Canwest
Canwest Global Communications Corporation, which operated under the corporate name Canwest, was a major Canadian media conglomerate based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, with its head offices at Canwest Place. It held radio, television broadcasting and publishing assets in several countries, primarily in Canada.
Canwest entered bankruptcy protection in late 2009, leading to the sale of the company's assets. Canwest's newspaper arm was sold to a group of creditors led by National Post CEO Paul Godfrey, through a newly formed company named Postmedia Network. The sale of the company's broadcasting arm to Shaw Communications closed on October 27, 2010, after CRTC approval for the sale was announced on October 22; those assets were then collectively known as Shaw Media. On April 1, 2016, the broadcasting assets were subsumed into Corus Entertainment, an existing broadcasting firm also owned by the Shaw family.
Following the sale of assets, the company was renamed 2737469 Canada Inc., ceased to carry on business, and commenced bankruptcy proceedings under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act before finally being dissolved on May 27, 2013.
Operations
As of April 2009, Canwest owned, in whole or part, a variety of Canadian media assets, including:- Global Television Network, a primary Canadian television network which reaches over 94% of the English-speaking population of Canada;
- E!, a now-defunct secondary Canadian television system consisted of five smaller-market stations; however, through repeaters and cable television, it reaches the majority of major Canadian markets. The "E!" name was licensed by the American channel of the same name, which also supplies the majority of its programming outside of local news and regional programming and primetime shows from the American broadcast networks;
- Specialty services including Showcase, Slice, HGTV Canada, DTour, and various digital services;
- Southam Inc. and its former properties, which included the number-two national newspaper National Post, the broadsheet daily newspapers in most major markets, several other smaller newspapers, and the Canwest News Service newswire. Canwest was Canada's largest newspaper publisher;
- Production, distribution, and Internet assets associated with all the Canwest properties
History
Beginnings
In 1974, a group led by Israel Asper bought the assets of Pembina, North Dakota television station KCND-TV from broadcaster Gordon McLendon, moving the station to Winnipeg as independent station CKND-TV. Asper, through his company, Canwest, eventually bought out his partners in the Winnipeg station. A few months later, the Asper group joined a consortium that bought CIII-DT, a network of six simulcasting transmitters across Ontario that carried many of CKND's programs and was known on-air as the Global Television Network. Canwest bought controlling interest in 1985, thus becoming the first western-based owner of a major Canadian broadcaster.Beyond broadcasting and the newspapers
Lacking a presence in Alberta, the company set its sights on Western International Communications, which owned three independent stations in that province that carried Global programming. It eventually bought that company's broadcasting assets in 2000. This not only boosted Global's coverage in western Canada, but prompted the establishment of a second over-the-air service, originally known as CH, since in some areas the combined company had duplicate over-the-air coverage through multiple stations. Later that year, Canwest announced its acquisition of the Southam newspaper chain from Conrad Black, in order to pursue a media convergence strategy.Canwest was initially slow to invest in specialty channels due to the strength of its terrestrial network. In 1999, seeking to change this, the company announced a deal to buy out the Canadian partners of NetStar Communications, owner of TSN, but was stymied by U.S. partner ESPN, which had veto power over such a sale. ESPN instead came to terms with Canwest's main rival CTV, a longtime business partner of ESPN's parent company Disney, as an acceptable buyer, which the selling partners eventually agreed to.
Restructuring and creditor protection
Canwest's various acquisitions took a significant financial toll. As early as 2002, most of Canwest's operating income was going to pay interest on its high-interest rate debt. By 2007, the company's bonds were downgraded to junk status. By early 2009, it became clear the company's debt was not manageable in light of the global economic crisis, forcing Canwest into an extended set of negotiations with its lenders and a series of cost-cutting moves. The company's income statements reported net losses in 2008 and 2009, even though its operating activities were profitable.Citation needed|date=February 2010Sale of assets to Shaw and Postmedia
In February 2010, the company announced an agreement with Shaw Communications whereby the latter company would buy an 80% voting interest, and 20% equity interest, in the restructured entity, pending approvals from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission and others. The company's newspapers were not part of the Shaw deal and were already sold separately to Postmedia Network. However, the Asper family with Goldman and Catalyst made their own bid to retake Canwest with a $120 million bid in competition with the bid proposed by Shaw Communications. On February 25, 2010, it was announced that Shaw Communications had won a court battle to continue their plans to purchase assets & voting shares from Canwest. After the announcement, Shaw revealed that its investment amounted to a minimum of $95-million in exchange for 20 per cent of the equity and an 80-per-cent voting interest in the restructured company.Although Goldman, Catalyst, and the Aspers continued to work on their own bid after the Shaw agreement, Shaw announced a revised agreement, following court ordered mediation, under which it would purchase the entirety of Canwest's broadcasting operations, including the portion owned by Goldman. This deal was later modified following a second court ordered mediation to include a settlement agreement between Shaw, creditors, and the Official Ad Hoc Committee of Shareholders, led by the Aspers, Blott Asset Management, L.L.C. and two other hedge funds. This marked the first successful equity committee campaign in Canada under CCAA. A modified deal, including the Settlement Agreement, received the approval of the Ontario Superior Court on June 23, 2010, the Competition Bureau as of August 13, 2010, and was given final approval from the CRTC on October 22, 2010, with final closing occurring in October 2011 following the official CMI Transition Order. Canwest is now delisted from the TSX. The company ceased operations that same date. Meanwhile, Shaw Communications reorganized Canwest into Shaw Media.
