HAMILTON and MONTREAL – Monday marked the start of a new era at the five former E!-branded television stations across the country.
Gone are the remnants of the ill-fated ‘E!’ design and glitzy American entertainment shows left over from the Canwest Global age. In its place in Hamilton, viewers welcomed the return of the station’s historic call letters as its new name -‘CHCH News and Movies’ – flashed up on TV screens before dawn.
New owner Channel Zero (CZ), cut all remaining ties to Canwest over the weekend, and the station’s first news show of the day opened at 5:30 AM from the Hamilton studios, but routed through the CZ broadcast facility in Toronto.
The independent specialty service operator company has re-formatted the station to include a series of back-to-back news shows throughout the day, followed by a double-feature of movies in primetime. At least for the short term.
“We are going to take our time and do it right”, CZ’s Cal Millar, who’s sporting the new title of president and COO, told Cartt.ca. “We intend to do a great deal of market research and tweak if needed before our full consumer launch and promotional splash.”
The station has kept all existing staff, and added 15 new positions to boot. Senior management will continue in their existing roles, except for the station manager who opted to move to the Global facilities in Toronto, Millar continued.
CZ also purchased multicultural station CJNT-TV Montreal and launched a new format there on Monday, too. In an effort to make it a more “compelling station to watch”, Millar said the channel has switched to a music video and movies format.
The movies will be subtitled in English and/or French, but be broadcast in their native language (the channel broadcasts in up to 15 languages). Noting the “buzz about the quality of non-English music videos”, Millar said that the channel will finally offer a chance for Canadians to see some of the EuroVision award winners that are household names in other parts of the world.
While the station will continue to target ethic audiences, it will skew to a younger market, Millar continued.
“If viewers (mainly older and first generation) are looking for news of their homeland, there are a multitude of dedicated Part II eligible satellite services that broadcast 24/7 in that language on digital cable, satellite or on the Internet”, he said. “In order to appeal to a younger audience (often second or third generation) who would still like to keep in touch with their ancestral homeland, we believe that they will be more interested in music videos and movies and that it is the kind of experience that they can share with parents and grandparents.”
And former Canwest E!-branded station CHEK-TV in Victoria, BC may have pulled off the biggest coup this side of the Olympic Games.
Station GM John Pollard confirmed to Cartt.ca late on Monday that thanks to the efforts of Canwest, the CRTC, local politicians and the community, the station has won a reprieve from its scheduled shutdown.
“We haven’t finalized the deal entirely just yet, but we will have news on the air tomorrow (Tuesday) at 5, 6 and 10”, a breathless, though jubilant-sounding Pollard said. “I can’t say enough about the support that we’ve received from Canwest on this. They’ve worked incredibly hard to help get this done, and are supplying everything from control rooms to programming to us. It really is great. It’s been a lot of work, but it’s also been a lot of fun.”
CHBC-TV in Kelowna, BC launched as part of the Global TV network on Monday, while CHCA-TV in Red Deer, AB officially went off the air. A voicemail greeting at the station’s main telephone number thanks viewers for their patronage and directs news tips to the Canwest affiliate in Edmonton.
