TORONTO and CALGARY – After decades as one of the leading Canadian media companies, the name Canwest will fade into the history books, replaced by Shaw Media.
After Shaw Communications assumed full ownership of Canwest Global’s TV assets on Wednesday, the company unveiled its new broadcasting group – to be known as Shaw Media – plus its new branding and management team.
"The Asper family built a broadcasting organization which served our country well. We look forward, under our stewardship, to strengthening these important assets for the benefit of all Canadians", said JR Shaw, executive chair and founder of Shaw Communications.
"Today marks the successful emergence of Canwest broadcasting assets from creditor protection and represents a major milestone in the evolution of broadcasting in Canada. We are excited about the possibilities that the marriage of distribution and content creates for all of our stakeholders and we are pleased to be in the position to officially welcome an additional 2,100 employees to the Shaw family", said Brad Shaw, executive vice president of Shaw.
With the media HQ based in Toronto, the division encompasses Global Television, the 19 former CanWest specialty TV channels, plus more than 20 on-line properties. It is led by Paul Robertson, group vice-president, broadcasting and president of Shaw Media, plus much of the former CanWest management team.
The exceptions are Canwest’s chief marketing officer Walter Levitt, as reported by Cartt.ca, Christine McGinley, who held the role of SVP of operations, former Canwest VP human resources David MacAuley, and Calgary station VP Ron Bell.
As for the new titles on the new business cards, Errol Da-Ré, will be senior vice president, sales; Barbara Williams, senior vice president, content; Troy Reeb, vice president, news; and Andrew Akman, vice president, planning. All will report to Robertson.
Paul Burns, vice president, digital media will report to Zoran Stakic, chief information officer for Shaw; Charlotte Bell, vice president, regulatory and government affairs, will report to Jean Brazeau, senior vice president of regulatory affairs for Shaw; Carol Darling, vice president, engineering and broadcast systems, will report to Dennis Steiger, group vice president, engineering for Shaw; Michael French, vice president, finance, will report to Rhonda Bashnick, group vice president, finance for Shaw; Dervla Kelly, senior director, communications, will report to Deb Avis, group vice president, marketing for Shaw
A new vice-president, human resources will be hired.
Click here for the full background of the key executives.
Robertson told Cartt.ca that his focus is on making the company’s array of content more widely available across all platforms, and on strengthening its news offering in local markets.
“We’re looking for new channels to launch, new opportunities, and new ways to get the content across platforms and just anyway way that we can to meet the evolving demand out there and continue to build the company”, he said in an interview.
“The rationale for why Shaw was interested in acquiring a content company is that in the new world, with content being demanded across all platforms, one needs to be effective at owning that content and its rights, but also to be effective at the technology and the distribution and to have that connection with the subscriber. That’s why we thought that the combination of content and distribution was an ideal one for the future, and that really underpinned the reason why Shaw made the acquisition.”
Robertson said that the company is focused on local markets, which he described as “tremendous commercial opportunities to continue to provide new services”, and said that new Global TV morning newscasts in five additional markets are expected to launch within the next 12 to 18 months (Toronto’s will happen much sooner than that).
When asked about Shaw’s promise to convert its remaining analog transmitters to digital, Robertson said that it will most likely take about five years to convert the approximately 67 that remain in non-mandatory markets.
“It was really a commitment made about the future of our industry and we really felt that Canadians deserve local broadcast in digital”, Robertson continued. “Shaw really views the industry in a long term perspective. Converting to fully digital broadcast is one of those long term decisions that can’t be justified in economic terms, but to the people in those local communities, it’ll be a lifeline to them to continue to get their local station.”
He also shared some thoughts on the future of the industry in Canada.
“As an industry, there’s a few things that we’re going to have to think of. One of those things is: ‘Is it right that there’s Canadian content that may only be available on certain devices’? Our point of view, which we clearly stated at our last hearing, is that there should be non-exclusivity around content as it’s made available, in particular across the mobile platform, or broadband or anywhere. In other words, we would make Glee or our morning news available to the other BDUs on commercial terms for use on their devices. We’re a small country, and if we start getting in to requiring people to buy new mobile devices just because they can’t get the content on their own device, we’re going to shoot ourselves in the foot as an industry.”
Robertson also questioned whether the CRTC should wade into the area of new media.
“We knew that there would probably come a time when there would be so much video available through the Internet that the Internet offerings would look a little more like TV than they do like traditional web sites. And in that regard, we feel like it’s probably the right time for the industry to have the debate around should over-the-top offerings like Netflix, Hulu or GoogleTV be regulated within the broadcasting framework that we have in Canada, or is it really fair that they should stand outside of that?” he said.
“What’s at stake is the continued investment in Canadian content over time if these new competitors can come in to the marketplace without any requirements, and the existing players be required to invest the way that they’re currently required to.”
With files from Greg O’Brien.
