Three local Shaw TV stations get the axe as Corus redirects funds to Global News
Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton Shaw TV stations will close in August, affecting approximately 70 positions.
By H.G. Watson, Managing Editor
Three local Shaw TV stations will be shut down later this year as Corus Entertainment redirects funding towards Global News.
In a press release sent out April 26, Corus and Shaw Communications announced that about $10 million would be put towards Global News to boost community reporting, including establishing city hall bureaus and municipal affairs specialists. However, the Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton Shaw TV stations will close in August, affecting approximately 70 positions.
“We’re grateful to Shaw for providing this critical lifeline to protect and support local news. This additional funding will ensure viewers in BC’s Lower Mainland, the Calgary Region and the Edmonton Capital Region continue to receive top-notch local news coverage” said Troy Reeb, Senior Vice President, Global News, Corus Radio and Station Operations, in a statement.
In January 2016, Shaw sold its media arm to Corus Entertainment for $2.65 billion, which added Global News and Shaw TV to the Corus portfolio.
The Shaw TV stations are community channels where members of the community can volunteer to work on programs. They often carry content that wouldn’t be carried by larger cable companies, such as high school and college sports broadcasts, community programming and coverage of local municipal councils.
Recent Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission decisions have allowed cable companies to stop community TV funding, redirecting that money to support local news. Community TV advocates have been pushing the CRTC to create a general fund to support the creation of community TV centres across the country, though this has not yet happened.
Reaction to the announcement of the closures came quickly.
Local programming of the kind that gave me my start is being killed out west by #ShawTV. @fun_network will fill the breech.
— Ed the Sock (@EdtheSock) April 26, 2017
Thinking of everybody at @ShawTVCalgary, @ShawTVEdm & @ShawTVVancouver today. Owe a lot in my career to Shaw TV. Some truly great people!
— Brendan Parker (@BParkerTV) April 26, 2017
To my Shaw TV colleagues in Calgary, Edmonton & Vancouver…it will be ok. Here if you need to cry, vent or come up with what's next! #media
— Alanna Nolan (@AlannaNolan) April 26, 2017
With files from David Gray-Donald.
H.G. Watson can be reached at hgwatson@j-source.ca or on Twitter.
H.G. Watson was J-Source's managing editor from 2015 to 2018. She is a journalist based in Toronto. You can learn more about her at hgwatson.com.
