TORONTO – It’s a far smaller media company Leonard Asper is running this time around.
The former CEO of Canwest Global Communications has emerged from the dismantling and sale of that giant media company as an investor and CEO of category two digital specialty channel The Fight Network. Existing shareholders Loudon Owen and Ed Nordholm, who have been searching for investors for some time, are staying in as co-owners.
When interviewed by Cartt.ca on Wednesday, Asper didn’t want to give away his strategies for the channel – and it’s something he no longer has to divulge publicly anyway. “It’s a private company, which I can’t believe I’m so happy to be in,” he said.
While he wouldn’t specifically say how much of the channel he now owns or how big of a cheque he wrote, Asper added “It’s a very large stake, large enough for me to care about the economics of it in addition to the role of managing it.”
The economics of the channel, from the outside anyway, are not great. The company last filed its financial summary with the CRTC in 2008 and as of August 31 of that year, it posted a $4.8 million loss on $2.2 million in revenue, most of which came in from about 520,000 customers.
And, as Cartt.ca has reported, for the better part of two years the channel’s former owners and other shareholders have battled first for control of The Fight Network and now for compensation. In a decision last month, a change in the ownership structure was approved by the CRTC. In the memo announcing Asper’s arrival, Fight general manager Anthony Cicione said: “The CRTC has approved our ownership change; our legal and financial issues are now behind us and we are now ready to take TFN to the next level.”
The financial and legal woes, however, meant the on-air product has floundered. For example, a look at the prime time programming shows older fights from 2008 and 2009 as well as syndicated non-sports programming like Road Wars USA (a British program where U.K. traffic cops train with American ones), Danny Dyers Deadliest Men (about British criminals) and Ross Kemp on Gangs (about criminal gangs)
So, what are Asper’s plans? “Like any digi-net, it needs investment in programming. I think they’ve done a great job through a difficult time,” he said, “but now there’s investment capital going into the company… and that’s scheduled for some programming and some technical upgrades. Obviously we have to go HD and we’ll have to produce more content.”
What that content will be, Asper wouldn’t say. “I’m just getting my feet wet in terms of what I think the programming plan should be… if you get that right, the subscribers follow and the viewers follow and ad dollars follow – and you build up an online following as well.”
Digital will be a big part of the brand’s thrust, added Asper. “It really lends itself to mobile media and online media.”
So, is he a fight fan? Asper describes himself as a sports fan and said he has taken a real shine to the fight game over the past six months. “Really it’s more than a sport, it’s a movement. It’s a culture. It’s a whole lifestyle: The training and discipline and the focus, the respect for others and self respect, honor, conquest and handling defeat, managing stress. It goes beyond just what happens in that ring. It’s all the things that lead up to it and that’s why I think the programming opportunities are beyond just showing fights,” he explained.
“The themes and the stories of the fighters themselves are really interesting – how people have dealt with adversity and picked themselves up off the mat a few times, both literally and figuratively.
“This channel will be more than just about fights. That means there will be more than fight programming on and what shape that will take on remains to be seen.”
Targeted marketing and more study will be what rebuilds this brand, however, he added. “Investments have to be very targeted and focused. You can’t just throw money at a thing and hope it’s going to work… I want to study this a lot more, get the lay of the land a bit more before any decisions are taken.”
Despite the fact he now runs a company with a single asset instead of dozens as with Canwest, Asper claims to have no other irons in the fire right now. “For now, this is what I’m doing. Where things will evolve I don’t know but there’s enough to do here already. Getting the programming done and the technical upgrades is already a handful.”
But with the fight game an international one, (Canadian MMA superstar Georges St-Pierre was recently in the Philippines as he is a big star there, the top boxing heavyweight is Russian, and the most rabid boxing fans in North America can be found in the Latino community), Asper hopes the brand will have appeal beyond our borders.
“You have to walk before you run,” he said, explaining how work in Canada is the priority. “There are challenges here. We’ve got to get better carriage and get programs commissioned and get off and running… but I do think it has international potential. There are no other fight networks in the world.”
