Rogers to move Citytv opertions out of its longtime downtown Toronto headquarters

TV Buff · TOP Guru

RE: IS ROGERS BUYING OUT CITY TV?

Marky Mark · Foro Master

This is sad but as long as we still get movies with nudity and swearing, it's all good.

Cocotaso · Regular

Rogers is taking over!!! this is huge! they say that the transition will be around 2009 -CityTv will no longer be in the downtown location area... i just read this article on today's Metro .......

McOSIRIS · Comandante

We're so fakkin awesome!!!!!

Chale Tanga · TOP Guru

HOLY COW!

Rogers is gonna take over the world!! Im kinda escurred you know

TV Buff · TOP Guru

Yes, it is...

The Rogers footprint in Toronto just got bigger.

Rogers Media Inc. and CTVglobemedia Inc. announced last night that Rogers will pay $375 million in cash to buy Citytv in Toronto and in four other Canadian cities stations that CTVglobemedia was ordered to sell last week.

CTVglobemedia, in turn, will keep the A-Channel stations, including CKVR in Barrie, and certain specialty channels Rogers had planned to buy from it after CTVgm acquired them in its $1.7 billion purchase of broadcaster CHUM Ltd.

Rogers Media's parent company, Rogers Communications Inc., already controls a large share of the cable television market in the Greater Toronto Area and is the largest cable operator in Canada. It also owns The Shopping Channel, Omni Television, Rogers Sportsnet, the Toronto Blue Jays and the Rogers Centre, formerly known as the SkyDome.

Rogers also operates 51 AM and FM radio stations across Canada, including The Fan 590, CHFI, Jack FM and 680 News in Toronto. The company publishes dozens of magazines, including such well-known titles as Maclean's, Chatelaine and Flare, and it is Canada's largest wireless-phone-service company.

In addition to Citytv in Toronto, Rogers Media is picking up Citytv properties in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg.

Rogers came with a "very strong offer on a pre-emptive basis," said Ivan Fecan, president and CEO of CTVglobemedia Inc. and CEO of CTV Inc. "This outcome is good for both the businesses and the stations' employees," he said.

The deal is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to close later this year.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission ordered CTVglobemedia last week to sell off the five Citytv stations as a condition for approval of its purchase of CHUM's network of radio and TV stations. The CRTC gave CTVglobemedia 30 days to table acceptable plans for the sale.

"The purpose of the policy is to maintain diversity of voices within the Canadian broadcasting system," commission chair Konrad von Finckenstein said.

CTVglobemedia said in a separate release last night that it has accepted the CRTC's June 8 ruling, regarding what it called "effective control" of CHUM Ltd.

"We are embracing this decision," Fecan said. "The people of CHUM Ltd. have been in limbo for almost a year and it is in everyone's best interest to move forward and build a stronger company from the combination of CTV and CHUM."

CTVglobemedia is owned by a group that includes the billionaire Thomson family's private Woodbridge Co., the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, BCE Inc. and Torstar Corp., which owns the Toronto Star.

In addition to CTV stations across Canada, CTVglobemedia's properties include the Discovery Channel, TSN, The Globe and Mail newspaper and an interest in Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, which owns the Toronto Maple Leafs, Toronto Raptors and the Air Canada Centre.

CTVglobemedia said last night it now plans to keep CHUM's A-Channel stations in Barrie, London, Windsor, Vancouver and Wingham, Ont., the Access educational television channel in Alberta and most other CHUM assets, "with the possible exceptions of specialty channel Canadian Learning Television and CBC affiliate CKX-TV" in Brandon, Man. It said it would announce its intentions for those stations in a few days.

CTVglobemedia also said CHUM's interest in specialty channels MusiquePlus and MusiMax will be sold to Astral Media, as it had previously announced.

LaDyBuG · Comandante

Rogers to move Citytv opertions out of its longtime downtown Toronto headquarters

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DAVID FRIEND

June 12, 2007

TORONTO (CP) - The trademark image of Citytv at the corner of Queen and John streets in downtown Toronto will become but a memory in a few years, if Rogers Media gets approval to acquire five Citytv television stations from CTVglobemedia Inc.

The pending deal will eventually move the Citytv label out of the CHUM-City building, where it has grown its brand name since CHUM acquired the property in the mid-1980s.

The shift comes as Rogers makes plans to scoop up the CTVglobemedia assets in five Canadian cities for an estimated $375 million. The deal is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to close late this year.

Under the agreement, the Citytv brand will get a major shakeup at its headquarters, with the future of its sister cable news station CP24 also in limbo.

CP24 is fully owned by CHUM after it bought out Sun Media's 29.9 per cent stake in 2004.

CTVglobemedia, Canada's largest private sector broadcaster, has made holding onto the CHUM building a stipulation of the agreement with Rogers. The space will continue to house CTV operations under the new plan, according to Rogers spokeswoman Jan Innes.

"We will have a transition period where we will keep City there until we have a new facility to move City into," she told The Canadian Press.

Rogers will remain at the CHUM-City building for up to three years through what is being called a "transition period."

At this point, the destination of the studios afterwards is anyone's guess.

"We have some options. We own some properties in the city and we have television operations in the city," said Rogers Broadcasting president Rael Merson. He named the company's OMNI multicultural channel's headquarters near the Lake Ontario waterfront as a possible home.

CTVglobemedia will continue to operate the newly acquired cable channel operations out of the CHUM building, including those of CP24, the news station that has a tight working relationship with Citytv. Both channels share news anchors, content and channel cross-promotion.

According to sources at CHUM, employees of Citytv and CP24 have become increasingly jittery about their future following the late Monday announcement of the sale to Rogers, especially since the lines between the two stations are particularly blurry.

While Citytv and CP24 anchors appear on both networks, staff paycheques clearly define whether the employees are being paid by Citytv or CP24, which only seems to confuse matters further.

For the time being, Rogers said the plan is to share content between the two channels.

Staff "who are predominantly related to one operation would remain with that one operation," Merson said.

"To the extent that they need to multi-purpose, we're going to have to find a way to make sure they multi-purpose appropriately. Then we would make a determination based on effectively where people spent the bulk of their time."

But Merson said that the timing for content sharing is unclear at this point, though it'll likely last for the three-year period of the CHUM-City building transition.

The downtown Toronto studio will continue to operate the cable channel operations acquired from CHUM. That includes national music video channel MuchMusic, which has become a staple of Queen Street with its sidewalk concerts and parking lot video awards shows.

"On balance, it's probably going to be easier for us to move City than it was for them to move everything else," Merson said.

Other Citytv stations included in the acquisition are in Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver.

Rogers plans to buy the buildings that City owns and acquire the leases on the rest.