Comments on: Canadian TV Station Sells for $1

By: Doug

Doug — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 05:44:31 +0000

Being that it’s a TV station in Brandon (population 40k), I’m not surprised. The flagship stations in Canada (in the major cities) are not in trouble, but the small stations are. Thanks to merging of stations and the big station (CTV) not becoming a unified broadcaster until the 1970s, there are quite a few smaller cities that had stations. Through mergers and whatnot, CTV found itself with overlapping stations. For instance, the main CTV station in Southern Ontario is in Kitchener, but CTV networks also had affiliates in London, Windsor, and a number of other smaller cities.

Because CTV is the 800 pound gorilla in Canada, it buys it rights to as much American programming as possible so that its competitor doesn’t get them. CTV owns the rights to all of the CSIs, Law & Orders, Desperate Housewives, ER, Lost, DWTS, American Idol, Grey’s Anatomy, and so on. The only major series its competitor has is House. Because CTV owns the rights to all of this programming, it can’t possibly all air on the main network. So what they did was air some series (Lost, DWTS, and some sitcoms) on these secondary networks, which they branded “A Channel.” Most of them still weren’t profitable (being in very small markets, and competing for ad dollars not only with the competition, but also with their big sister CTV networks), so now they’re being sold off or shut down.

By: Jon K

Jon K — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 01:34:09 +0000

And its lack of profitability.

By: Pere

Pere — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 01:03:41 +0000

Guys, I’m pretty sure that by buying the station, you’re also buying the station’s debt

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 00:59:21 +0000

Dan, here are the smilies that are supported by Wordpress.

http://support.wordpress.com/smilies/

By: dan

dan — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 00:50:27 +0000

was it canadian money or real money =) (the smile thing doesn’t work for my compy)

By: MIke the Canadian

MIke the Canadian — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 00:07:40 +0000

Too many stations going after too few dollars. We all download everything anyway, hehe…

By: Drew

Drew — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 22:36:42 +0000

So for 20 bucks I could own half the Canadian TV stations?

By: Scott Jensen

Scott Jensen — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 20:14:17 +0000

What?! Three are not even worth a buck?!?!?! Just how bad is the TV industry up there where the Men are Men, the Women are Men, and the children are hunted for sport?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:26:07 +0000

It’s actually both debt AND ongoing losses.

You’d be surprised how many stations are up for sale – all for $1. In fact, one of the cable companies up here (Shaw) originally planned to purchase 3 local stations for $1, but later took back their offer after doing some “due diligence”.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:23:56 +0000

Hopefully it was bought by Weird Al and his Master Control Operator is an alien.

By: Adam

Adam — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:59:10 +0000

Was it a dollar bill, or a Loony

By: Doghouse Reilly

Doghouse Reilly — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:49:58 +0000

Wasn’t TV Guide Magazine sold for $1 and a whole lot of debt?