readers that the publication somehow endorses what's being said.

And newspapers are only to happy to comply, sacrificing their integrity bit by bit for short-term financial gain.

Related Posts

• Ethics don’t matter on TV
• Is selling out okay for a good cause?
• The special section
• Bell Let’s Talk Day: “This is why we do it”
• Star 92.9 takes out attack ad on The Beat

Some tidbits of news since Canwest's newspaper arm filed for bankruptcy protection in early January:

• Financial Post columnist Diane Francis has come out as one of the backers of this Grafstein-Heard-Wajsman consortium bidding for the Post, Citizen and Gazette. But Canwest's creditors still want to sell the division off as a unit.
• Despite two filings for creditor protection, Canwest is still making money by the hundreds of millions.
• A vague story from Canadian Press today about Canwest "rejigging" its auction of the newspaper and online assets. Apparently the original plan wasn't "robust" enough. UPDATE: The bid deadline has been extended to March 5, and a court-appointed monitor (not the banks) will decide which bids go through.

The Financial Post, which is owned by Canwest and may be part of a sale (but which isn't under creditor protection) has a fair picture of what parties might be involved in this asset auction, with pros and cons for each. For most companies, the bottom line seems to be "not interested."

Related Posts

• I, for one, welcome our new Post overlords
• I, for one, welcome our new Postmedia Network Inc. overlords
• Canwest settles with freelancers over copyright lawsuits
• Good news for freelancers
• Shaw to buy Canwest

They include, of interest to Montrealers and Gazette followers (in alphabetical order):

• $253,808.16 to 1001 Dominion Square Management Inc., The Gazette's landlord
• $12,726.14 to Agence France-Presse, a newswire
• $406,505.42 to Amex for corporate credit cards
• $6,556.34 to the Audit Bureau of Circulations
• $47,497.80 to Bleu Blanc Rouge, which handles The Gazette's marketing campaigns
• $5,213.38 to Bloomberg, another newswire
• $114,700.77 to the Calgary Flames
• $74,763.18 to Canada Post
• $44,237.47 to Canadian Press (even though Canwest no longer uses CP) - listed separately as Canadian Press and The Canadian Press
• $5,179.91 to CNW for press releases
• $38,892.90 to Garda for security services
• $24,035.10 to Getty Images
• $1 million exactly to GWL Realty Advisors of Edmonton, the largest single non-bank creditor
• $24,419.64 to Henry's photo shop
• $44,100.00 to Ipsos Reid for surveys
• $21,380.91 to La Presse
• $22,575.00 to Kleintel, a Montreal-based phone survey company
• $28,041.92 to Legacy.com, a partner for paid obituaries online
• $10,450.00 to Loblaws
• $12,167.94 to the Los Angeles Times - Washington Post, another news service
• $16,558.62 to Messageries Dynamiques, a Quebecor-owned distribution company
• $52,783.50 to Microsoft Canada
• $145,026.49 to the Ministère du revenu du Québec
• $8,475.66 to the National Newspaper Awards
• $17,931.06 to Nestle Canada
• $5,065.31 to New York Times Digital
• $9,946.29 to the Ontario Press Council
• $50,400.00 to Orsyp Logiciels, a Montreal-based job schedule software company
• $90,000.00 to the Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux
• $72,930.38 to Rexall Sports Corporation, which owns the Edmonton Oilers
• $37,153.20 to Rogers Media
• $34,755.00 to Rogers Publishing
• $11,841.84 to Saxotech Integrated Mediaware, which is providing a new desktop publishing system for Canwest papers
• $331,160.57 to Service-Now.com, which ... well, it's anyone's guess what they actually do.
• $70,987.96 to Sun Media
• $15,813.11 to Montreal's Teleze Inc., a telemarketing company selling Gazette subscriptions
• $87,499.65 to the Globe and Mail
• $8,065.02 to New York Times Syndication, yet another news wire
• $54,485.00 to the Salvation Army in Saskatoon
• $145,341.3 to Toronto Star Syndication Services and Torstar Syndication Services
• $10,773.90 to (Chicago) Tribune Media Services
• $27,151.49 to United Way in Edmonton
• $6,124.99 to the Winnipeg Free Press
• $112,481.44 to the Workers' Compensation Board of British Columbia
• $15,491.17 to World Entertainment News Network for celebrity gossip
• $45,986.85 to three radio stations
• $45,437.84 to four union locals

The list is very long, but two items stand out like a sore thumb because of the extra digits, and those are the ones that really matter in all this:

• $78,382,191.78 to the syndicate of banks under the senior subordinate credit agreement
• $449,411,375.34 to senior subordinated notes

That's (some of) the money Canwest LP owes the banks, and the reason it's in financial trouble.

What the list doesn't include, though, are freelancers, those independent contractors who provide stories and photos to newspapers in exchange for a negotiated fee. Most freelancers who did work between mid December and the Jan. 8 filing (and some who did work much earlier than that but weren't paid or didn't cash their cheques before the filing) are now grouped in with the paper suppliers, wire services, distributors and anyone else who provides goods and services to the newspapers and websites.

I counted two freelance columnists in The Gazette on the list through their companies:

• $5,418.00 to L. Ian MacDonald's Lian Public Affairs Ltd.
• $9,673.79 to Phil Reimer's Phil Reimer Communications. He's Canwest's travel cruise columnist

Other freelancers, including fine dining columnist Lesley Chesterman, are also out thousands of dollars as a result of this filing. Smaller freelancers (which may include myself, I'm still not sure yet) are out mere hundreds of dollars.

