THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED:
Some one-week-later thought, observations, news and other bits on the $1.7 billion deal between Bell Globemedia and CHUM.
Former MuchMusic/Bravo/Citytv babe Carla Lucchetta muses on the unique CHUM culture in the online magazine, The Tyee.
“Creativity is about surprises, Bay Street is about no surprises,” said Moses Znaimer, co-founder and past President / Executive Producer of CHUMCity in a recent Life and Times program. He was answering the question on everyone’s minds since his sudden departure from Chum in 2003: Did he quit? Or was his “creative” model pushed out by the “corporate” one. And once again, that’s really what’s at stake in Bell Globemedia’s $1.7 billion bid for Chum Television, announced July 12.
Be sure to read the comments on both her blog and her piece.
Regular reader Sanj sent along a few links worth exploring. Here's Bear604's funny (but not-so-haha-funny) predictions on a CTVified media landscape. My Point compares and contrasts the diversified TV station ownership in Ontario 21 years ago with today's converged, consolidated and concentrated industry. It's an eye-opening post. Used to be there were 31 Ontario stations with 16 organizations claiming ownership. Since?
The number of owners dropped to 15 in 1987 with Frontenac and Kawartha being bought by Power Corporation. Baton bought Bushnell in 1989, Mid-Canada and Huron in 1990, and the stations owned by Blackburn in 1992. They went on to merge with CAP in 1996. Western International Communications (WIC), who bought Niagara in 1993, was bought by Global in 2000. CHUM bought several stations owned by Baton in 1997. Baton became CTV Inc. in 1998, and was itself bought by Bell Globemedia in 2001. And now, in 2006, CHUM is bought by Bell. So, as it stands now, there are 34 stations spread out over 10 owners (average 3.4 stations per organization).
Here's part of a first-person account published in the Winnipeg Free Press (sub. req'd.) by Glen Kirby, former co-anchor of Citytv's former 6 o'clock newscast there. Like nearly 300 other CHUM staffers, he was cruelly cut last week, as was his show. (H/t to A.D.R.)
WE were assembled in the very room where the crime was allegedly perpetrated night after night after night. Loosely gathered on the studio floor, we were told we had failed. Our services were no longer required. CityTV management cancelled our nightly newscasts at 6 and 11 -- effective immediately. No fond farewell. No final "thanks for watching." No goodbyes.
They said too few people were tuning in to justify the cost of putting our fourth-rated newscasts on the air. CityTV had a new strategy -- stop trying, stop competing with the other local television stations for a slice of the news audience.
So they sacked the programs and the staff, including me. But let's not dwell on the lost jobs. CityTV's abdication raises questions about the responsibility of a local television station to its public. And let's not forget the loss of a viable voice and perspective in this community because of media concentration.
News programming used to be a social commitment. Stories would reflect the community and its values, not unlike a politician elected to represent the ideals of his or her voters. A TV station's identity was forged largely through the faces, attitudes and responsibilities of its news division.
Now, the overriding concern of every TV program is to make money. Cheap syndication replaces more expensive local news content. The ability to reflect one's community through educating, enlightening stories is tarnished by ratings-driven titillation. New York Times columnist Frank Rich wrote of "a 20-year trend in which the media ... have steadily replaced journalistic standards with those of show business."
<SNIP>
Less than a month after a Canadian Senate committee warned against increased media conglomeration, the last of the so-called "independent" TV networks in this country is apparently being gobbled up by the acknowledged big dog on the block. And at the very moment Bell Globemedia was telling the public about its plan to buy CHUM's handful of television stations sprinkled through cities like Winnipeg, and "make the united company a stronger national champion in broadcasting," I was ushered into the news studio with nearly 20 other employees (more than 280 across Canada) and told the news was no longer needed.
The government's broadcast licensing agency must still give its blessing to what the astute politicians predicted will be a country "poorly served if as few as one, two or three groups control substantial portions of the news and information media in particular markets or within the country as a whole".
As we were being fired, there was anger, resentment and even tears. Most of those let go were young, earning little more than minimum wage, with precious little job experience. They had hoisted news cameras and worked in flickering edit booths making the magic that is television news. They had started at the station full of hope and hard work looking to carve a career in a business that's renowned for egos and empty promises.
I am sad for my friends who have lost their jobs because the sacred trust was squandered for all these years by business owners who, in the end, pronounced the rancid mess unsalvageable. I am sad for the people in Manitoba who have lost one more choice for news. Others can more eloquently speak to the apparent evils of media concentrations but I will suggest fewer are not better. A runner surging in fourth place makes the three ahead work harder.
And finally, I am sad for not receiving the opportunity to say goodbye and thank you for inviting us into your living room each night. On that final newscast, I would have said the end came quickly, and tried my best to offer information of value.
