Vancouver: Nearly 30 years later than planned, CHUM Limited has a television station in Vancouver. On Oct. 15, the CRTC approved without an oral hearing CHUM’s $130-million purchase of CKVU from an arm’s-length subsidiary of CanWest Global.

In rubber-stamping the application, the commission once again turned a blind eye to the issue of common ownership, a regulatory policy that is supposed to prohibit one company from operating two television stations in a single market.

But since 1999, when the CRTC upheld the ideal that dual ownership undermines the diversity of voices within a market, the commission has approved all three of the requests for exemptions.

CanWest Global was successful in keeping CHEK and BCTV in Vancouver-Victoria twinned following the purchase of assets from WIC Western International Communications. Likewise, CanWest is allowed to operate both CHCH and CIII in the Toronto region. Now CHUM gets CKVU in the same month that it launched CIVI in Victoria. And a slew of applicants for three new signals in southern Ontario opens the door for more exemptions.

In defending its CKVU decision, the commission writes: ‘Editorial diversity and fair competition remain strong and valid reasons for…a general policy prohibition against the ownership of more than one television station in any given market. [With CKVU], however, the Commission finds that the current degree of concentration of voices in the hands of CanWest is very high in both broadcasting and newspapers. Placing CIVI Victoria and CKVU Vancouver under the single ownership of a strengthened CHUM organization should provide a more effective counter-balance to this high degree of concentration of editorial voices.’

Of course, CHUM paid a premium to secure the exemption. Its benefits package is 11.8% of its purchase price – or 1.8% above the 10% minimum value mandated by the CRTC. In real dollars, the benefits package totals $15.4 million paid over seven years.

Of that, $7.8 million will be spent on prelicensing drama and documentary programs from independent producers in B.C. and will germinate, over seven years, three features or long-form documentaries and 10 short dramas by aboriginal or ethnic filmmakers.

Script and concept development gets $230,000 over the term, with 25% earmarked for aboriginal and ethnic writers and producers.

Over the licence period, and with $2.2 million, news production will expand from 11 hours to 15.5 hours per week, which is still the lowest volume of news of any local station. Local non-news programming — which gets $3.6 million over seven years – will total 12 hours per week, with half of the time dedicated to local multicultural/multilingual and aboriginal programming

CHUM says there will be no more than 10% overlap in programming between CIVI and CKVU. The two stations will adopt distinct format and programming strategies (with CKVU following more closely the Citytv model). Newsrooms will be editorially independent.

Craig Broadcast Systems, which vied with CanWest Global to purchase CKVU, filed a negative intervention based on the issue of dual ownership. Since there were no financial problems with the stations (the basis for earlier exemptions), the application for purchase should be approved only if CHUM agrees to sell CIVI, says Craig.

The commissioners themselves were divided on the approval, especially with it going ahead without public discussion.

In their dissenting opinion, western-based commissioners Cindy Grauer and Barbara Cram say: ‘We do not believe the Commission has fully considered the effect this approval will have on other broadcasters in this market, particularly when the Commission is hearing applications this month to license an ethnic station. We question whether what this decision creates in this market is any better than what existed before, and argue, in fact, that it may be worse.’

CRTC spokesman Denis Carmel says exemptions happen when the public interest is well served and the broadcasters ‘bring something to the table.’

He acknowledges that the race in southern Ontario to be heard by the CRTC in Hamilton on Dec. 3 involves broadcasters who will ask for exemptions.

Alliance Atlantis Broadcasting, CFMT-TV (a division of Rogers Broadcasting), Craig Broadcast System, CTV Television, CanWest Global and Torstar Daily Newspaper Group are applying for up to three stations in Toronto, Hamilton and Kitchener.

But first, the commission will consider whether there is room for any new stations, before it entertains applications for secondary stations for existing operators, says Carmel.

In other licence news, Vancouver multilingual station applicants LMTV (by CFMT) and Multivan (sponsored by local developers) presented their cases to the CRTC on Oct. 15. A decision is expect by next spring.