Whether they'll see any of that money owed depends on how much money is left to give to all the other creditors, and that will depend mostly on the sale price of Canwest LP. The banks have set a floor bid of $950 million, the amount they're owed for their loans (which means they wouldn't be paying for the chain but rather exchanging their debt for equity and ownership), but they're hoping someone will put in a higher bid. The higher the sale price, the more money can go to creditors. But there's little hope that the price will be high enough to pay 100 cents on the dollar.

That's very disappointing. The banks won't fold if they're out a few hundred million. The wire services aren't a few thousand dollars from bankruptcy. But some freelancers rely on it as their only source of income, and a few hundred dollars can be the difference between making a rent payment and having an angry landlord.

After Canwest LP filed for creditor protection (not to be confused with bankruptcy, which eliminates debt), it secured so-called debtor-in-posession financing, which allowed it to continue its business. This means that people who did freelance work after Jan. 8 will still get paid (along with other post-filing creditors), as publisher Alan Allnutt explained. That also puts many in a strange position of getting screwed out of payment but still continuing to do business with a company.

If only I understood business, it would all make sense to me.

Related Posts

• Good news for freelancers
• Canwest settles with freelancers over copyright lawsuits
• I, for one, welcome our new consortium overlords
• Newspapers for sale!
• Canwest gets another break

Today, those rumours prove true. A consortium led by Jerry Grafstein, Raymond Heard and Beryl Wajsman announced it will be submitting a bid to buy The Gazette, the Ottawa Citizen and the National Post, pending due dilligence.

The coverage - Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, CBC, Reuters, Editor & Publisher, Financial Post - all say the same thing, quoting liberally from the news release and saying the three consortium leaders believe in local control of local newspapers.

No price has been mentioned, nor are the other financial backers named.

All three have media cred: Grafstein, a recently retired senator, founded Citytv in Toronto. Heard was managing editor of the Montreal Star and then worked as news director at Global TV in the 80s. Wajsman is the editor of The Suburban and publisher of The Métropolitain. The Globe's Jane Taber has analysis of their political leanings, in case anyone really cares.

Unions (and unionized employees) look favourably at the central idea of this bid (Lise Lareau of the Canadian Media Guild calls it good news) because it seems to reject a lot of Canwest's anti-union moves, like centralization and outsourcing, and it's making all the right noises about local control of local newspapers.

There's also the unsaid implication that these three care more about respect than profit. (Like sports teams, media outlets tend to be more about ego than the bottom line.)

Looking at Wajsman's newspapers, there's at least some reason for optimism. The Suburban is big for a community paper, and while it's not pure as the white snow, it's not filled with press releases and it does actually employ journalists. The Métropolitain, meanwhile, is more of a think-tank than anything else, and is clearly not motivated by profit.

But looking at those newspapers also leaves some worried. Wajsman's editorials are a bit much for even some staunch federalists, and the papers have some clear editorial biases when it comes to things like the Israeli-Palestinian issue (something the Suburban doesn't have to deal with much but which The Gazette would have to deal with on a daily basis).

Many will also focus on Wajsman's political past. One person reminded me of his alleged connection to the adscam scandal, others have already created a Facebook group to protest his bid because of his pro-Israel, pro-business, anti-union stances.

Though I disagree with most of what he writes in Suburban editorials (and most of the opinions written in The Métropolitain), I'm tempted to ask how a right-wing, pro-Israel owner will somehow be different than Canwest. And if "progressive anglos" don't want their paper to fall in his hands, they're more than welcome to submit a bid of their own.

There are other obstacles to Grafstein and Co.'s plan, even if they have the money. The biggest is that Canwest (and the banks arranging for the chain's sale) want Canwest Publications sold as a unit. That centralized services include websites, customer service, advertising, page layout and Canwest News Service. Undoing that might be difficult and expensive (but it might also mean hiring more journalists, programmers and copy editors, which would clearly work in my favour).

And there might be other bids. The Globe is convinced Paul Godfrey is putting one together with his own financial backers. Other names being bandied about include Torstar, Quebecor, Transcontinenal, FP Newspapers and that guy Joe at the end of the bar.

Related Posts

• Good news for freelancers
• Congratulations, you’re an unsecured Canwest creditor
• Newspapers for sale!
• We’re Number 2.7!
• Canwest gets another break

CFCF's Paul Karwatsky reports outside the Gazette building (after signing autographs for some teenage girls who happened to pass by)

It wasn't so much a question of whether, but when.

The hammer came down this morning, as Canwest Limited Partnership, the print and online side of the Canwest empire, joined the television arm in filing for creditor protection.

I can't really tell you more than has been published by the Globe and Mail (UPDATE: The Globe has more in its Saturday issue), the Toronto Star, BBC, ABC (Associated Press), Bloomberg, Canadian Press, Agence France-Presse, Reuters, QMI, UPI, CBC, CTV, CTV Montreal, Le Devoir, Rue Frontenac, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Financial Post or the Canwest press release.

The Star also has a copy of CEO Leonard Asper's memo to employees.

The gist of it is that the newspaper division (including the National Post, though it is not under this creditor protection filing) is up for sale, with the banks getting the ball rolling setting a floor bid. Unlike recent small-market TV station sales that were for a nominal amount, the newspaper chain is expected to fetch decent cash because most of the newspapers are still profitable.

