Vancouver’s Media Makeover

Big companies battle for BC’s attention

“You’ll NEVER work in this town again!” Back in the days of the Hollywood studio system, you could be sure that if Jack Warner or one of the half dozen men who ran the movie business said this to you, they were not exaggerating. In those days a writer or actor who wasn’t a “player” couldn’t get a job as a bottle washer in greater Los Angeles.

Eerie parallels to Hollywood’s Golden Age, when studio heads ruled production, distribution and exhibition of their movie product, are becoming apparent in Vancouver’s media scene. Most notably is the corporate “convergence” of local TV and newspaper newsrooms. Two powerhouses have emerged from the recent shake-ups of Canada’s media ownership. One is Izzy Asper’s CanWest Global Communications Corp. and the other is Bell Globemedia, headed up by Jean C. Monty.

Manitoba-based CanWest joined Vancouver’s broadcast scene in the mid-80s, after a drawn out legal battle wrested CKVU’s ownership from film director Daryl Duke and his partner Norman Klenman. In the years since, CanWest has grown into a billion dollar media company with substantial broadcast holdings in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland. In the 90s CanWest forced another hostile takeover of a local broadcaster – WIC, the parent company of BCTV. That station’s News Hour program, hosted by Tony Parsons, was the jewel in WIC’s crown thanks to a nightly viewing audience that swamps all its competitors.

This fall Global completes its takeover of BCTV and CHEK (Victoria), and releases ownership of CKVU to Toronto’s CHUM Group.

CanWest now dominates local newspaper publishing as well, after buying all of Hollinger Inc.’s Canadian news operations from Conrad Black. They own the Vancouver Sun and Province newspapers, plus the Van-Net group of community papers, which includes the Vancouver Courier, North Shore News and Surrey and Burnaby Now.

Last week CanWest bought out Hollinger’s 50% share of the National Post, giving them a newspaper that spans the dominion, and a matching bookend for Canada’s third TV network, Global.

Bell Globemedia is one of many companies under the umbrella of Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE), the telecom giant. It owns the CTV Network, the Globe and Mail newspaper, and (like CanWest) a long list of heavily promoted Canadian news and information Web portals. CTV used to be synonymous with BCTV, but now becomes British Columbia CTV on channel 9, formerly known as VTV.

Yes, you do need a scorecard to keep up with Vancouver’s latest media machinations. It gets much more complicated, but since most people really only care what channel Frasier is on come October, I’ll skip the rest.

Bell Globemedia is the definite underdog (if you can use that term to describe media conglomerates) in the Vancouver market. Bell, CTV and the Globe and Mail are perceived by BC’ers as being Toronto-centric organizations – a kiss of death if you reside west of Thunder Bay. Plus, of all local dinner hour newscasts VTV has the lowest viewership.

CTV-BC needs a leg-up to compete here, and they think they’ve got it by wooing BCTV’s anchorpersons Pamela Martin and Bill Good to channel 9. Next to BCTV’s Parsons, they are probably the most bankable bingo callers on the left coast. Especially Pamela. We love Pamela. If she had an eyelash out of place the phones used to ring off the hook at BCTV in protest.

An expensive and ambitious re-branding effort is underway to present British Columbia CTV as a homegrown news alternative, and to remake BCTV as Global BC. For example, articles by the Sun’s Alex Strachan late last week gave 3 full pages to the changes. If you live in a cave, you’re still going to hear about the changes to BC’s TV dial.

If Bell and CanWest both have an Achilles’ heel it’s the national newspapers. The National Post even with a readership up around 300,000 is a big money loser. The Globe and Mail is more solid financially, but its readership is flat in BC. Eventually, you suppose, the same kind of marketing push employed in re-branding the stations must be used for the national dailies.

I have a proposition for both companies. Pull out all the stops and use your high profile TV talent to help sell your papers. In BC the names Parsons, Good and Martin are money. So, CanWest, why not rename the Post’s BC edition “The National Parsons”? Bell, doesn’t “The Good and Martin” have a similar ring to The Globe and Mail?

Let’s explore this idea. Picture a revamped Post with Tony’s picture on the nameplate so you get Parsons on page one with every edition. In the news, style, entertainment, business and classifieds sections every page gets the comforting “Approved by Tony” stamp. The sports page might be an exception if we can figure out a way to put Squire Barnes’ face there.

Over at the Globe we have more options. Photos of Bill Good and Pamela Martin will bracket the “Good and Martin” name at the top of page one, natch. News, business and technology will be renamed “Good News,” “Good Business,” and “Good Technology”. The rest of the paper will be its own section fittingly titled “Pamela!” Here you get Martin’s down home take on the day’s entertainment, health and lifestyle stories. Think Oprah with a local twist.

What’s more, CanWest and Bell, you can have these ideas for free. I’ve got lots more where they came from.

Everyone else, if you’ve got any bottles that need cleaning, look me up in Whitehorse.