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 (Now 201 Portage). It held radio, television broadcasting, and publishing assets in several countries, primarily in Canada.
Formerly
Canwest Global Communications Corporation
1974
October 27, 2010 (operations)
May 27, 2013 (dissolution)
- Broadcast assets were sold to Shaw Communications
- Newspaper assets were sold to creditors to form Postmedia Network
- The asset-less shell then began bankruptcy proceedings under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act
Shaw Media (broadcasting) and Postmedia Network (publishing spin-off)
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, United Kingdom, Turkey
C$ 2.867 billion (2009)
C$ 197 million (2009)
C$ −1.689 billion (2009)
C$ 3.876 billion (1Q 2010)
C$ −449 million (1Q 2010)
12,072 (May 2009)
Canwest was founded in 1974 by Izzy Asper through the formation of CIII-TV in Toronto under the Global Television Network. The company expanded through the 1980s and 1990s, with the initial public offering in 1991 as a publicly-traded corporation and the international expansion of its operations in Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom and Turkey. Throughout the years, under Leonard Asper, who became its President and CEO in 1999, Canwest grew into a major media powerhouse by acquiring media properties such as Western International Communications and the Southam newspaper publishing. In 2007, with Goldman Sachs, Canwest acquired the broadcasting arm of Alliance Atlantis.[2]
After years of debt, Canwest began to slowly collapse in 2008, amid the Great Recession and later entered bankruptcy protection in late 2009, which led to the sales of its publishing and broadcasting arms the following year to Postmedia Network, founded by National Post CEO Paul Godfrey and Shaw Communications, which later reorganized its media division as Shaw Media.[3][4] On April 1, 2016, the broadcasting assets were subsumed into Corus Entertainment, an existing broadcasting firm also owned by the Shaw family.[5][6]
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.[7][8]
As of April 2009 (prior to seeking creditor protection), Canwest owned, in whole or part, a variety of Canadian media assets, including:
The company had previously sold off some of the smaller newspapers it had acquired in the Southam purchase. Canwest also previously owned broadcasting operations in Australia (as majority shareholder of Network Ten), New Zealand (through CanWest MediaWorks New Zealand), the Republic of Ireland (as a minority shareholder of TV3) and Turkey (as the owners of four radio stations).
History[edit]
Beginnings[edit]
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 an 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 CKGN-TV, 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 Global, now using the callsign CIII-TV, in 1985, thus becoming the first western-based owner of a major Canadian broadcaster. He acquired the remaining stock in 1989.[9]
Canwest subsequently invested in or acquired other independent TV stations across Canada. Eventually, his station group became known as the "Canwest Global System." In 1997, Canwest bought a controlling interest in CKMI-TV, the privately owned CBC affiliate in Quebec City. Canwest then set up CKMI rebroadcasters in Montreal and Sherbrooke. With this move, Canwest's stations now had enough coverage of Canada that on August 18—the day CKMI officially disaffiliated from CBC—Canwest scrubbed all local brands from its stations, rebranding them as "The Global Television Network," Canada's third television network. Throughout the 1990s, Global (and its antecedents) held Canadian rights to hit U.S. series such as Cheers, Friends, and Frasier.
Canwest also bought broadcasting assets internationally, including outlets in New Zealand, the Republic of Ireland, and Australia, although all were eventually sold off. In 1991, Canwest issued a successful initial public offering on the Toronto Stock Exchange. In June 1996, Canwest was listed on the New York Stock Exchange.[10]
Beyond broadcasting and the newspapers[edit]
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.
Corporate governance[edit]
Board of directors[edit]
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.[38] Gail Asper, David Asper, and Lisa Pankratz resigned from the board, and from all other director and officer positions within Canwest and its subsidiaries, on February 10, 2010.[39]
Concentration of power[edit]
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.[40]
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.
Since the 2000 acquisition of the major former Canadian newspaper holdings of Conrad Black's Hollinger International (now Sun-Times Media Group), 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 (except National Post), 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:
Upon acquiring Southam's Newspapers from Hollinger International, Israel Asper continued Conrad Black's policy of 'blacklisting' influential Canadian world and military affairs journalist Gwynne Dyer's internationally published articles. This antipathy was prompted by Dyer's views on conflict in the Middle East and his opposition to neoconservatism, which run contrary to the ideological views of Asper and others on Canwest's board of directors then and today. Partially as a response to this, Dyer published a collection of his articles on the Middle East and related topics called With Every Mistake in 2005.
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.[49][50][51] 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 (one such regular contributor being the Premier's brother, Michael).