The only question is who has a billion dollars to spare to scoop up an entire newspaper chain (because of how dependent they are on each other for content and services, Canwest is hoping to sell them off as a unit).

In the meantime, while about 50 former employees under salary continuance are getting screwed (none of these people are former Gazette employees), pensions, salaries and expenses continue as normal through a $25-million debtor-in-protection financing. This means employees (including me) still get paid as normal, freelancers still get their invoices processed, and suppliers still get paid for continuing operations. (UPDATE: Some freelancers are being affected by this filing, I'm now told, for bills between mid-December and the filing of Jan. 8.)

In Saturday's paper, Gazette published Alan Allnutt makes that clear: Operations continue as normal.

Wish I had more juicy details, but they don't trust me with that kind of information (would you?).

So instead, I offer photos of journalists who reported on the move, hours after the fact, from in front of the Gazette's editorial offices on Ste. Catherine St. (Photos link to the video reports online)

CBMT's Kai Nagata uses a Gazette as a prop while reporting live during the 6pm newscast

Radio-Canada's Louis-Philippe Ouimet does a taped report from across the street, to provide a better background

Related Posts

• Good news for freelancers
• Congratulations, you’re an unsecured Canwest creditor
• I, for one, welcome our new consortium overlords
• Canwest gets another break
• Newspapers think newspapers have bright future ahead

I wish I could tell you I knew the answers to these questions, as I am an employee of a Canwest newspaper, but the reality is that I don't know any more than you do. Canwest is a publicly-traded company (okay, it was a publicly-traded company), and as such anything at those upper levels has to be divulged to shareholders (via press releases) before it's told to the company's thousands of front-line employees. So I don't know any more than what's been reported through those releases and in the media. Neither does my boss. Neither does my boss's boss.

So everything is out there. CBC does a pretty good job of explaining the issues (and getting the facts right). Or you can get it from the horse's mouth on Canwest's public restructuring info page, complete with video of Leonard Asper.

For those too lazy to read everything, these are the facts as I've been told them from the company (and has been publicly released):

• The company that filed for creditor protection is called Canwest Media Inc. It owns the National Post, the Global Television Network, three cable channels (DejaView, Fox Sports World, and MovieTime) and the corporate office. You can see a diagram here (PDF). Canwest Limited Partnership is the company that owns the other newspapers (including my employer The Gazette), and the former Alliance Atlantis channels are owned by CW Media, which as its own structure. Neither those companies nor the parent company Canwest Global Communications Corp. has filed for creditor protection.
• Nothing has changed at the operational level, either on the affected side or the non-affected side. There's obviously a lot of concern among those inside and outside the company (and that might affect things like advertising contracts), but nothing has been shut down. Employees are still getting paid, and invoices are still being processed.
• Other than the National Post Company being transferred from the Canwest Media side to the Canwest LP side (to join the other newspapers), there has been no official word on the sale or reconfiguration of any assets.
• The creditor protection filing comes with a pre-packaged deal with 70% of some class of creditors (I'm not a business expert here, read the stories if you care), so it is expected to go through this credit-for-equity swap relatively painlessly. Negotiating this deal (and the sale of Australia's Network Ten) is why the company has gotten extension after extension on debt-related deadlines over the past few months.
• Canwest LP (the newspaper side) still has a lot of debt (about $1 billion) of its own, which means there will be some restructuring on that side as well. There has been no word on whether a creditor protection filing would be part of that.
• The television networks and newspapers are still profitable, and no matter what happens to Canwest they are expected to survive.

Admittedly, I'm drinking the company Kool-Aid here. Some of these things may change, or they might not. Everything we know for sure has already been released.

It would be easy for me to speculate on possible avenues here, but the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star and others are perfectly content to do that with their anonymous sources, and they're probably in a better position than me to do so. Maybe what they say is true, maybe it's not. I don't know any more than you do, and it would be irresponsible and counter-productive to make wild guesses about the future of this media giant.

Go ahead and make up your own theories. But just remember there are thousands of families who depend on Canwest properties to put food on the table.

Related Posts

• I, for one, welcome our new Postmedia Network Inc. overlords
• Canwest settles with freelancers over copyright lawsuits
• Good news for freelancers
• Shaw to buy Canwest
• Canwest study shows people like Canwest networks

The tearful goodbyes were apparently premature...

When Canwest announced in February that it was putting its five "E!" network conventional television stations under "strategic review" - considered code for "sell them off or shut them down" - staff at one of those stations decided to take matters into their own hands.

Employees and fans of CHCH in Hamilton, Ont., began a campaign to save the station, and one of the ideas floating around was to have the employees and community pitch in to buy the station from Canwest and run it themselves.

Turns out that wasn't necessary. In June, a broadcaster most had never heard of called Channel Zero announced it was going to buy CHCH and CJNT in Montreal. It also promised that all the jobs would be kept and the station would increase its focus on local news. That sale got CRTC approval and became final just before the Aug. 31 deadline set by Canwest (based on the end dates of licenses for the stations).

More recently, when CHEK-TV in Victoria found out it wasn't going to be saved and would be closed down along with CHCA in Red Deer, Alta., staff there began a similar campaign. It actually got to the stage of submitting a $2.5 million bid to Canwest to buy the station, just a week before it was to be shut down. The money would come from staff and local investors who were committed to having a local voice on Vancouver Island.

