Vancouver: Only one thing is certain about the West Coast television landscape: four of the five terrestrial stations are in play and the mess is in the lap of the crtc to sort out.

The situation – which has been in a frustrating flux since WIC Western International Communications announced its sale to Corus Entertainment, Shaw Communications and CanWest Global two years ago – was made murkier still Feb. 18 with the surprise announcement by Global of its plans for a national network.

Here is what we know. Global wants to keep wic’s bctv and chek stations as the flagships of its new national network now under review at the crtc. That approval could come by the end of April. Global’s ckvu licence, therefore, will be put on the market with a sticker price expected to be in the $150-million range. bctv and chek, when they flip to Global, will lose their long-held ctv network affiliation. That will likely go to vtv, which is actually owned by ctv. Of course, ctv is considering a buyout offer from bce, so the future of vtv, the newest station on the block, is less predictable.

CBC British Columbia is the only local station operating on the West Coast to offer some sort of corporate stability, at least until the expected job cuts come in a few months.

Added to this mix are the applications of four other broadcasters vying for another licence for the West Coast.

A week-long set of crtc hearings reviewing the new licence applications by CHUM Ltd., Craig Broadcasting, Trinity Television and Rogers Broadcasting began in Vancouver Feb. 21 under the cloud of CanWest Global’s $692-million network rollout announcement. (A secondary event was the competition to earn a b.c.-based mds licence by Craig and Look Communications.)

chum and Craig each want to operate more traditional stations, with chum cloning versions of its Citytv model for separate stations in Vancouver and Vancouver Island. Craig wants to copy its Alberta-based A-Channels in Victoria from where A-Channel on the Island hopes to operate.

Diversity, spirituality

Rogers and Trinity offer more niche-oriented proposals with Rogers trying to recreate cfmt in Toronto into a multilingual station for Vancouver and Trinity going for a regional religious station for the Fraser Valley.

Veiled ultimatums and apparent hostility, especially on the parts of rivals chum and Craig, characterized the hearings.

chum – hedging its prospects by applying for separate licences in both Vancouver and Victoria, even though the commission considers them part of a single market – traded on the power of its program lineup to play the heavy at the hearings.

In his initial presentation, chum executive vp Fred Sherratt commented on the business struggles the entire chum operation would face without a Vancouver licence to amortize the costs of broadcasting. He also pointed out the irony that in 1997 the crtc previously licenced vtv, which then put chum’s programming on the air. vtv, he intimated, would suffer a loss of original programming if chum came to town.

Sherratt also suggested that licensing chum this time would prove to be a critical blow to border station kvos Bellingham, which also airs a number of chum shows and Canadian-licensed programs such as Star Trek Voyager.

Later, in a duel of Victoria applications, chum went after Craig Broadcasting, suggesting it would cut off Craig’s A-Channel on the Island from chum programming should Craig prevail. chum says it provides 45% of non-news programming at Craig’s A Channels in Alberta.

The already aggressive tone of the hearings took a nastier turn, with both Craig and chum accusing the other of using their Victoria bids as a back door into the lucrative Vancouver market rather than making a genuine attempt to increase local programming on Vancouver Island.

Applications moot

Market watchers, however, suggest their energies were spent in vain. Some, like Vancouver media analyst David Stanger, believe CanWest Global’s preemptive strike hit its target: derail the crtc hearings and make the applications moot.

‘I’d be surprised if anything came from these hearings,’ Stanger explains. ‘There won’t be any announcement of a new licence in advance of a decision regarding the CanWest Global proposal. There won’t be anything for at least four to six months, and with companies converging and new players, the whole industry could be different by then.’

chum and Craig, in particular, are likely bidders for ckvu. Also, the crtc has to once again allow a single broadcaster, in this case Global, to operate both bctv and chek in a single market – a situation that under wic was a constant sore point with the crtc. While wic has worked in recent years to make bctv and chek essentially a single station with integrated operations, it is possible that the crtc will require Global give up one. Assuming, in this scenario, that Global will want to keep bctv with its province-wide reach, then chek might go on the block.

Again, chum and Craig have demonstrated a willingness to operate in Victoria.

Following this logic, Global would get bctv, chum might buy ckvu and Craig might buy chek. The only two new licence applicants left without a station then are Rogers and Trinity.

Then there are the dark horses to consider: Astral, tva, Jimmy Pattison.

Whatever the outcome, it’s clear that by year-end, British Columbians will be watching television very differently than they do right now.