Until federal cabinet announced June 5 that the highly contested toronto|one licence would be upheld, Drew Craig had a $35-million television operation in the broadcasting equivalent of cold storage.

But following a cabinet ruling to strike down appeals of the licence filed this spring by some of the nation’s top media outlets, the president and CEO of Calgary-based Craig Broadcast Systems is now ready to set up shop in southern Ontario.

‘We feel great,’ Craig says over the line from Ottawa, where he has been camped in an effort to sway cabinet ministers to allow the licence to stand. ‘The federal cabinet did the right thing. That was to let the process take its course. The CRTC gave us the licence and [cabinet] is standing firmly behind the CRTC.’

But the newly minted licence did not come without a cost. Craig says he basically lost the revenues of an entire programming season due to the appeals.

‘The fact that we’ve missed even the fall broadcast [window] will be very costly,’ he says. ‘Everything [was] basically ready for us to pull the trigger from the real estate to facilities to programming to staffing.’

At issue was an April 8 decision by the CRTC in favor of Craig’s bid over those of some of the most prominent media players in Canada, including CanWest Global Communications, Alliance Atlantis Communications and Torstar Corp, to launch new stations in southern Ontario.

Those three, plus Liberal MP Stan Keyes, independent producer Alan Aylward and CHUM, launched appeals requesting that the federal cabinet either quash the decision or send it back to the CRTC for reconsideration.

The number of appeals, particularly coming from such prominent media players, was unusual although not surprising considering that Craig won what is widely believed to be the last conventional licence in Canada’s premier market. By comparison, appeals for CHUM’s Vancouver licence in 2001 numbered in the same range but came mostly from community groups.

A consistent theme in the Craig appeals was that toronto|one’s commitments to Canadian content and independent production fall short of other bids and therefore contravene the Broadcasting Act.

Needless to say, Torstar president and CEO Robert Prichard is not happy.

‘We believe the existing decision not only isn’t consistent with the Broadcasting Act but derogates from…the central purposes of the Broadcasting Act and, therefore, must be set aside,’ he says.

Craig is reported to be setting up a downtown Toronto broadcast centre that would house facilities for both toronto|one and MTV Canada.

The station was ready to begin broadcasting in the fall with a schedule of local original programming largely focused on life in Canada’s largest city. These include music/variety program The Toronto Show, arts and entertainment program Toronto Life: The TV Show, comedy with Second City Improv and local newsmagazine show Metro.

According to Craig, the licence is the lynchpin to his company’s entire long-term growth strategy.

‘You can’t survive as a regional player. You need to get bigger. We’ve been pushing ahead to try to grow the company,’ he says.

‘Without a Toronto licence, you can’t build out a national system.’