VICTORIA – The employees of CHEK TV have come up with a plan to save their station from closing at the end of the month – they’re going to buy it themselves.
Approximately 40 current employees have raised more than $500,000 in a bid to own a 25% share in a company that will try to buy the Victoria-based station from current owner Canwest Global. If successful, the employees will sit on the board of directors at the new company, which will operate the station. The balance will be held by three local investors.
“And we foresee ourselves making a profit in year one”, GM John Pollard told Cartt.ca confidently in a telephone interview on Monday.
Noting that a preliminary program schedule is currently before the CRTC, Pollard said that the new company’s programming budget is moderate.
“All of the programs that we’ve bought will do well, and we didn’t need to spend a lot on Hollywood shows. Many of our shows, and certainly our news, will have a local focus. That what’s we do, and I think that we do it well.”
Canwest announced in July that it would be closing CHEK TV and CHCA-TV Red Deer by August 31, 2009 after failing to find a buyer for the two local stations which it claims are not profitable. The first private TV station in the province, CHEK TV originally signed on as a CBC affiliate back on December 1, 1956. It became a full time CTV affiliate in January of 1981, and re-branded as ‘CH Vancouver Island’ in 2001 before joining Canwest’s E! chain in September, 2007.
Pollard said that support for the employees’ bid has been “overwhelming”, from the community, advertisers and local businesses alike. One local company has launched an on-line petition and T-shirt campaign in support of the station, while a Facebook group called ‘Save CHEK News’ now has more than 5,000 members.
Declining to name exactly how much they will offer Canwest for the station, Pollard said that the group needs to finalize operating capital for the next six months, noting “it’s not much”. Advertising will target local businesses in its southwestern BC footprint, which includes Vancouver, though the station will also seek some national advertisers.
Pollard said that the current management team, who will remain in place at the new company, has spoken to Canwest about their plan and will present an asset purchase plan “within a few days”.
“We have a plan and it is lengthy and detailed”, Pollard continued. “We will go through it page by page should we need to. Is there a lot of work to do? Yes. Have we been working on it for a while? Yes.”
