Tuesday, June 30, 2009

CHCH has a buyer!

Toronto's Channel Zero will buy Canwest's CHCH-TV in Hamilton and and CJNT-TV in Montreal, assuming the company gets the green light from the CRTC.

Channel Zero owns Moveiola and Silver Screen Classics, a couple of digital specialty channels, as well as some "adult entertainment" channels.

There's apparently no buyer yet for the other three local TV stations Canwest is trying to unload by the end of this summer in Red Deer, Kelowna and Victoria.

In Hamilton, it looks like they plan to keep on the existing staff and run news all day until 8 pm, after which they will show familiar, if not first-run, movies. Think Adam Sandler and Jim Carrey.
It sounds quite a bit like the proposal originally floated by CHCH employees interested in mounting a community bid for the station. In fact, in an article in CARTT.ca, Channel Zero says they will be relying on the existing CHCH crew to pull off the new format.

In Montreal, where the licence is for a multicultural channel, they are talking about running foreign movies and "multicultural music videos."

Channel Zero seems bullish about local TV. At least somebody is. Funny that we haven't heard another word out of Shaw since they announced they were paying $1 to CTVglobemedia for the local stations in Windsor and Brandon.

Today's sale also seems to represent a move away from big media conglomerates.

3 comments:

  1. Great news!! As a journalism graduate who is having a very hard time finding work, they should continue to move from big congloms, and give more opportunities to more people. Congloms are ruining media. Need to break them up.
    This is GREAT NEWS for Hamilton, Halton and Niagara.

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  2. Great news? How? This plan won't last a YEAR. Prime time is where the most money is made in television. Why would I watch a 5, 10, 15 year old movie that I've likely seen many times before, instead of the latest episode of CSI, Greys, (insert any show here)??? I wouldn't- and neither will most people.

    Plus, cost out the idea of running news all day. CP24 can barely do it, and they have the resources of every CTV & A station across the country to provide content for them. CHCH will have... no one besides a handfull of local reporters. Hearing the Channel Zero boss being interviewed on Live @ 5:30 left me with the direct impression he has NO clue how a news gathering operation works and what resources will be needed to fill that amount of time. He actually asked why news updates couldn't be sent to your mobile (why would I want the update when I could just get the full story), and mentioned the idea of pay-per view news items. Get serious.

    This idea has fail written all over it.

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  3. as a hamiltonian of course i want to support the local channel. i was glad to see them become CHCH again, it gave me a nostalgic feeling.. i often catch the news whether it be the morning, evening or nightly edition depending on my day and i'm the type of person that enjoys reading the headlines on CP24 during a commercial or if nothing else interests me.. but i'm not so sure of this all news all the time. the movies i'll likely watch once in a while. what i really want to know is where i can now find some of my favourite shows that aired on this station? (e.g THREE TAKES)

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for commenting! Just to let you know, I will remove comments that are unrelated to the post or include personal attacks on anyone.