Western International Communications
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Specialty channels, broadcasting, satellite distribution |
WIC Western International Communications Ltd.
The company itself was acquired by
With the sale of Canwest's broadcasting assets to Shaw a decade later, the Shaw family at that point controlled almost all of the assets of the former WIC – through either Shaw or Corus – the sole exceptions being a handful of resold local TV stations and specialty channel assets, including interests in
History
, which became BCTV's sister station. WBC was publicly traded for a time but was later reacquired by Griffiths's family.In 1982, the Griffiths' media assets were again floated on the public markets in a restructured form via WIC. The Griffiths retained Western Broadcasting, which in turn held all of WIC's Class A voting shares; the Class B shares were sold to the public. Class B shares did not generally provide voting rights, but would be converted to voting shares should a majority of Class A shares change hands, a so-called coat-tail provision.
Over time, WIC would acquire various broadcasting assets from other companies, including
Takeover battle
In 1997, wanting to exit the broadcasting business, the Griffiths agreed to sell WIC to Shaw Communications. Initially, they sold 49.98% of their Class A shares to Shaw, 49.98% to the Allard family, and 0.04% to CanWest, in order to evade the coat-tail provision while Shaw completed a takeover bid for the non-voting shares.
However, CanWest also coveted WIC, primarily for its independent television stations in Alberta, the largest remaining hole in the company's Global Television Network, Canada's third English-language over-the-air television network. CanWest also offered to buy the Class B shares and filed a lawsuit claiming that the division of Class A shares constituted a change of control.
The lawsuit eventually stalled, and CanWest and Shaw each ended garnered over 40% of Class B shares. The negotiations between Shaw and CanWest continued until 1999, when the two parties, as well as Corus Entertainment, agreed to split the assets.[4][b]
Under the agreement, CanWest was to acquire WIC's broadcast television division, various production assets, as well as its interests in
Shaw would acquire WIC's interests in
Meanwhile, Corus was to acquire WIC's radio, specialty, and premium television assets. The CRTC approved the sale of the radio stations, MovieMax, SuperChannel, and WIC's video on demand services to Corus, but required WIC's shares of The Family Channel and Teletoon be sold to a new buyer. Astral Media acquired those shares in 2001.[c]
Effects of WIC breakup
CanWest's acquisition of WIC's television stations finally brought the Global network's service to
In
As a result, on September 1, 2001, the Global brand and programming moved from CKVU to CHAN, the CTV association moved from CHAN to CIVT, and CKVU was purchased by
CHCH and CJNT's signals also overlapped with existing Global stations; these two stations were integrated with CHEK into the CH system. CKRD disaffiliated from the CBC in September, 2005, becoming CHCA, the fourth CH station.[d] CHBC's similar disaffiliation was approved by the CRTC on February 28, 2005, and disaffiliated on February 27, 2006, to join the CH system.[e] Montreal was largely unaffected by the breakup of WIC. The breakup did, however, result in the CBC, CTV and Global affiliates becoming network owned-and-operated stations, as Montreal was the largest television market in which CTV did not own its affiliate. Moreover, CJNT, which had been sister station to CFCF, became sister station to CKMI.
Global did not have a true national newscast before it acquired WIC, although it aired
Later ramifications
While the acquisition was important to fill in some of the gaps of the Global network in western Canada, it eventually proved to be something of a
In 2010, Shaw announced a deal to buy the entirety of Canwest's broadcasting division, which would place most of the former WIC assets under the control of the Shaw family, through either Shaw or Corus.[5] The deal was completed that October, with the Canwest properties now being part of Shaw Media.
On January 13, 2016, the aforementioned Corus Entertainment, which remained under the control of the Shaw family and retained all of the former WIC radio properties, announced that it would acquire Shaw Media (including much of WIC's former group of local television stations) for $2.65 billion. The sale, which was intended to help fund Shaw Communications' purchase of Wind Mobile, required shareholder and CRTC approval, but closed less than three months later, on April 1, 2016.[2][6] At the time Corus also owned WIC's former pay television properties (by then known as Movie Central and Encore Avenue), but the company had announced in late 2015 it would sell those services' subscriber base and programming rights to Bell Media's The Movie Network, which took effect on March 1, 2016 (TMN was later renamed to Crave after a streaming service of the same name).
Assets
Television stations
WIC was primarily an ownership group, not a television network. Some WIC stations were network affiliates of CBC or CTV, while others operated as independent stations, although some of these stations also had program supply agreements with CanWest. At the same time however, WIC produced or purchased Canadian rights to enough programs to fill the schedule of CHCH (which had no third-party programming source), and many of these programs, including the newscast Canada Tonight and foreign programming such as Touched by an Angel, aired on other WIC stations. The WIC library of programming would ultimately form the initial basis of Canwest's ill-fated second broadcast service, CH (later E!).