The deal was rejected by Canwest as being insufficient. The sale price of the station wasn't the issue, they said, but investors would need to have enough money (about twice the amount offered) to cover early losses, which would be substantial because the station had no advertising sold after Aug. 31.

Over that last weekend of August, it looked like CHEK was gone for good. CHCA shut down on Monday morning, and CHEK was scheduled to go out after some special programming remembering the 53-year history of the station.

(The fifth E! station, CHBC Kelowna, was brought into the Global television network, an option not available to either CHEK or CHCA because of license restrictions that prevented them from carrying the same programming as Global stations in Vancouver and Calgary, respectively. It will operate as Global Okanagan, and with 11 fewer employees.)

But CHEK's employees weren't done. They submitted a revised bid, and Canwest agreed to keep the station on life support for an extra day. And another. And a few more.

Sold.

The news officially came just after the close of business on Friday, in the form of an internal memo to employees and a press release: Canwest had agreed to sell CHEK-TV to a group of local investors, led by the station's employees.

Coverage:

• Canadian Press
• CBC British Columbia
• Canwest News Service (also on CHEK's own website)
• Globe and Mail
• Victoria Times-Colonist
• Georgia Straight
• Victoria News

The actual price was nominal (the Globe and Mail has it at $2), but the important part is that the station's new owners would pay for any losses suffered while the station was awaiting CRTC approval of the sale.

That approval should come quickly, if the Channel Zero case is any indication. The move is a win-win-win. It makes Canwest look good (or at least less bad) compared to what would happen if they shut the station down (in all, Canwest says it saved 90% of the almost 300 employees at the five stations). It saves the jobs of CHEK's 45 employees (they're really happy about that part), and it keeps a local television station in Victoria (CTV's CIVI-TV, part of the A network, is the only other station indigenous to Vancouver Island).

But the tough part of this story is just beginning.

People buy money-losing TV stations with optimistic business plans only to see them go down the drain. And employees often think they can do a better job running a company if they just got those know-nothing managers out of the way.

The investors behind the CHEK bid say they have a solid business plan. Now we'll see if they can make it work. If they do, we could see lots of other small-market money-losing stations across the country try the same thing (or we'd see Canwest and CTV buy them back and change all of their stations to fit that working business model). If they don't, it'll make others think twice before trying a similar move.

I hope CHEK succeeds. I don't think the odds are in its favour, but I applaud them for trying.

Good luck CHEK. You'll need it.

Related Posts

• $500,000? CHEK.
• Mixed news at small Global, CTV stations
• I, for one, welcome our new Postmedia Network Inc. overlords
• Canwest settles with freelancers over copyright lawsuits
• Good news for freelancers

The CRTC today approved the application from Channel Zero to purchase CJNT Montreal and CHCH Hamilton from Canwest.

You'll recall Channel Zero and Canwest announced in June that they'd reached a deal to purchase the money-losing stations. It was a win-win for both Canwest (which is in debt trouble - it announced today it has gotten another extension from its lenders) and the stations, who would have otherwise faced the fate of other stations in the E! network: shutdown.

CRTC approval of the deal was the only question mark - Channel Zero wanted some license changes as part of the deal. There was an expedited approval process, including a hearing on Monday - a week before existing licenses expire and Canwest runs out of programming to air.

The CJNT decision accepted the reasonable requests of Channel Zero, namely to relieve it of its requirement to air a minimum amount of French-language non-ethnic programming, and eliminate a requirement to make sure 25% of its films are Canadian. It will also be relieved of closed-captioning requirements until the fourth year of its license (and there is no requirement to closed-caption programming that is neither English nor French). CJNT is planning to keep all its ethnic programming (even slightly increasing its local ethnic programming requirement) and focusing its remaining schedule on ethnic music videos and other programming geared toward a younger audience.

For the CHCH decision, the CRTC got a promise (after a CTV intervention) that "local programming" would be that directed to the Hamilton/Niagara/Halton area, and that the station would not try to compete with local Toronto news stations. It accepted a request to relieve CHCH's mandate to acquire "priority" programming (Canadian dramas and other expensive-to-produce shows) since it would now be a stand-alone station and not part of a national network (this is consistent with CRTC policy). The plan for CHCH is to become all news all day, with popular revenue-generating movies in prime time.

Both stations officially become part of Channel Zero on Sept. 1, with licenses that expire on Aug. 31, 2016 (it's not clear how the handoff will happen - it won't be smooth if they want to try it literally over the weekend). Both will be required to switch to digital broadcasting on Aug. 31, 2011. And Channel Zero will be asked to re-appear before the commission in 2012 to discuss programming for both stations.

Quickie analysis: Today is a good day for the two stations, and for Montreal and Hamilton. Whether these business models are sustainable, though, is a whole other question.

In Victoria, the news isn't quite so happy. Despite a campaign from the 40 employees to buy CHEK Victoria from Canwest and run it themselves, Canwest said it wouldn't work and the station will shut down as scheduled on Aug. 31.

Related Posts

• CRTC Roundup: They saved local TV!
• Channel Zero offers to buy CJNT Montreal, CHCH Hamilton
• CJNT: America is a culture, right?
• Shaw to buy Canwest
• Welcome to the new TV

It's the idea that the employees at CHCH in Hamilton had when it looked like owner Canwest might shut it down. But now that Channel Zero has offered to buy the station and maintain the local jobs and newsroom, that idea becomes moot.

