Vancouver: When Sports Page, ‘the fastest 10 minutes in sports,’ sprints from CKVU-TV in Vancouver to CHEK-TV to Victoria Sept. 2, there are bound to be a few armchair quarterbacks fumbling their remotes.

The long-running weekday sports news show, a mainstay of CKVU’s local programming, is just one of many changes to the Vancouver viewing schedule that will lead to viewer confusion. And it’s one of the many programming reasons local broadcasters are banding together to launch an August PR campaign to help viewers sort it all out.

They all agree it’s going to be a mess. BCTV and CHEK become Global stations Sept. 1, while Global’s old station CKVU becomes an ‘in-trust’ subsidiary programmed by CHUM (until the CRTC approves its $125-million purchase proposal). In Victoria, meanwhile, CHUM’s CIVI launches in September and will reach the Lower Mainland. VTV becomes the official CTV signal on the West Coast when BCTV and CHEK relinquish their CTV affiliation Aug. 31.

Meanwhile this fall, high-profile U.S. primetime programming is going to move around the dial. Trinity Television’s new over-the-air regional religious station NOWTV also starts up Sept. 1 and like CIVI will require a signal in cable channels 2 to 11. That means cable company Shaw is going to have to realign some stations.

For instance, in Vancouver (which may differ from other parts of the Lower Mainland), KOMO-4 Seattle airs on Channel 10 and KVOS-12 Bellingham airs on Channel 12. A good guess is that Channel 10 will go to Trinity and Channel 12 will go to CIVI, while the current tenants will get bumped.

John Ridley, director of promotions at BCTV/CHEK, is chairing a loose coalition with CTV and CHUM to create an education campaign handled by a Vancouver PR company.

‘It’s a courtesy gesture to our audiences,’ says Ridley. ‘There is the potential for a lot of confusion and we want to curb that with strategic planning.’

At present Shaw is not involved in the campaign, nor is newcomer NOWTV. Because it is unaffected by the changes in the local market, CBC British Columbia will also sit out of the public awareness drive.

Ridley says the education campaign could be worth about $50,000 depending on what the partners bring to the table. CanWest Global also owns The Vancouver Sun and The Province newspapers, while CHUM owns Vancouver radio stations CFUN-AM and CHQM-FM – media overlap that allows the partners to do substantial cross-media promotion. (For that matter, Shaw’s division Corus Entertainment owns Vancouver-based CFMI-FM, CFOX-FM and CKNW-AM, should Shaw get involved.)

The collaborative campaign will be on top of whatever independent promotion and programming strategy each broadcaster rolls out on its own in the local market.

Schedule previews

The curious Sports Page move to Victoria, which features no major league teams, is part of a strategy to tie up more demographics in the 11 p.m. block, says Ridley.

Airing at 11 p.m. weekdays on CHEK, Sports Page will go up against BCTV’s News Final. But because each show attracts distinct audience groups, there will be little cannibalization, he explains.

For regular BCTV viewers, meanwhile, there is little change to the regular news packages – in part, says Ridley, because BCTV has one of the top local newscasts in North America by audience numbers.

The BCTV Morning News continues weekdays between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. Likewise, the BCTV Saturday Morning News and BCTV Sunday Morning News continue. The Noon News Hour goes seven days a week and 10-minute The Early News continues at 5 p.m. weekdays. The new Global National News, with anchor Kevin Newman, replaces Canada Tonight at 5:10 weekdays and is broadcast from the BCTV studios in Burnaby.

At CHEK, regular watchers of Canada AM will have to tune to VTV. Otherwise, CHEK TV News @ Noon continues, and a repackaged CHEK News runs 90 minutes starting at 5 p.m. weekdays. A new local program, The Magazine, runs at 6:10 for a half-hour.

CHEK Late News returns at 11:10 p.m.

At CIVI, tentative schedules show a morning news package from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., a news show and magazine show filling a one-hour block at noon and a one-hour dinnertime news show at 6 p.m., with 10-minute news shows on Saturday and Sunday at 6 p.m.

A one-hour talk TV show is scheduled for Thursday at 8 p.m., says director of programming Barry Dodd, while shows such as a Victoria Speaker’s Corner, an eco-TV program and youth-oriented program Island Underground will air in primetime. CIVI is also planning a 10-minute aboriginal affairs program.

Shane Neufeld, VP of television broadcasting at NOWTV, says the fledging Fraser Valley station, only the third religious channel licenced by the CRTC, has a seven-year plan to expand its local programming. But when it goes live in September, the station will offer a youth-oriented contemporary Christian music show, hosted by a VJ, weekdays after school. Also on the NOWTV schedule is ‘Retro Block,’ which repackages classic family shows like The Andy Griffiths Show with a host to talk about the moral, ethical and spiritual issues raised in the production.

World Now is a 10-minute block in primetime that explores current events around the world and their multi-faith religious implications. And NOW Online is an interactive multi-faith call-in show, in the style of Larry King Live.

VTV declined to disclose its local programming schedule. However, its current schedule includes VTV Breakfast, which is expected to return in some form, an early newscast at 5 p.m., a 6 p.m. newscast and an 11 p.m. newscast (which will be bumped for the CTV National News). *