Stornoway president and CEO Martha Fusca maintains that her company is here to stay, but a recent restructuring that led to the layoff of half its stable of production and technical-support staff in early February suggests that the broadcasting upstart has been in over its head.

‘We were spending an enormous amount of money on production, and as for everyone, the initial numbers weren’t so impressive,’ says Fusca. But unlike everyone else, Stornoway did not start out with a broadcasting infrastructure in place, it has only three channels over which to amortize huge start-up and operational costs, and it does not have the deep pockets of its competitors.

‘We’re reconfiguring the way we do production,’ says Fusca, in explaining that the broadcaster will begin to outsource its programming but continue to use its own production facilities, a major cost-cutting measure and drastic change from its original 100% in-house production model.

The primary reason the numbers were much lower than expected, says Michel Carter, VP and general manager of Cogeco Radio-Television, a 50% equity partner in Stornoway, ‘is that two of our channels [bpm:tv and Movieola] are not distributed by Shaw and Star Choice, which restricts us from almost 50% of the digital market in Canada.’

Under the new model, most of the production for Stornoway’s three diginets – i channel, bpm:tv and Movieola – will be handled through contracts and independent production companies, justifying recent layoffs that saw staff trimmed to 27 from 55.

The difference will be, says Fusca, shooting three or four shows a day versus one or two. ‘That’s the difference between, ballpark, $8,000 or $9,000 an hour to $4,000 or $5,000 an hour.’

Another difference is that once production is moved into the hands of independent production companies, the shows will enjoy access to public funding envelopes, further reducing Stornoway’s nut.

And while Fusca says the company is not for sale and Carter says Cogeco has no plans to withdraw its interest, inside sources suggest talks may be underway with CHUM Television. All three channels, focused respectively on public affairs, performance art and movies, would be a perfect fit for CHUM.

CTV and CanWest Global, an original minority partner in the company, which backed out prior to the CRTC licence hearings in 2000, could both stand to benefit from adopting public affairs service i channel as an extension of their newspaper properties, as well.

But speculation aside, Fusca says she has no intention of selling out.

Outsourcing production

Although no production deals have been announced yet and nothing has changed on the screen, there will likely be some major programming amendments as some of the stockpiles diminish and independent producers are contracted.

Confirmed is the cancellation of Unzipped, hosted by Catherine Clark, one of the more high-profile shows on i channel, and the renewal of i on media with Matthew Fraser, which is ‘really creating a buzz,’ says Fusca.

In early February, Izzy Asper generated a frenzy of publicity for the channel when he attacked the CBC on i on media, calling the pubcaster a state within a state, which is accountable to no one and should be expunged. His statements were made among attacks on the CRTC, CTV and the ‘sanctimonious’ Toronto newspaper establishment.

In response, Robert Rabinovitch, CBC president and CEO, accused CanWest Global of orchestrating a campaign against the pubcaster in an attempt to seek its demise. ‘CanWest Global is simply looking out for number one by using, or abusing, its newspapers’ editorial pages to push the business objectives of its television stations,’ he said.

Asper’s statements continue to cause much fury within the Canadian media industry, drawing to i channel the kind of publicity money can’t buy.

‘We need more of that sort of stuff,’ says Fusca.

Meantime, the broadcaster has some pending deals with other broadcasters for shared windows, but, says Fusca, ‘our primary objective is still to have programming unique to our channels.’

No key executive positions have been eliminated. John Martin, who was formerly the head of programming for bmp, has taken on the additional role of programming head at i channel. Don Richardson, Stornoway exec VP, was previously i channel’s acting head of programming.

-www.stornoway.com