The Point

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Mergers and missiles


I wanted to write about what's going on in Israel and Lebanon and the Gaza Strip right now, but I have been quieted by the sheer pace of the violence. It seems I am more naïve than I realised, because I have really been stunned by how quickly the situation has escalated. Possibly more on that later.

I am, however, perhaps predictably concerned about Bell Globemedia's overtures toward CHUM. Edmonton has three main daily news broadcasts, CFRN News (owned by BGM), Global (owned by CanWest Global), and CityTV (owned by CHUM). Global used to be called ITV, and was an independent station established and owned in Edmonton; CityTV was called A-Channel, and was relatively independent until it was bought out by CHUM a few years ago and they added that Much More Music driftwood guy to the morning show, Bill Welychka.

So the already small number of media outlets with a news broadcast in Edmonton, if the merger goes through, will be basically divided between a company owned by the Aspers and a company owned by the Thompsons. The unique spin on this story in The Globe and Mail (BGM's -ahem- national newspaper) is worth mentioning; rather than portray the merger as one giant company trying to get an even bigger share of the market to run down their competitors by folding in another relatively large and willing partner, they published a front page article about purported tensions between the adult children of CHUM founder Allan Waters, who passed away last December. I was intrigued by how cleverly The Globe told the story as one of desperate sibling drama reaching a seemingly inevitable breaking point and forcing them to sell. I'm not biting, but then, I'm not in charge of the CRTC.

It's now up to the independent broadcasting watchdog, which regulates Canadian media from radio to satellite TV, to decide whether to allow BGM, which already controls CTV, the Discovery Channel, the Comedy Network, and has 15% shares in the Toronto Raptors, among other things, to take control of CHUM's newsrooms from Vancouver to Winnipeg, its muzak division, its sprawling radio network, and, of course, MuchMusic. Any sane and rational person might point out that the media in Canada is already incredibly concentrated, and perhaps even take the bold move of arguing that allowing Bell Globemedia to have such a huge slice of the pie might be bad for say, people wanting to get a balanced set of perspectives from their nightly news, let alone the hundreds of people fired by CHUM hours before the merger was announced.

The BGM management's triumphant announcement that this will create a 'national champion in broadcasting' seems disingenuous at best. I've heard people saying the CBC's rather negative coverage of the merger from its Arts division is overly harsh, that it's a bit rich for them to be arguing there won't be enough variety of opinion in the Canadian media if it goes through. But who can honestly say they would rather have fewer newsrooms operating in our country, fewer journalists, fewer talented hosts on sports radio? Perhaps it's wishful thinking to assume I'm not alone here. Anybody?

Photo credit: Dan Barham

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posted by Christopher at 2:14 a.m.

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