Montreal: Groupe Videotron has hired TD Securities to broker the sale of CFCF-12, the ctv affiliate in Montreal.

The station has dominated the English-language tv advertising market in Montreal for some 30 years, but the real issue at auction will be its value if, but more likely when, CanWest Global enters the market.

Potential buyers include Baton Broadcasting, WIC Western International Communications, CHUM Ltd., Moffat Communications and Electrohome, all member companies of the ctv consortium.

CFCF-12 has annual revenues of $65 million. The selling price is expected to be in the $75 million to $90 million range, says Simon Lussier, an analyst with Sprott Securities.

Potential control of ctv also makes CFCF-12 an attractive purchase.

Baton presently has one of the seven ctv board seats. It will acquire another with Calgary’s cfcn-tv if the recent deal with Electrohome is approved by the crtc, as well as ‘a voting trust’ shared with Electrohome on Electrohome’s seat, says Ivan Fecan, executive vp and coo, Baton Broadcasting.

‘We are obviously watching the (cfcf) situation very carefully, but are not prepared to declare an interest one way or the other,’ he says.

Fecan says ‘there’s a smidgen of truth to the rumor’ Baton is interested in a national distribution system. At the moment, cjoh-tv Ottawa, a Baton station, is on cable in Montreal and Baton currently sells programming to CFCF-12.

Says Fecan: ‘We are very conscious of the fact that right now cfcf has a privileged position of being the only private English-language broadcaster in Montreal and we are very conscious of the impact a Global station would have on cfcf’s bottom line.’

Global is not interested in buying CFCF-12, says Glenn O’Farrell, vp legal and regulatory affairs, CanWest Global.

Rather, he says Global’s interest is in expanding into Alberta and Quebec and becoming Canada’s ‘third national network.’ The Alberta hearing is set for July.

With Alberta and Quebec in the fold, Global’s national reach would be just under 90%, says O’Farrell, who also heads up tva/CanWest as its president.

‘Our priority interest is to ensure that our ckmi (Quebec City) file is approved by the crtc and launched asap,’ he says.

O’Farrell says Global will monitor the CFCF-12 situation closely, but adds no one knows who will own CFCF-12 by the fall when Global expects a hearing on ckmi.

‘We can’t predict those things for nowif there were any constructive role we could play in bringing a resolution to that issue we would very carefully examine it because it would be in our self-interest to do so.’

At is stands, the ckmi application will be heard at the same time as Videotron’s takeover application of CFCF Inc.

Global is committed to an initial capital investment in excess of $10 million in ckmi and has fixed September ’97 as its startup date.

Baton operates primarily in Ontario. It also has several tv stations in Saskatchewan, a yet-to-be-approved station in Calgary and a proposal to supply programming to cfrn in Edmonton. Baton has filed a joint application with Electrohome for an independent station in Vancouver.