With war between America and Iraq a near-certainty, Canada’s national networks have, for several weeks now, been mobilizing to cover a second conflict in the Persian Gulf. Covering the war will be very expensive for all three nets – not just because reporters on the scene need insurance, hazmat training, satellite feeds, hotels, translators, and god-knows-what-else – but because all will go commercial free for at least the first 24 to 48 hours of the conflict, leaving a costly, Iraq-shaped dent in their monthly ad revenues.

‘We’ll go [ad free] for as long as we have to,’ says Mark Jan Vrem, managing director of Global National News. ‘We could go 12, 24, 72 hours because we’ve built a backup system where we’re three people deep in all positions, so we can keep cycling our staff.’

CBC expects to go 24 to 48 hours ad-free, while CTV, which has set up cots in its Toronto offices, is planning for 48 ad-free hours, but expects to run just 12 to 24 hours. ‘We’ll continue for a period of at least until noon the next day, and then we’ll start to find out what’s really going on,’ says Dennis McIntosh, VP of CTV News.

‘It’s going to be an incredibly expensive experience for the CBC and the other networks,’ says Tony Burman, editor in chief of CBC News. ‘It’s not easy to deal with but we have to do it.’

No one is saying how much ad-less airtime will cost the networks, but all agree that lost revenue and high costs will make covering the coming war extremely expensive. Since February CanWest Global has had 10 reporters (both its own broadcast people and affiliated print correspondents) in the region who will be operating on a monthly budget of some $1 million to $2 million, once war breaks out.

CTV has had four reporters in the area since January. Since about the same time, CBC has had three reporters in the region.

‘We decided the one place that was critical to be was Baghdad,’ says McIntosh. ‘There’s other stuff going on in the region but we can get that through the agencies we belong to. If we have to spend money, we want to be in Baghdad.’

The three nets have covered the prelude to war with varying depth: CWG turning out mostly spot news coverage and some backgrounder features, while CBC has produced a half dozen specials and documentaries (Al-Qaeda Strikes Back and The Case Against Saddam) and relaunched both its morning and noon newscasts, bringing on new hosts Alison Smith and Nancy Wilson, respectively.

‘Our belief is Canadians are hungry to understand the complexity and the context of the story – not just the U.S. military, but beyond that,’ says Burman. ‘I think the American coverage is very focused on the American dimension, far more self-centered than ever before. And to a Canadian that’s unacceptable.’

In December, CBC aired the 12-hour special series On the Brink and since January has devoted its twice weekly Passionate Eye slot to the crisis. Apart from in-house material the pubcaster has been ‘scouring the market internationally for documentaries already produced or in production,’ according to Jerry McIntosh, head of CBC’s independent doc unit. But competition and prices are steep. ‘We’ve been forced to increase our standard licence of $7,000 to $10,000.’

CBC and Newsworld also recently coproduced the $500,000 doc The New Nuclear Danger by noted Aussie peace activist Helen Caldicot and aired Generation of Hate, wherein Canadian filmmaker Shelley Saywell talks with Iraqi children about the coming war. ‘Shelly has difficulty attracting a network in the U.S. because [she] takes an independent point of view on Iraq,’ he adds.

Adding to the mounting costs are insurance and satellite feeds. All three networks have, until now, been paying some $5,800 per person per week to insure its reporters and technicians from gunfire, kidnapping and other warzone mishaps. That rate will jump to $8,400 per week once the shooting starts, says CTV’s Dennis McIntosh.

As a condition of that insurance, all media sent to the region underwent a two-day hazardous materials training course, learning how to put on a gas mask (within nine seconds, please) or, as the case may be, how to inject one’s own leg with atropine to ward off the effects of nerve poisons.

‘I think that adds a bit of psychological stress,’ says Jan Vrem. They have also been equipped with flak jackets, helmets and grab-bags of other medical equipment.

‘Plus there’s the tech side,’ adds Dennis McIntosh. ‘You have to guarantee a satellite signal out in the first three or four days [of the war], and once you’re booked, you’re committed. We’re standing by on a 24-hour transponder out of Qatar and we’ve paid for a 30-day period. But when the hell is it going to start? You don’t know how long it’s going to go but you have to guarantee the feed.’

CanWest Global is cutting costs by using video phones, which cost US$250 per minute versus US$4,000 for a 15-minute block of satellite time. It is also using several reporters from newspapers, including National Post, owned by parent CanWest. Jan Vrem says four or five print reporters have been issued digital motion cameras, in the hope that they can further contribute to the broadcast coverage. ‘They do what they can,’ he says. ‘We understand the circumstances can be very difficult so we’re not that demanding. However, if good things happen in front of them then they have the chance to get the pictures.’

If war breaks out, it will most likely be ‘between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m.,’ says CTV’s McIntosh, the middle of the night in Baghdad and, as chance would have it, just as primetime rolls across North America.

With files from Janet Stilson, RealScreen magazine.