OTTAWA-GATINEAU – THE CRTC today told CanWest Global CEO Leonard Asper that he only has himself to blame for the delay in hearing his company’s bid to gain control over Alliance Atlantis’ specialty channels.
Yesterday Asper issued a release professing his disappointment the Commission has decided to cancel next Wednesday’s planned hearing into the acquisition of Alliance Atlantis by CanWest Global/Goldman Sachs, moving the hearing to November 19 instead. In the meantime, more public comment on the transaction will be asked.
While Asper may be "disappointed", it was a ream of paper dumped into the CRTC mailbox just last week that caused the decision to delay, the Commission said today in its own press release. (We wonder if a column slamming the CRTC’s slowness that appeared in the CanWest-owned Ottawa Citizen this morning played a role in the Regulator’s clarifying release, a response which is unusual for the folks over in the big brown building on Promenade du Portage, in what used to be Hull.)
Today’s release says the hearing "has been postponed due to the late filing of additional documents. CanWest filed, late last week, 52 documents containing more than 300 pages with marked changes," reads the release.
Because of those changes, the proceeding has been reopened for public comment, which are now due October 10. The Commission didn’t say what those "marked changes" are because neither it nor CanWest Global are prepared to make the new documents public (we asked, and the CRTC says they will be made public by September 20th, as noted in the public notice, at the latest).
However, CanWest’s regulatory chief, Charlotte Bell, told Cartt.ca in an e-mail that "nothing material has changed since we filed the last drafts."
"The CRTC has determined that the extent of the new information is such that interveners should be given a fair opportunity to comment on these documents," adds the Commission’s release.
"I think this is a case of the Commission wanting to ensure that the public has a full opportunity to comment on the final agreements prior to the public hearing," added Bell.
CanWest has to reply to any new interventions no later than October 22, 2007.
