The size of the deal scares me. No media company needs to own three networks or 38 specialty channels. Granted, not all of the CHUM/BGM assets will remain with BGM if the merger is approved. MTV Canada and MuchMusic can't bothexist under the same banner (although, to be fair, they briefly did when CHUM bought original MTV Canada rightsholders Craig Media). A-Channel, CHUM's network for smaller television markets, could be sold off or scrapped.
It's hard to tell what might happen for the BGM and CHUM properties. There's talk about CTV Inc. and CHUM competing against each other as separate entitiesdespite a common owner. Sure, and Test/Big Show matches compare to an Axl Rotten/Ian Rotten Taipei Death Match. Canwest Global can't pull off the two-network trick with CH. It's not like media conglomerates not to reorganize and cross-promote their properties.
In the end, will CHUM-related programming remain the same in the coming years? Maybe, but the pool of media ownership in Canada is neither wide nor growing. Bite TV and The Fight Network give hope for the future of Canadian narrowcasting, but they might eventually be swallowed up by Alliance Atlantis, Corus Entertainment, Astral Media or one of the other cable outlets in Canada.
It's the nature of the beast — in America mergers beget mergers, which beget more mergers, divestitures and even a few spinoffs. Canadian media ownership follows the same formula. There's fear that the Stephen Harper government will allow for more foreign ownership of Canadian properties in the coming years. Do I fear for the state of Canadian media in this context? No, but I don't like homogenized crap, either.
Frankly, in the age of YouTube and video on demand, these media mergers might just be the last gasp of a dying age. The media conglomerates can't allmerge into one unwieldy megacorp and I sure as hell don't want to see them try.
Article comments
1 - Josh Hutcherson
CHUM's already putting fiscal (interest) first scrapping the A-Channel Ottawa Noon news (A-Channel London already got that treatment a year ago!) and cancelling A-Channel Victoria's morning show. Perhaps the new owners of A-Channel (s) and Access (Alberta)... whoever they will be, can reimplement the QUALITY in local programming again. GOd, what a bitch for a computer to replace 5 behind-the-scenes workers. What they feared in the '50 is coming true. lol