Finally, a memo from CEO Peter Viner being circulated over at CanWest MediaWorks where they must be spinning as fast as they can. Here are bits of it.
It could mean our biggest competitor will become bigger. The CHUM acquisition would give Bell Globemedia more buying power, however, the outcome of this bid will only be known in about 12 months time. Either way, we need to continue to look at how we become better and smarter at what we do.
The media industry continues to become more and more integrated, merging the worlds of print, online, radio, and television. Although we are most often focused on our individual operations on a day to day basis, I encourage each of you to take some time to consider how best to work together across our portfolio of assets to boost the value we offer both consumers and advertisers.
As Canada's largest and most diversified media company, we offer consumers two conventional networks, plus specialty channels, radio stations a number of strong newspaper and online properties. We are uniquely positioned to provide our advertisers with truly integrated and creative media opportunities across regions and across some of Canada's strongest media brands.
I'd like to highlight some of our key results from the last three months and provide you with some direction as we pass the midway point of 2006. My goal is to keep you better informed of our progress and to outline what we all need to do to move the business forward.
<financial boilerplate>
At the corporate level, we are focusing on four major areas for operational improvement:
1. Strengthening online. Our goal is to grow our online business and become as much as a leader in this area as we are in print and television. We need to continue to look for opportunities to blend these media to provide maximum value to our consumer and advertising clients.
2. Increasing advertising revenues through a revitalized marketing approach. This includes providing more research and information to our customers, more information about our viewers and readers, gaining better knowledge from consumers about what they want, and ensuring we can best market the value of our media to our advertising clients.
3. Improving the infrastructure of both our print and television businesses. We have to become more efficient to remain competitive over the long term. There are a number of initiatives already underway on this front; however, we must continue to look for opportunities to leverage technology to improve our infrastructure and drive the business forward.
4. Rethinking content distribution across platforms. Are we meeting consumer needs by providing what they want to know, where and when they want to get it? We need to think of ourselves as a content delivery & entertainment organization, not just a newspaper, television or online company.
We have a number of solid operational improvement projects currently underway, including:
* The creation of digital newsrooms in Vancouver and Toronto which will allow us to streamline news production, move us from an analog to a digital network and allow us to repurpose our news into other platforms (Internet, ipods, digital billboards, and any new technologies that develop).
* The S4M traffic and sales project which will see our broadcast division replace their outdated and largely manual core systems and business processes which are related to Program, Sales and Traffic and Promotion Management. This new system will enable us to dramatically improve our customer service and our ability to confirm and book sales contracts in real time, reduce operating costs, drive efficiencies, and increase sales.
* The rollout of a company-wide intranet this fall which will help us to automate and streamline many of our manual processes, improve efficiencies and better share useful information throughout our organization.
Then comes a bunch of rah-rah, go team go, stuff.
What's missing is talk of improving journalism.
Which is what is worrying about this media marriage any way you look at it.
But I don't know the solution. You can't force a private company not to merge, even if it's regulated. You can't keep it unmerged and allow it to run into the ground, can you?
UPPITY DATE: Former Citytv political correspondent Adam Vaughan, whose dad Colin was a Citytv original, weighs in this week in Eye, the alternative weekly owned by Torstar which owns the Star which owns this blog (but not me.) (H/t to Sanj!)
Regarding concentration, the issues are obvious. Those involved in the merger claim that CFTO (CTV's local affiliate) and Citytv will remain separate, as will CP24 and Newsnet, the new company's competing news organizations. In the short term, this may be possible and it's certainly what the regulator (the CRTC) wants to hear, but in the long term, it's highly unlikely.
Membership in the Ottawa press gallery, for example, is expensive and most of the video you see on any network in the country is the result of a pool camera that members buy into and support. Why would any media company pay and staff two crews and two reporters and two editors and book two satellite feeds for the same story when one would do?
Citytv may claim it brings a Toronto perspective to the Hill, but in recent years, as obligations to serve all Ontario on CP24 have grown, and as Citytv looks to broaden its reach into the 905 region, the station has moved to covering the top national story out of Ottawa instead of digging up local angles ignored by national media.
The same can be said for City Hall and Queen's Park. Consolidation of resources makes sense on a corporate level and spending shareholder money to compete with yourself is never a long-term strategy in the private sector.
This means that it will get harder and harder to bring Toronto stories -- like the island airport or even the plight of the homeless -- to a national stage. It may become even harder to get local stories aired. It's not uncommon in newsrooms to have stories re-edited to protect corporate advertisers. In corporate media families as well, a negative story on one station can affect advertising sales on another media platform.
The CRTC -- who must approve the merger -- is not unaware of these dynamics and the major political and lobby groups are working on the problems linked to media concentration, too, but for the city of Toronto, the problems are even more serious than journalistic convergence.
There's more. Read it.
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