At CHEK in Victoria, they weren't so lucky. Canwest couldn't find a buyer for it, nor could they convert it into a Global station because a condition of license prevents duplication with Vancouver's CHAN. So the plan is to have it shut down by the end of August.

Last week comes word that employees at CHEK (there are about 45 in all) are pooling their money in a bid to buy the station before it gets shut down. They've pledged more than $500,000 and are hoping to present the formal offer soon. That might be too late for Canwest though, since these kinds of transactions take months and there's a ticking clock.

If that fails, there's always the Facebook petition route. Two groups have been setup, the first with over 6,000 members.

More coverage:

• CBC B.C.
• Canadian Press
• Canwest News Service
• Metro Vancouver

Related Posts

• God speed CHEK-TV
• Mixed news at small Global, CTV stations
• I, for one, welcome our new Postmedia Network Inc. overlords
• Canwest settles with freelancers over copyright lawsuits
• Good news for freelancers

After putting the five conventional television stations comprising its secondary E! network (formerly CH) on the block for a "strategic review", the results are in:

• CHCH Hamilton and CJNT Montreal will be sold to a company called Channel Zero for a grand total of $12.
• CHBC Kelowna (B.C.) will be brought into the Global network as a Global station (its local programming minimums being dropped from 13.5 hours a week to 7 will no doubt be taken advantage of here)
• CHEK Victoria and CHCA Red Deer (Alta.) will close on Aug. 31. CHEK couldn't be turned into a Global station because of a CRTC rule that it not duplicate CHAN in Vancouver. CHCA is right between Calgary and Edmonton, both of which have Global stations.

Get the news from your favourite source:

• Canwest press release
• CBC
• Vancouver Sun (focusing on CHEK), plus piece from the archives on CHEK history
• Canadian Press

The decisions mean the end to the E!/CH network.

CTV closes one, sells one, keeps one

Meanwhile, after Shaw backed away from buying three CTV stations for $1, there is similar mixed news at those stations:

• CHWI Windsor will be kept on the air for at least another year, thanks to an infusion of funding
• CKX Brandon (Man.) will be sold for $1 (press release) to Bluepoint Investment Corp. (don't ask me who that is), who may be looking to buy other TV properties
• CKNX Wingham (Ont.) will be shut down on Aug. 31 and converted into a retransmitter for CFPL London

This leaves six A-channel stations left, including CHWI and the cable-only Atlantic A network.

Related Posts

• Welcome to the new TV
• CRTC Roundup: They saved local TV!
• Shaw renegs on promise to save TV stations
• Worthless stations sold sarcastically for $1 (UPDATE: NOT!)
• CKX, the TV station nobody wanted

The press releases came out Tuesday afternoon and has been rewritten everywhere: CP, Presse Canadienne, Reuters, Financial Post, CBC, Toronto Star, Hamilton Spectator, LesAffaires.com, Broadcaster Magazine.

Channel Zero (warning: website has sound you can't turn off), which owns Silver Screen Classics and Movieola, but also AOV Adult Movie Channel, XXX Action Clips Channel and Maleflixxx Television (latter three are Wikipedia links), has agreed to purchase two of Canwest's five E! stations, CJNT in Montreal and CHCH in Hamilton.

The sale, which is for an undisclosed price (but presumably better than the $1 a station that Shaw was offering in what apparently turned out to be a bluff) is contingent upon the usual CRTC rubber stamp, but also on Canwest wrestling a new deal out of unionized employees at CHCH that would switch from a defined-benefit pension plan to a defined-contribution pension plan eliminate the employee pension plan and replace it with a defined contribution plan, throwing retirees under the bus. (CJNT staff, a grand total of six, are not unionized.) According to my ears at CHCH, the station's staff are excited by the offer (except for the pension thing) and of the prospect for producing more local news.

Channel Zero has an FAQ posted on its website which actually does a pretty good job answering the kinds of questions this would prompt from skeptics like me. (They promise not to air adult material on either station, though ... would that be such a bad thing for CJNT?)

Programming

The plan for CHCH is to turn it into an all-news station during the day (5:30 am to 8 pm) with movies in the evening. This capitalizes on CHCH's unusually high local programming requirement of 36.5 hours per week, which Channel Zero has promised to maintain (it says it wants to keep license terms "substantially similar", which suggests some changes).

For CJNT, the plan is to air foreign-language movies and multicultural music videos. It's not clear if that means there will be fewer of the foreign-language talk shows that currently air, or if the celebrity gossip and second-rate U.S. imports will be cut off.

And the rest?

Even if the deal goes through, and that's a big if, the other three stations in the E! network, CHEK Victoria, CHBC Kelowna (B.C.) and CHCA Red Deer (Alta.) are still up in the air. Canwest has made it more clear that they won't keep the stations running after this summer, and if they can't find a buyer for them they'll be shut down.

But will it work?

CHCH News has an analysis of the deal and an interview with Channel Zero's Cal Millar, which both sound very positive. People say they want local news, and this company seems prepared to inject funding to create a new all-news station. But CHCH host Mark Hebscher insightfully compares this to Toronto One, which failed as a locally-focused station two years later became bottom-feeding Sun TV.

Call me a skeptic, but Channel Zero has zero experience in running conventional television stations and zero experience with local news. Taking on CHCH is a big challenge, and I think the company is being overly optimistic about its proposed business model, even with the cut to pension expenses. Two or three years down the road, we may very well see Channel Zero come back to the CRTC and ask for reductions in local programming requirements and other commitments as it starts bleeding money.

