OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC this morning approved the $13 million acquisition of religious broadcaster NOWTV by Rogers Broadcasting.
According to the terms of the deal released last year, Rogers will pay $12.25 million for CHNU-TV Fraser Valley (which serves the Vancouver region as NOWTV BC) and $750,000 for CIIT-TV Winnipeg, or NOW TV Manitoba, which has not yet launched. Rogers also proposed a benefits package of $1.3 million.
When contacted by www.cartt.ca, Rael Merson, president of Rogers Broadcasting, said that the Winnipeg station will launch by September 2006, “at the latest.”
The Commission also approved Rogers’ request to add a transmitter to serve Victoria, too. NOWTV BC is already available via cable in both Vancouver and Victoria.
"We are delighted with the CRTC’s decision and are committed to fulfilling the unique mandate for religious and spiritual programming that has been entrusted to us," said Merson, president of Rogers Broadcasting, in a press release this afternoon. "We have nearly twenty years of experience serving the ethnic communities of Southern Ontario and look forward to leveraging our experience and resources to serve the many different religious communities in the lower mainland of British Columbia, in Victoria and in Winnipeg."
Trinity Television, founded by Manitoba’s Theissen family, obtained the B.C. license in 2000 and the Winnipeg license in 2002. The Theissens are well know to western Canadian Christians as they have long been on the air. Trinity sought a deal however because, it told the Commission, it could no longer support the “significant financial losses” of operating the Vancouver station and it was very unlikely to launch the Winnipeg channel.
"Trinity is excited that part of this agreement allows us to partner with Rogers in programming initiatives as well as other roles," said Jeff Thiessen, Winnipeg based senior vice-president of Trinity Television. "Rogers has been terrific to work with and we know that they share our excitement, enthusiasm and commitment towards the continued development of a very strong television brand."
The deal will get Rogers an over-the-air station in the Vancouver-Victoria market, which it has desired for some time. In 2002, it asked for a license for a multicultural station in B.C. to build on its OMNI brand, but was beaten out for that license by Multivan Broadcast Corp., the owners and operators of Channel M.
Some of the programming to be shown on NOW going forward, however, will be shows produced by Rogers’ Toronto-based multicultural channels OMNI.1 and OMNI.2.
Opposing intervenors told the Commission that while they generally supported the acquisition, they wanted the CRTC to enforce NOW’s conditions of license, which say it must air 90% religious programming. NOW has programs such as Everybody Loves Raymond, Dateline, 60 Minutes and 48 Hours currently in its prime time schedule.
Rogers committed to the fact that the station was and would remain a religious channel, but the Commission said that its conditions of license would be made a little tighter, meaning it would limit the types of commercial, not overtly religious programming that NOW may carry.
“We’re very comfortable with the clarification,” Merson added.
– Greg O’Brien
