CKX-TV Brandon to close Oct. 2 after Blueprint reneges on $1 purchase offer
Taylor
Brandon Sun
The Brandon television station's 40 employees received word late
Thursday afternoon that Bluepoint Investment Corporation has backed
out of its promise to purchase the station from CTVGlobemedia.
The two companies had been working towards the hand off of CKX to
Bluepoint by the end of the year.
As a result of the break down, the station has simply run out of time
to find a buyer and will close for good, CTV officials have confirmed.
"I have talked with Alan Cruise, the General Manger of CKX-TV Brandon,
and we agreed it was in the best interest of everyone, including the
employees, to get on with life, close immediately and pay out
severances," CTV's president and CEO, Ivan Fecan, said in a memo sent
to all station staff this afternoon.
"Accordingly, CKX-TV Brandon will close (Friday) after its 6pm
newscast," the memo concluded.
CKX-TV first took to the local airwaves in on Jan. 28, 1955 , launched
by Western Manitoba Broadcasters.
It remained locally-owned by the Craigs for nearly half a century
before was sold to CHUM-TV in 2004, which was subsequently purchased
by CTVglobemedia Inc. in 2007.
FOR THE FULL STORY, SEE TOMORROW'S BRANDON SUN.
---
from: cartt.ca
The final newscast of CKX-TV Brandon will happen tomorrow at 6 p.m.,
station owner CTVglobemedia told staff Thursday evening. Thirty-nine
employees will lose their jobs.
The company that had announced in July that it was purchasing the
station, Bluepoint Investments, has walked away from the $1 deal to
buy it, a surprised CTVgm CEO Ivan Fecan told employees today, calling
a letter he received from Bluepoint late Thursday an “unanticipated
development”.
“Bottom line, they didn’t think there was a sustainable business
without satellite coverage, which they cannot get,” said Fecan in a
memo to staff.
“Brandon, like many of our smaller stations, is not carried by
satellite companies, who say they don’t have room for all of Canada’s
local TV stations, while finding plenty of room for foreign channels,”
he added.
“As you might recall Shaw also offered to buy Brandon and then backed
out. Two knowledgeable buyers, two cratered deals.
“I have talked with Alan Cruise the general manger of CKX-TV Brandon,
and we agreed it was in the best interest of everyone, including the
employees, to get on with life, close immediately and pay out
severances,” added Fecan.
So tomorrow, CKX-TV Brandon, which was owned by the Craig family for
50 years and went on the air in January of 1955 as the first privately-
owned TV station in Manitoba (and which was operating as a CBC
affiliate until recently) will close tomorrow after its 6 p.m.
newscast.
on the Web:
http://www.ckxtv.com/index.php
Taylor
CTV to close station in Brandon, Man., after 6 p.m. newscast Friday
(CP, MetromediaSquare.com) – 5 hours ago
TORONTO — One of Canada's most troubled local television stations will
sign off for good Friday after a would-be buyer backed out of a deal
to buy 54-year-old broadcaster CKX-TV Brandon for the purchase price
of $1 - for the second time in three months. CKX learned of the
collapsed deal late Thursday by way of a dejected-sounding memo from
Ivan Fecan, the chief executive of CTV Inc.
"Two knowledgeable buyers, two cratered deals," Fecan wrote - a
reference to Shaw Communications Inc., which had initially agreed to
purchase the station for $1, only to back out in June. This time, it
was Bluepoint Investments Corp., which decided it couldn't proceed
with the deal if Canada's satellite TV companies weren't willing to
carry the station's signal.
"I have talked with Alan Cruise, the general manager of CKX-TV
Brandon, and we agreed it was in the best interest of everyone,
including the employees, to get on with life, close immediately and
pay out severances."
The station is to shut down following Friday's supper-hour newscast,
said Fecan, who is also president and chief executive of CTV parent
CTVglobemedia (TSX:BCE, TSX:TS.B).
"Brandon, like many of our smaller stations, is not carried by
satellite companies, who say they don't have room for all of Canada's
local TV stations, while finding plenty of room for foreign channels."
Cruise said the development will have a huge impact on the community.
"Now there's a market of 124,000 people that will no longer have a
face on their politician," he said Thursday night.
"Take a good look at who your mayor is, because you won't see your
next mayor because he won't be on TV. You think a station's coming out
from Winnipeg to cover a big issue in Brandon? That's not going to
happen."
"I shudder to think what happens if there's a killer winter storm. I
don't know where people are supposed to turn for information."
Bluepoint chief executive Colin Berrie said at the time he saw an
opportunity to scoop up the unwanted TV stations that national
broadcasters are selling, and form a mini-media empire for pocket
change.
The deal for the Brandon station, which employs 39 people, was
expected to be completed by Dec. 31. But CTV spokesman Paul Sparkes
said the station will go dark at the end of its 6 p.m. newscast.
"I guess at the end of the day they just didn't see a business there,"
said Sparkes. "It just speaks volumes for the future of local TV in
this country."
Indeed, as stations like CKX have been hanging in the balance, a
debate has been raging in Ottawa over the prospect of a so-called fee-
for-carriage system - a scheme that would allow TV networks to charge
cable and satellite companies for using their local signals.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission last
year rejected the request from the networks for fee-for-carriage,
which they argue is the only way they can remain competitive with
specialized channels, video-on-demand and new media.
The networks, hard hit by falling ad revenues, want to collect
millions of dollars from companies that deliver their signals to
subscribers by cable or satellite. The future of local television
depends on it, they argue.