But, like CHCH employees and their union leaders, I hope I'm wrong.

UPDATE: The Hamilton Spectator is all over the sale with articles about the sale itself, reaction to it, and an opinion praising it.

UPDATE (July 18): Channel Zero tells the CRTC the price of the sale was $12, both stations included.

Related Posts

• CRTC okays CJNT, CHCH purchase
• Welcome to the new TV
• CRTC Roundup: Details on CJNT/CHCH sale
• CRTC Roundup: They saved local TV!
• Canwest argues for changes to Montreal TV stations

The next date for our calendars is June 30, when this recapitalization plan will have to be figured out (or another deadline agreed on).

Meanwhile, my employer's employer is reportedly looking to save $20 million in labour costs through union concessions. It has sent letters to unions but says it isn't a done deal that they're officially making such requests. If they were, it would include managers like Dennis Skulsky (who is being given an honorary degree, by the way), but not Leonard Asper. Still, the unions aren't impressed.

The Gazette's union, the Montreal Newspaper Guild, says it "has received no communication of any kind, verbal or written, from Canwest or Gazette management requesting us to consider any salary or other concessions in our contractual relationship in any of our units."

The Gazette's editorial and reader sales departments have been without a contract since June 2008.

Related Posts

• Gazette editorial employees reject contract offer
• On the picket line
• Vultures circling as talks continue
• Gazette staff start byline strike
• Gazette editorial dept. votes 98% for strike mandate

The reports from Reuters, the Globe and Mail, CBC, Canadian Press and the Financial Post use the same long business terms as the press release, like "senior secured revolving asset-based loan facility", but from what my business-challenged mind can gather, there's another deadline coming on June 15, when the company has to present a restructuring plan.

Related Posts

• I, for one, welcome our new Postmedia Network Inc. overlords
• Canwest settles with freelancers over copyright lawsuits
• Good news for freelancers
• Shaw to buy Canwest
• Canwest study shows people like Canwest networks

The series is in five parts:

1. David Akin on the general state of the newspaper industry (which, in case you're wondering, does talk a bit about Canwest and its debt crisis)
2. Akin on how advertisers are best served by the print medium and by newspaper publishers
3. Akin on the difference between Canadian and U.S. newspapers (though you could just say we're a few years behind them on the death spiral)
4. Randy Boswell on how newspapers are a trustworthy medium that other media rely on
5. Kirk Lapointe with a very optimistic look at how newspapers are repositioning themselves as online destinations.

As part of the series, Canwest's newspapers were also encouraged to write about their individual histories and connections with their communities. The Gazette got young reporter Jason Magder to do a piece on the paper's connection with its community.

Other Canwest papers also wrote self-congratulatory pieces:

• Ottawa Citizen
• Regina Leader-Post
• Saskatoon StarPhoenix
• Calgary Herald
• Edmonton Journal
• Vancouver Sun
• Victoria Times-Colonist (which produced a podcast short audio piece with EIC Lucinda Chodan)

The National Post also asked its "opinion-makers" about their thoughts on newspapers:

• Conrad Black
• Michael Coren
• Father Raymond J. de Souza
• Robert Fulford
• Barbara Kay
• John Moore
• Noah Richler
• Marni Soupcoff

As if underscoring how far newspapers have to go, in neither of the three above cases could I find one page linking all these related stories together.

Finally, unrelated to any of the above, Stuart McLean writes in the Globe and Mail about why he loves newspapers.

Related Posts

• Gazette begins charging for website access
• I hope Jennifer said yes
• O, I C
• Good news for freelancers
• Congratulations, you’re an unsecured Canwest creditor

Here are some highlights from the transcript.

Global Quebec

The main change Canwest wants to make to Global Quebec's license that would affect programming is a reduction in local news. Canwest proposes to reduce local programming minimums across the country to 10 hours per week for stations in large markets (Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver) and 5 hours per week for small markets (which includes Montreal's anglo market).

This would mean local programming for CKMI would drop from 18 hours a week to 5. As a result, News Final would be reduced from an hour to half an hour on weeknights, the morning repeat of News Final would be eliminated, all weekend local news would be eliminated and the half-hour weekly news show Focus Montreal would be cancelled.

Current conditions of license:

• Regional station based out of Quebec City (CKMI-TV Channel 20) with retransmitters in Montreal (CKMI-TV-1 Channel 46) and Sherbrooke (CKMI-TV-2 Channel 11)
• Minimum of 18 hours of local programming each week
• Minimum eight hours a week of priority (drama, documentary, etc.) Canadian programming, of which at least 75% must be produced by independent production companies

Canwest's proposal:

• Station's license based out of Montreal (with retransmitters in Quebec City and Sherbrooke), with a change of classification from regional to local to allow it access to local Montreal advertising
• Minimum 5 hours a week of local programming, consistent with a national policy of 5 hours for small markets and 10 hours a week for large ones.
• Elimination of priority programming requirements (leaving only general Canadian content requirements).

On moving the station from Quebec to Montreal:

The Quebec City CMA has an English-speaking population of 7,420 people using Stats Can's 2006 numbers for language spoken at home.

For the Montreal CMA the number is closer to 600,000. We would note in this regard that in 2006 the Commission denied an application for an English-language radio station in Quebec, stating that the Commission notes that Quebec has a very small Anglophone population and that the advertising pool to support such a station is limited.

