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 Pacific Press printing plant at Kennedy Heights, Surrey, 1997. Pacific Press
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So many changes have occurred in local media ownership during the past year that it is hard to tell the players without a scorecard. Major newspapers have changed hands, familiar television stations have changed names, new stations will soon go on the air in Vancouver, and radio stations have been switching owners all over the province. Here are some of the highlights.
On July 22, Vancouver will get its newest television station when old familiar CKVU 13 is rebranded as Citytv. The new channel, which is promised to be television "with an attitude," is modelled on Toronto's highly successful channel of the same name, the brainchild of media guru Moses Znaimer. Citytv is owned by the Toronto-based CHUM Ltd. Its sister station in Victoria, CIVI-TV, which launched in Sept 2001, is also owned by CHUM.
CKVU used to be owned by CanWest Global Communications, but CanWest sold it in the fall of 2001 after it purchased the local station BCTV, which became Global BC. CanWest Global also owns CHEK-TV in Victoria (now CH Victoria) and CHBC-TV in Kelowna. Global is in competition for the all-important local news audience with CTV BC, affiliated with the national CTV network, CBC Vancouver and, of course, the new Citytv station.
CanWest Global's other media assets in BC include the Vancouver Sun and Province newspapers, the Times-Colonist newspaper in Victoria, the Nanaimo Daily News, and numerous smaller newspapers on Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland, as well as the National Post. Indeed, the Winnipeg-based company's wide-ranging interests, not just in BC but nationally as well, have raised questions about the concentration of media ownership in Canada.
A completely new Vancouver television station is scheduled to go on the air in the spring of 2003. Aimed at the Lower Mainland's ethnic communities, this new station will offer programming in 20 languages. It will be operated by Multivan Broadcast Corp, owned by 5 prominent city entrepreneurs: Robert Lee, James Ho, Joseph Segal, Douglas Holtby and Geoffrey Lau.
Meanwhile, radio station owners have also been playing musical chairs. In 1999 the eastern Canadian media giant Telemedia Communications Inc took over a number of radio stations owned by the Vancouver-based Okanagan Skeena Group. In 2001, Telemedia announced that it was getting out of the radio business and sold 21 BC stations to Standard Broadcasting of Toronto. These stations are:
CJDC, Dawson Creek
CKRX, Fort Nelson
CKNL, Fort St. John
CHRX-FM, Fort St. John
CKGR, Golden
CKBL, Kelowna
CHSU-FM, Kelowna
CKTK, Kitimat
CKKC, Nelson
CJOR, Osoyoos
CJMG-FM, Penticton
CKOR, Penticton
CHTK, Prince Rupert
CIOR, Princeton
CKCR, Revelstoke
CKXR, Salmon Arm
CHOR, Summerland
CFTK, Terrace
CJFW-FM, Terrace
CJAT-FM, Trail
CICF, Vernon
The deal also included a pair of television stations: CJDC-TV in Dawson Creek and CFTK-TV in Terrace.
Harbour Publishing Co. Ltd and Harbour Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. © 2002.
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