At the time of its sale to CanWest, WIC owned the following stations. The year WIC first acquired control of each station, and the programming carried by each station immediately prior to the breakup of the company, is also noted.
City | Station | Year acquired | Primary programming source | Other programming sources | Current status |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Calgary | CICT | 1989 | Global[f] | WIC | Global O&O |
Edmonton | CITV | 1991 | Global[f] | WIC | Global O&O |
Hamilton | CHCH | 1990 | Independent (WIC programs only) | N/A | Independent station owned by Channel Zero
|
Lethbridge | CISA | 1989 | Global[f] | WIC | Global O&O |
Kelowna | CHBC | 1989[g] | CBC | Global / WIC | Global O&O |
Montreal | CFCF | 1997 | CTV | WIC | CTV O&O |
Montreal | CJNT | 1999 | Independent multicultural | N/A | Citytv O&O |
Red Deer | CKRD | 1991 | CBC | Global / WIC (programs not carried on CICT/CITV) | Later CHCA; closed in 2009 following shutdown of CH / E! |
Vancouver | CHAN | 1982[g] | CTV | WIC | Global O&O |
Victoria | CHEK | 1982[g] | CTV (timeshifted) | WIC (different programs from those on CHAN) | Independent station owned by CHEK Media Group |
WIC's CTV affiliates, CHAN and CHEK, as well as CFCF (even before its acquisition by WIC), had a hostile relationship with the network, due to these stations' desire to take a greater role in Canadian program production for the network. This relationship deteriorated even further in 1997, when rival
Unlike many other ownership groups, which during the 1990s tended to brand their stations generically under a network / system brand (sometimes combined with the station call sign), WIC tended to favour regionally based station branding. For example, under WIC's ownership, CHAN used the brand BCTV, with CICT being known as Calgary 7 and CKRD Red Deer as RDTV. WIC also changed CHCH's branding to OnTV in 1997, when the station added several rebroadcast transmitters throughout Ontario.
- Superchannel (later Movie Central; now defunct)
- MovieMax (later Encore Avenue; now defunct)
- Viewers Choice in Western Canada (now Shaw PPV)
- Report on Business Television (now BNN Bloomberg) - 50%
- Family Channel- 50%
- Cartoon Network) and Télétoon- both 20% (via 40% total interests that were held by Family Channel)
Radio stations
At the time of its sale to CanWest, Western International Communications owned 12 radio stations. These were acquired by Corus Entertainment.
- Calgary - CHQR, CKIK
- Edmonton - CHED, CKNG
- Hamilton - CHML, CJXY
- CFYI, CILQ
- Vancouver - CKNW, CFMI
- Winnipeg - CJOB, CJKR
Footnotes
- ^ The company's full legal name included, seemingly redundantly, both the "WIC" acronym and its expanded form.[1]
- ^ Corus, consisting of Shaw's former broadcasting division, had been spun off from Shaw earlier in the year, in the process receiving some of Shaw's interest in WIC.
- ^ Corus already held a minority interest in Teletoon, which - following subsequent acquisitions - was run as a 50/50 joint venture with Astral. Teletoon became wholly owned by Corus in 2013, due to Astral Media's takeover by Bell Media.
- ^ CHCA would later go off the air on August 31, 2009
- ^ Although CHBC did not use the CH brand on-air, but rather its call letters, as it had done throughout its existence, until September 7, 2007, when it began using the E! brand for all programs outside of local news and regional programming.
- ^ a b c Although the station in question was nominally independent, the vast majority of its primetime programming was supplied by Canwest.
- ^ a b c WIC was already a partial owner of these stations, but acquired the remainder of each station, specifically 50% of CHBC and 41% of each of CHAN and CHEK, from Selkirk Communications (via Maclean-Hunter) in 1989.
References
- ^ "SHAW COMMUNICATIONS BUYS WIC WESTERN INTERNATIONAL". The New York Times. April 18, 1998. Retrieved June 26, 2020.
- ^ a b "Corus Entertainment acquires Shaw Media for $2.65-billion". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 13 January 2016.
- ^ "Rogers closes its historic $20B acquisition of Shaw". BNNBloomberg.ca. April 3, 2023. Retrieved April 3, 2023.
- ISBN 0-7737-3125-3
- ^ "Torstar confirms Canwest bid: Shaw wins Goldman support to buy TV assets". CBC News. 2010-05-03. Retrieved 2010-05-10.
- ^ "Corus Entertainment Completes Acquisition of Shaw Media". Corus Entertainment. Retrieved April 1, 2016.