We think that it would be much more appropriate to amend the licence to reflect the size of the English-language population it serves and the majority of that audience actually resides in Montreal.

On reducing requirements for independent production:

THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay. And on independent programming, you're asking us to reduce it from 75 percent to 50 percent. Can you explain to me how that translates into dollars for you? Translate into dollars for you.

MS WILLIAMS: Yeah, I think that things are -- all of these issues are somewhat connected in that as we face a declining revenue challenge in the conventional world we're looking as much as possible to be re-inventing ourselves and thinking about different ways to make our business more successful ultimately and recapture some of this revenue if we can, other than simply just cutting away at costs.

And one of the big challenges we're all facing is the fragmentation of viewers across all of our channels and all of our other platforms and we're all trying to get our heads around, how do we somehow take advantage of all of this other viewing as opposed to it just being a problem.

So, to the extent that there is opportunity to start to garner other revenue streams from secondary platforms, those can be ways for us to make sure that that big up front investment, which is valuable in so many ways, it's valuable in terms of the big promotion you get from a show first being seen on a large platform so that everybody's aware of it, which is the only reason someone might know that they want to go find it on iTunes or your website or something anyway. There's a huge initial impact to that first broadcast.

But we don't get the revenue out of that first broadcast, although we still have all the cost. But the other revenue potentially comes from those other platforms and those other streams.

So, what we're saying is we need to be able to have, again, more flexibility on some projects some of the time to own the whole darn thing and to be able to experiment now with where we put that show and how we push that show into other places and how do we get an advertiser to buy the whole package all at once rather than an advertiser moving in and out of bits and pieces?

How do we use the leverage that we have to make these shows as successful as possible, not only with the largest audiences, but also with the largest revenue?

So, it's the flexibility to stay in control of the product in an effort to stay in control of the revenue which is the source of the whole problem here we're facing in conventional.

THE CHAIRPERSON: You're not going to produce it yourself, you're still going to buy it, so it's just you're going to own the rights rather than the producer?

MS WILLIAMS: Yeah, it is about controlling rights, it is about controlling a project from the very beginning, it is about staying in control of that project from its very beginning to its very end, and that often comes with, you know, a very significant up front cost which is one is selective about this. It's not something that suddenly we want to one hundred per cent finance, own and control every single project that we're involved in.

But we do believe that there is some value in some projects some of the time in taking a larger stance and we want to be able to do that more than the rules allow us right now.

THE CHAIRPERSON: Yes. My point was, you're not going to move into in-house production?

MS WILLIAMS: No. The contemplation at the moment is not to own a studio.

On the broadcast centres that result in centralized production of local news:

MS McGINLEY: This project, the digital news project that you were referring to, was developed and implemented to address several converging issues facing the conventional broadcasters; technologies moving to a digital platform and we had to move with it.

Content has to be available on a multiplatform basis to meet the needs of the interactive and mobile demands.

We have been facing continued declining profits in our conventional broadcast operations and sustaining significant financial losses in our small market stations.

So to address these issues, we conducted a very thorough review of the financial results of every one of our stations across the country and we have 14 conventional broadcast stations that produce local news, and we divided them into the two groups as defined in the CRTC; four that are greater than a million and 10 that are less than a million people. And our review included comparing the sales generated from the local programming per station against the costs incurred to produce and broadcast this local programming, which would come up with an operating margin or loss.

It was clear that we incur significant losses on local programming in all our small markets and in our large markets we operate at a loss in two of the four, as it relates to the generation of local programming.

Our ability to continue providing local news in all of the small markets was being questioned with this analysis.

So thanks to our very innovative engineering team, we devised a plan which we refer to as the digital news project to produce and broadcast our local newscast on a digital platform across multiple platforms in a more cost-efficient manner and avoid a costly capital upgrade.

So this was accomplished by turning our large markets; Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto and Vancouver into production centres where the technical and production responsibilities for the small markets now reside. The small market stations now have the ability to focus on their primary goal of gathering, producing and reporting compelling local content in the markets they serve.

So to be clear, the local news teams at the local stations continue to: assign stories locally, write these stories locally, edit these stories locally, vet these stories locally, tell these stories locally and maintain editorial control of the newscasts locally.

What has changed is that the local newsrooms no longer have a new studio and a control room. Instead, the local on-air anchor who is at the local station, reads the newscasts from a small green room with a desk and the rest of the virtual set is digitally inserted by the productions -- from the productions centre. The cameras at the local station are robotic and they are controlled remotely from the production -- controlled remotely by technical staff out of the production centre. The control room now resides at one of the production centres.

So the stories are gathered, written and edited at the local station, sent by a net pipe which is critical in order to do this; a dedicated fibre line linking all the stations to the production centres where the stories are inserted into a digital news system for story lineup which again is determined by the local news director.

Regional, national and international stories are added to the lineup at the production centre at the direction of the local news director.

The ability to provide local breaking news in any of our local markets still exists and we have also invested heavily in the digital archive system which will allow us to store, catalogue and retrieve the locally-televised stories and historical events gathered in all of these Canadian markets.

In a traditional model this digital archived technology would have been beyond the financial reach of a small market station.

So in summary, the digital news project provided us the following advantages:

We have now moved all of the over-the-air stations to a digital platform, thereby replacing absolute and unsupportable analog equipment at 30 percent of the cost.