On January 9, 2013, Alliance Films was acquired by Entertainment One.
After bankruptcy proceedings concluded, Canwest finally dissolved on May 27, 2013.
In April 2016, the Shaw Media assets were subsumed by Shaw's sister company Corus Entertainment.
Corporate governance
Board of directors
The last members of the board of directors of the company were Derek Burney, David Drybrough, David Kerr, Leonard Asper, Izzy Asper, Lisa Pankratz, Frank McKenna, David Asper, and Gail Asper. Gail Asper, David Asper, and Lisa Panktratz resigned from the board, and from all other director and officer positions within Canwest and its subsidiaries, on February 10, 2010.Concentration of power
Canwest was often cited as an example of how the ownership of Canadian media has become concentrated in the hands of a few individuals and large corporations. Canwest founder Izzy Asper was known as a strong supporter of both Canada's Liberal Party and Israel's right-wing Likud party, and of many laissez-faire policies in both countries. Observers have suggested that Asper's political views have had a significant impact on news coverage at CanWest media outlets. For example, in 2002, Ottawa Citizen publisher Russell Mills was fired by Canwest after the paper published a series of articles exposing a financial scandal involving then Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.Canwest's power in the marketplace was reflected in a contract that freelance contributors were required to sign. Until recently, standard industry practice was that freelancers sold the rights for one time use and only in Canada.
Editorial controversies
Since the 2000 acquisition of the major former Canadian newspaper holdings of Conrad Black's Hollinger International, including Canwest News Service, opposition has been expressed by some journalists, union spokespersons, politicians, and pundits about Canwest's enforcement of its corporate editorial positions. A 2001 decision to run regular uniform national editorials in all metropolitan dailies, whereby local editorial boards could not take local positions on subjects of national editorials, ignited major national controversy and was subsequently withdrawn.Conflict over Canwest editorial control and policy has focused in particular on three issues:
- The Liberal Party of Canada. Since Israel Asper's leadership of the Manitoba Liberal Party, the Asper family has been identified with Liberal politics and politicians. In July 2001, Southam national affairs columnist Lawrence Martin was fired after a column of his critical of Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien was not published. Russell Mills, longtime publisher of The Ottawa Citizen, was fired in June 2002 after the newspaper called on Chrétien to resign. However, as of 2006, at least one Asper family member was publicly supporting the Conservatives.
- The government of Israel and conflict in the Middle East. Veteran Montreal Gazette reporter Bill Marsden has said that the Aspers "do not want any criticism of Israel. We do not run in our newspaper op-ed pieces that express criticism of Israel and what it is doing." A study released in 2006 by the Near East Cultural and Educational Foundation of Canada found that the National Post was 83.3 times more likely to report an Israeli child's death than a Palestinian child's death in its news articles' headlines or first paragraphs. In 2008 Canwest launched a lawsuit against the Palestine Media Collective for producing a newspaper parody of The Vancouver Sun that satirized this bias. In 2004, the Reuters news agency protested after Canwest altered newswire stories about the Iraq war and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, such that Reuters felt it had inserted Canwest's own bias under Reuters bylines. The changes were apparently made in accordance with a Canwest policy to label certain groups as terrorists. Ottawa Citizen, a newspaper in the Canwest chain, made similar changes to a story by Associated Press.
- Canwest editorial control and management itself. In December 2001, staff members at The Montreal Gazette launched a Gazette Newsroom web page with an open letter, titled Media Giant Silences Local Voices: Canadian Journalism Under Attack, that got signed by 77 Gazette journalists as of 2002 January 23, opposing the national editorial policy, and the reporters among them participated in a byline strike, refusing to sign their names to their stories in the newspaper in protest. Management responded with a gag order. The next year, several journalists left The Halifax Daily News over similar conflicts, and ten journalists at The Regina Leader-Post were reprimanded or suspended after a byline strike to protest censorship of coverage of a speech in Regina by Toronto Star columnist and Canwest critic Haroon Siddiqui.
Canwest newspapers and broadcast outlets in British Columbia were regularly criticized for giving a "free ride" to the BC Liberal government of Premier Gordon Campbell, especially in relation to the scandals and controversies ensuing from the privatization of BC Rail but also in cooperating with the government's alleged manipulation of information for political purposes, such as the suppression of the actual scale of the deficit or welfare rates in advance of the 2009 election. Conversely, coverage of the New Democratic Party was criticized as being unfairly negative. Canwest was one of the major campaign contributors to the BC Liberal party and gave regular column space to pundits from the Fraser Institute think tank.