Globe & Mail: CanWest vows emphasis on West by Lily Nguyen

by Lily Nguyen

Calgary – Executives of CanWest Global Communications Corp. vowed yesterday to give greater prominence to Western Canada in national coverage as the first of three Alberta TV stations was welcomed into the Global stable.

"We really want to bring west to east and east to west," CanWest chief executive officer Leonard Asper said at a ceremony to mark the inclusion of local TV station Calgary 7 in the Global network. "There's a very underappreciated, underinformed sentiment about Alberta."

Industry observers have predicted national coverage now criticized as being too focused on Ontario would shift west as CanWest – with headquarters in founder Izzy Asper's hometown of Winnipeg – transformed itself into a national media giant through its recent acquisitions.

Earlier this summer, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission gave the company the green light to acquire eight television stations in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario from WIC Western International Communications Ltd., allowing it to claim the status of a national network for the first time.

The three stations in Edmonton, Calgary and Lethbridge represent CanWest's jump into Alberta, a province it's long been shut out of.

And last month, CanWest swallowed Conrad Black's Canadian media empire almost whole, paying Hollinger Inc. $3.5-billion for 13 major daily papers, a phalanx of smaller regional papers and Hollinger's Internet properties. The deal must pass the scrutiny of the federal Competition Bureau. Mr. Asper said its decision is expected late this month or in early October.

Gerry Noble, CEO of Global Communications Ltd. – the parent of the network known as GlobalTV – said the network will address the "serious imbalance" in national programming.

"We will give western voices and stories the national exposure they need and deserve," Mr. Noble said.

Global also announced it would donate $500,000 to the Banff Television Foundation and $250,000 to the Alberta Film Commission. More goodies for the province's production industry are to be unveiled today in Edmonton, at the ceremony welcoming Global Edmonton – formerly ITV – into the network. Ian Morrison, a spokesman for the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, balked at giving the company an unqualified pat on the back, saying it is the low spender on Canadian content among the big broadcasters. He also pointed out that the company's promised initiatives, including the new Calgary and Vancouver programs, were required to get CRTC approval of CanWest's takeover of WIC's assets.

"You could say it's the least they could do," he said.

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