We more efficiently move original, locally-produced news content throughout Canwest group of stations to support regional and national news at all of our conventional outlets. So we have less reliance on booking fibre or satellite feeds.

And we deliver a big market high-end virtual set and high-end graphics to all our stations. Even ones for the adoption of the standalone state-of-the-art digital facility would be cost prohibitive. And this has significantly improved the overall look of our small market newscasts.

And, finally, we reduced operating costs at a significant level in order to protect and insulate where possible the newsgathering capabilities at a local regional station level.

And I would like to add that last week we were very pleased to be honoured at the annual NAB conference with a Broadcast Engineering Excellence award in the category of New Studio Technology for Networks for this specific project. And it was particularly gratifying as it was voted by our peers in our industry across North America.

We would be happy to provide you with a tour and show you our facilities.

Further, I will just tell you out of the four production centres; for example in Vancouver we do the news for Winnipeg; for Montreal, for Kelowna and Victoria out of the Vancouver production centre. The production is done. In Edmonton it is Red Deer and in the Maritimes, in Calgary it is Lethbridge ... Regina and Saskatoon are slated to be done this summer.

...

THE CHAIRPERSON: Now, the CEP as you know is not pleased with this development and as we will hear from them later on. And they feel that this somehow violates your commitment for local news and a local story. I gather you feel you are compliant?

MS MCGINLEY: We are compliant.

No mention of centralized weather and sports casters.

CJNT

As you can see from this chart, CJNT has been hemmorhaging money ever since Canwest rescued it from bankruptcy. They were overly optimistic about being able to pull a profit from the station and have watched millions of dollars go down the drain each year.

As a result, Canwest is asking for changes to CJNT's license, primarily to reduce the amount of original programming it has to create each week. Its license requires 126 hours of ethnic programming each week, of which 13 hours is original and the rest repeats or acquired programming. Under the proposal, there would be only five hours of new programming every week, with more repeats so the total is the same.

Looking at the charts they provide, it seems clear something needs to be done. CJNT is spending more than 100% of its entire budget on Canadian programming.

Current conditions of license:

• Ethnic programming must comprise:
  • no less than 60% of the total broadcast schedule (6am to midnight)
  • no less than 50% of the schedule between 6pm and midnight
  • no less than 75% between 8pm and 10pm
• Non-ethnic programming must be 35-60% English and 35-60% French
• Third-language programming must comprise at least 50% of the total broadcast schedule
• Ethnic programming must be directed toward no less than 18 different groups and in no less than 15 different languages, calculated on a monthly basis
• Minimum 13.5 hours of local programming each week

Canwest's proposal:

• Ethnic languages broadcast per week: 5
• Ethnic groups targeted per week: 5
• No requirement for French-language non-ethnic programming
• Minimum 5 hours of local programming each week
• Ethnic programming would comprise a minimum of:
  • 50% of the total broadcast schedule (6am to midnight)
  • 40% of prime time (6pm to midnight)
  • No restriction on programming between 8pm and 10pm specifically

From its license renewal application:

Over an entire licence term (plus one additional year), the station has underperformed even the most pessimistic financial projections.  Operating losses since 2002 have exceeded $30 million.  We never expected to make much money on this investment (see below), but losing an average of over $5.3 million per year (over the past three years) was never anticipated.  And given the pressures on our company, and more generally on the conventional television sector, we cannot continue to operate this station on a status quo basis.

Charlotte Bell, head of Regulatory Affairs, on the problems facing the station:

As you know, we have tried everything possible to make the station viable. We face a much different challenge than the OMNI stations with no synergies for ethnic programming and much smaller ethnic communities. We have not been able to attract advertising revenues to support the ethnic programming.

We are hobbled in our non-ethnic programming with restrictions that require a mix of English and French language programming, effectively making us the fourth entrant in French-language television in the market after TVA, Radio Canada, TQS and Télé-Québec.

You are quite aware of the struggles of TQS and we follow them and the opportunity to acquire attractive programming and consequently in our capacity to draw programming. This requirement as well as the requirement for ethnic programming between eight and ten also limits our ability to share programming with other Canwest stations.

As the Commission has often pointed out with regard to ethnic programs, the only viable private conventional model is having foreign English language programming support ethnic programming and this option is not fully available to us.

...It remains doubtful that these changes will make the station viable, but at least it will give it a better chance to succeed.

On wanting license amendments at the same time it is considering selling the station:

COMMISSIONER MENZIES: I have a couple questions; one which I have asked other people so I have to ask you too, and the other one is just on the topic we are on, (CJNT).

If I get it correctly, the aim is to get this licence spruced up and then you can sell it, is that what I understood basically, make it more attractive to a potential buyer?

MR. PETER VINER: That is an option, yes.

MS BELL: Can I just jump in for a second though? This is part of the goal, but we applied for a lot of these changes several years ago. And because of the losses that were continually incurred by the station, we were turned down. So it is not a new idea, because we may be selling the station.

The CRTC also has issues with CJNT's license compliance concerning the total amount of ethnic programming produced over the past few years. Canwest said there is a lag time for reporting and that shortfalls would be made up.

Related Posts

• Even more details about Montreal’s digital TV transition
• CRTC okays CJNT, CHCH purchase
• CRTC Roundup: They saved local TV!
• Channel Zero offers to buy CJNT Montreal, CHCH Hamilton
• CRTC roundup: broken television