The cable and satellite firms don't want to eat the fees themselves,
but are loath to pass them on to subscribers. They say customers don't
want to pay for signals that can be pulled in free over the airwaves.
The networks say people will pay because they appreciate local TV.
Cruise said he wasn't totally surprised at Bluepoint's decision.
"I'd been working very closely, diligently with Bluepoint on the
application to the CRTC and I certainly got the sense they were
looking to perhaps back away, they were in over their heads."
However, he said there is still a shock at realizing the end of an
institution.
"I've been there 26 years and am very close to all of these people,"
he said.
"Many of them, if not all of them, I call friends and know their kids'
names and spouses' names. There's not very many people who can say
everybody who works for them is there because it's what they love to
do."
CTV has been struggling to keep stations afloat in some local markets.
Shaw Communications Inc. (TSX:SJR.B) had agreed to buy the CTV
stations in Brandon, Windsor, Ont., and Wingham, Ont., but pulled out
in late June.
The decision left CTV scrambling to find alternative solutions for the
three stations. Earlier this month, the broadcaster announced that it
would keep its A Channel station in Windsor, Ont. open until at least
Aug. 31, 2010.
Meanwhile, it had also applied to the CRTC to turn its Wingham, Ont.
station into a full re-broadcast of the A Channel station in London,
Ont.
Separate from its local stations, CTV's parent company CTVglobemedia
signed a deal with Corus Entertainment Inc. (TSX:CJR.B) this week to
sell its specialty television services Drive-In Classics and SexTV for
$40 million.
Canwest Global Communications Corp. (TSX:CGS) sold its CHEK-TV station
in Victoria to a group of private investors last month.
Canwest had planned to close the station that it said had been a money-
loser since it purchased it in 2000, but sold the station for a
"nominal purchase price."
"The writing's on the wall for conventional television, make no
mistake," said Cruise. "It's in big trouble."
"I personally believe the CRTC will do the right thing at the end of
the day - they'll put a value for carriage fee in that will hopefully
save some stations. Too late for ours. Too late for Red Deer. I hope
it's not too late for Victoria and Hamilton and a few others."
CKXTV.com
Brian Smith
news:79860c60-9688-436e...@x6g2000prc.googlegroups.com...
CKXTV.com
________________
More fucking whining and unbelievable bullshit from CTVglobemedia, etc. They
honestly think people want to pay to have access to every single Canadian TV
station in the country? The dumb fucks never should have spent billions of
dollars buying up cable networks/stations that have very limited viewership
and they also never should have expected that by doing so that their own
ratings wouldn't drop. I wish Harper would take a big gamble and legislate
the CRTC out of business and let the cable and satellite companies offer
what consumers want to see. TV networks, etc. in this country would suddenly
have to actually produce some product that people want to see and they might
discover that if they concentrate on content instead of lobbying that people
might actually watch their programming and they might actually sell more of
it to other markets, including the US. It would be a win-win situation for
everyone but the greedy bastards currently running the Canadian media
empires. If the Aspers get forced out of the business I'd consider it to be
one of the best days ever in this country. :-)
Oh, the good people of Brandon we'll be able to see their mayor and get
local news via their local community cable channel. They tend to cover the
news just as well as the "big" guys anyway at the local level.
Brian
BobF
<lukeb...@gmail.com> magnanimously proffered:
>As a result of the break down, the station has simply run out of time
>to find a buyer and will close for good, CTV officials have confirmed.
Those of us who have worked in broadcasting know how the people we
work with become a family and how painful it can be when the fabric
that holds that family together is torn apart. Loss of income and
having to find another gig is bad enough, but no longer being able to
work with close friends and colleagues is the most difficult thing to
replace. I wish them all well.
--
Oh, I'm sure TGS has 2 of those things hanging down with the left one a
lot lower than the other, but maybe they aren't producing any testosterone
anymore. [j/k, TGS!]
- From "The Sayings of Roy"
Michael Black
> [Default] On Fri, 2 Oct 2009 01:05:03 -0700 (PDT), Taylor
> <lukeb...@gmail.com> magnanimously proffered:
>
>> As a result of the break down, the station has simply run out of time
>> to find a buyer and will close for good, CTV officials have confirmed.
>
> Those of us who have worked in broadcasting know how the people we
> work with become a family and how painful it can be when the fabric
> that holds that family together is torn apart. Loss of income and
> having to find another gig is bad enough, but no longer being able to
> work with close friends and colleagues is the most difficult thing to
> replace. I wish them all well.
>
And in a smaller market, it means either moving away to stay in the
industry, or finding something in another field.
A bunch of radio people, from 2 or 3 stations, were fired here in August.
Out of the blue, lots of excuses but simply to save money. There is a
limited number of places in radio where they could find jobs locally, and
while it has happened in the past of someone moving from one station to
another, that only seems to work with the really big names. These were
not drive-time hosts. These were overnight and early afternoon type
hosts. They were all lucky in that they seemed to be doing other things
besides their radio jobs, so they can continue doing voice work and such.
One apparently has landed on tv news, though I haven't seen him to
confirm. Otherwise, they'd just fade away I think, moving elsewhere or
moving to jobs out of the public.
In big markets, I imagine there is more shifting around, since there are
many more places to find jobs in the industry.
Michael
Charlene
> On Fri, 2 Oct 2009, BobF wrote:
> > [Default] On Fri, 2 Oct 2009 01:05:03 -0700 (PDT), Taylor
I have no idea how many TV stations there are in Winnipeg but I
suspect some staff will be moving here - the old Christian station was
just sold to Moses Znaimer, who I suspect might change the format
slightly.
wd45