Western International Communications

:"Allarcom" redirects here. For the owners of Super Channel, see Allarco Entertainment."s, were acquired by other companies.

WIC was formed in 1982 as the successor to Western Broadcasting Company Ltd., which by this time was a private holding company owned by the family of Frank Griffiths. Class A voting shares were retained by the family through Western, while Class B shares were owned by the public. The latter class were generally non-voting, but would be converted to voting shares should a majority of Class A shares change hands, a so-called coat-tail provision.

In 1997, wanting to exit the broadcasting business, the Griffiths agreed to sell WIC to Shaw. Initially, they sold 49.98% of their Class A shares to Shaw Communications, 49.98% to the Allard family, and 0.04% to CanWest, in order to evade the coat-tail provision while Shaw completed a takeover bid for the non-voting shares. However, CanWest also made an offer for these shares and filed a lawsuit claiming that the division of Class A shares constituted a change of control. The lawsuit eventually stalled, and CanWest and Shaw each ended garnered over 40% of Class B shares. Negotiations between Shaw and CanWest continued until 1999, when the two parties agreed to split the company's assets. [Susan Gittins, "CTV: The Television Wars", Toronto: Stoddart Publishing, 1999, ISBN 0-7737-3125-3 ]

Television stations

Although the WIC stations aired some common programming, such as the newscast "Canada Tonight", WIC was an ownership group, not a television network. Some WIC stations operated as independent stations, and others were network affiliates of CTV or CBC.

At the time of its sale to Global, WIC owned the following stations. The year WIC first acquired control of each station is noted in parentheses.

* Calgary - CICT (1989)
* Edmonton - CITV (1991)
* Hamilton - CHCH (1990)
* Lethbridge - CISA (1989)
* Kelowna - CHBC (1989) WIC was already a partial owner of these stations, but acquired the remainder of each station, specifically 50% of CHBC and 41% of each of CHAN and CHEK, from Selkirk Communications (via Maclean-Hunter) in 1989.]
* Montreal - CFCF (1997) and CJNT (1999)
* Red Deer - CKRD (1991)
* Vancouver - CHAN (1982)
* Victoria - CHEK (1982)

WIC's CTV affiliates, CHAN, CHEK and CFCF, had a hostile relationship with the network, due to these stations' desire to take a greater role in Canadian program production for the network. This relationship deteriorated even further in 1997, when rival Baton Broadcasting became the sole corporate owner of CTV, and opened its own independent station, CIVT, in Vancouver. Baton, which owned the national rights to many programs aired in Vancouver on CHAN or CHEK, was able to move these programs, now being advertised as CTV programs outside B.C., to CIVT.

Under WIC's ownership, CHAN used the brand "BCTV". WIC also changed CHCH's branding to "OnTV" in 1997, when the station added several rebroadcast transmitters throughout Ontario.

WIC also owned specialty cable television channels such MovieMax and SuperChannel (see Movie Central), and partial shares of Report on Business Television, Family Channel and Teletoon.

Radio stations

At the time of its sale to Global, WIC owned 12 radio stations. These were acquired by Corus Entertainment.

* Calgary - CHQR, CKIK
* Edmonton - CHED, CKNG
* Hamilton - CHML, CJXY
* Toronto - CFYI, CILQ
* Vancouver - CKNW, CFMI
* Winnipeg - CJOB, CJKR

Global merger

Global's acquisition of WIC's television stations finally brought that network's service to Alberta, where the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission had repeatedly denied Global's applications to open new stations. An earlier application by Global had been turned down in favour of Craig Media's A-Channel system. However, the WIC stations there were already purchasing broadcast rights to some of Global's programming.

In Montreal, where Global chose to keep its existing regional station CKMI, the company was required to sell CFCF to CTV. Retaining CFCF would have given Global a monopoly on commercial English language television in Montreal.

In Vancouver and Victoria, Global's acquisition of CHAN set off one of the largest single-market network association shakeups in North American television history. Global already owned CKVU, but decided to sell that station and keep CHAN instead. As a result, on September 1, 2001, the Global brand and programming moved from CKVU to CHAN, the CTV association moved from CHAN to CIVT, and CKVU was purchased by CHUM Limited, adopting the Citytv brand the following year. CHEK also changed its association, from CTV to Global's new CH system; a NewNet station, CIVI, also launched in Victoria around the same time.

CHCH and CJNT's signals also overlapped with existing Global stations; these two stations were integrated with CHEK into the CH system. CKRD disaffiliated from the CBC in September, 2005, becoming CHCA, the fourth CH station. CHBC's similar disaffiliation was approved by the CRTC on February 28, 2005, and disaffiliated on February 27, 2006 to join the CH system (although CHBC did not use the CH brand on-air, but rather its call letters, as it had done throughout its existence, until September 7, 2007, when it began using the E! brand for all programs outside of local news and regional programming).

Global did not have a true national newscast before it acquired WIC, although it aired "First National" in Ontario, Manitoba and, later, Quebec. On acquiring WIC, Global cancelled "First National", briefly aired "Canada Tonight" on stations carrying that program, and premiered its successor, "Global National", on September 4, 2001.

Global also retained WIC's interest in Report on Business Television; it was subsequently sold to rival Bell Globemedia when that company acquired "The Globe and Mail", which owned the remainder.

Shaw Communications acquired WIC's interest in Cancom. The CRTC approved the sale of MovieMax, SuperChannel and WIC's video on demand services to Corus, but required WIC's shares of The Family Channel and Teletoon be sold to a new buyer. Astral Media acquired those shares in 2001. (Corus already held a minority interest in Teletoon, which - following subsequent acquisitions - is now run as a 50/50 joint venture with Astral.)

Footnotes