TORONTO – Saying that the proposed sale of Alliance Atlantis violates Canadian media foreign ownership rules, the Coalition of Canadian Audio Visual Unions has told the CRTC the deal must be stopped.
CanWest Global Communications and Goldman Sachs agreed in January to acquire specialty broadcaster Alliance Atlantis for $2.3 billion in an unusual deal which will see Goldman provide most of the equity and retain ownership of the CSI TV show franchise while CanWest would get control of the Alliance Atlantis specialty channels. A new company which would contain the CanWest TV assets and those from AA, whose board would be controlled by CanWest, would oversee the Canadian regulated media entities.
The deal values the AA specialties (Food Network, Showcase, Showcase Action, Showcase Diva, HGTV, Slice, National Geographic Channel, IFC, BBC World, BBC Kids, Fine Living, Discovery Health, and History Television) at $1.6 billion. CanWest is contributing $200 million to the deal, Goldman $644 million and debt will finance the rest.
All that means Goldman would have majority equity ownership of the newly created entity but CanWest would have board, (i.e. decision-making) control here in Canada.
Not good enough for the CCAU.
"The Canadian Broadcasting Act requires both ownership and control of Canadian broadcast licensees be in the hands of Canadians," said Maureen Parker, executive director, Writers Guild of Canada. "This is a policy critical to the very existence of Canadian content on our own airwaves. If the CRTC approves this transaction, then an American corporation will have a large stake and powerful voice in what Canadians can watch and when," added Parker.
However, precedents already exist allowing such deals, as we noted here months ago.
"Foreign ownership has been on the radar of creative unions for years," added Stephen Waddell, ACTRA national executive director in the same release. "If decisions about our broadcasting system are made in corporate boardrooms in New York and Los Angeles, Canadians will lose their cultural sovereignty and national identity. We’ve already seen a significant drop in the creation and broadcast of original Canadian programming as a result of the CRTC’s disastrous 1999 Television Policy. Canadian broadcasters, now more than ever, fill our airwaves with American reality programs and dramas in prime time. Approving this transaction will bring us one step closer to total domination by foreign media giants."
"If this application is approved it will set a dangerous precedent for our broadcasting system. The existing foreign ownership rules must be upheld – no exception should be made," said Monique Lafontaine, general counsel and director of regulatory affairs of the Directors Guild of Canada.
The Alliance Atlantis application also raises serious concerns over the proposed benefits package, added the DGC. “The Commission should require CanWest to provide greater details about how the proposed benefits monies will support the production and broadcast of Canadian dramatic programs. We’re proposing that 64% of the on-screen benefits be directed to high quality original Canadian drama, in-line with the recent CTVgm/CHUM transaction,” said Lafontaine.
Adds David Hardy of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Local 700: "This proposed deal threatens to take away more jobs from Canadian workers in an industry already strapped for funding. We’re on a battlefield in our own country – first the integrity of the CTF is threatened by a proposal to lower Cancon requirements, and now a Canadian company built by Canadian workers is facing a takeover by a huge American investment firm footing the bill for CanWest. Alliance Atlantis is a house Canadians built and this deal threatens to dismantle it brick by brick," said Hardy.
The CRTC is holding a public hearing on September 5, 2007 to consider the deal and the CCAU member unions will appear, among many others.
The hearing is part of a hugely busy late summer which will see the Commission consider the purchase of Standard Broadcasting by Astral Media (Aug. 27), the Citytv stations by Rogers (Aug. 29) and the Diversity of Voices hearing to begin September 11th.
The CCAU is a coalition of 10 Canadian audio-visual unions: The Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA), the Directors Guild of Canada (DGC), the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Local 700 CEP (NABET), the Writers Guild of Canada (WGC), and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP) are participating in the intervention before the CRTC. The other members of the CCAU are the American Federation of Musicians – Canada (AFM Canada), Union des artistes (UdA), Association des réalisateurs et réalisatrices du Québec (ARRQ), Association Québécoise des techniciens de l’image et du son (AQTIS), and Société des auteurs de radio, télévision et cinéma (SARTeC).
