The Little Station that Couldn’t got a new got owner in August, when two arms of the Quebecor media conglom moved in to buy Toronto 1, putting up $46 million to buy the troubled station from CHUM.

Sun Media and TVA Group have struck an agreement for T1 that, pending federal approval, could be finalized by spring 2005, handing TVA its long-sought entry to the English TV market and creating cross-promotional potential for local tabloid the Toronto Sun.

TVA will pay $34.5 million for a 75% stake in the station, while Sun Media puts up $3.5 million and its 29.9% stake in the 24-hour news channel CablePulse24 for the remaining 25%. CHUM will then be the full owner of CP24.

‘We are extremely pleased with both the value and the timing of this transaction,’ says CHUM president and CEO Jay Switzer. ‘This is an important step to completing our purchase of Craig Media.’

CHUM is in the process of taking over Craig Media, the original T1 licence holder, but is required by the CRTC to sell the station because it already operates two conventional outlets in the market, its flagship Citytv Toronto and The New VR in Barrie.

CHUM had pledged to unload the struggling station before CRTC hearings on its Craig purchase get underway in September. Sun Media and TVA will file their purchase application with the feds by Sept. 2.

Toronto 1 launched last fall but failed to attract significant ad revenue or ratings. The new owners-apparent have not announced any specific plans for turning things around, or how the change of ownership might affect independent productions at T1.

‘It’s much too early to comment,’ says Quebecor spokesman Luc Lavoie. ‘We don’t even have the keys yet.’ But he is optimistic that the company can turn things around at Toronto 1 – pointing to the reversal of fortune at TQS, the French-launguage network that Quebecor bought and pulled out of bankruptcy in the 1990s. ‘We like to think we’re pretty good at turning things around,’ says Lavoie.

Observers have suggested that the station could regain its footing if it switched to a schedule of mostly U.S.-made reruns but, for now, Quebecor seems to be more interested in the potential for cross-promotion between T1 and the Sun.

‘Toronto 1 will be a natural fit with our newspapers and will provide numerous opportunities for promotional synergies,’ says Sun Media president and CEO Pierre Francoeur.

Alliance Atlantis and Torstar Corp. were thought to also be in the running for T1. Both companies made unsuccessful bids for the licence that eventually went to Craig Media in 2002. Torstar, which owns several area newspapers including the Toronto Star, the Sun’s main rival, has repeatedly tried to break into television, with little success. The Star enjoyed a brief partnership with the T1 newsroom, now presumably nixed, and will now compete with T1 and a more robust Sun.

(Coincidentally, the yearling station and its new partner-in-print are already next door neighbors, facing each other across Toronto’s King Street East.)

‘The Toronto advertising market is the fifth largest in North America and, as such, it presents a significant growth opportunity for TVA and an important step in leveraging all of our media assets in English-speaking Canada,’ says Serge Gouin, president and CEO of TVA and Quebecor Media.

Meanwhile, T1 programmers unveiled their modest schedule for the ’04/05 season, adding the talker The Tony Danza Show to the daytime sked, along with the entertainment mag The A-List, Ambush Makeover and the action comedy She Spies. Gone are the talk shows hosted by Wayne Brady, Ellen Degeneres and Sharon Osbourne. The station continues to air Celebrity Justice, Extra and NFL Football.