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How Canada's Only Employee-Owned Major TV Station Came To Be
This is by no means new - in fact it's a few years old - but I stumbled across it on Wednesday and frankly, couldn't stop watching it. It's the anniversary video for CHEK-TV in Victoria, a television station with a storied history that goes all the way back to 1956. It was supposed to be a CBC affiliate, became a CTV station for a time, and was taken over by Global's then-owners.
It remains one of the west coast's most successful independent TV stations, but it has an incredible back story. When Global went to sell the place, they couldn't find a buyer. With only hours before the channel was going to be shut down forever, the employees managed to come up with $15,000 each to buy a piece of the business and saved the station. The workers now own it, a dramatic development that's told much better in their anniversary video.
It also includes a great irony - a new building was put up to house CHEK as a CBC affiliate and paid for by the Corporation, when they suddenly came under control of CTV. Years later, CBC would need a place to house its radio station and they not only wound up back at CHEK - but now they had to pay rent to lease part of it out!
(I wish they explained what happens when somebody needs a raise and whether that's an issue if it's employee-owned. Also, what happens if one of those many co-owners decides to leave? Do they get their investment back? And if there's a dispute, who's considered the "boss" if everybody owns it?)
The video that tells their remarkable story runs :23 minutes and I found it pretty amazing. Your mileage may differ but the mini-documentary of how all this came to be is quite a TV show in itself. See it here.
- MJ Vancouver
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Re: How Canada's Only Employee-Owned Major TV Station Came To Be
As I understand the history, CHEK was owned by BCTV, aka CHAN-TV in Vancouver - and for a time in the 70s it had affiliations with both CBC and CTV. BCTV - which itself was a CTV affiliate but never controlled by the network - decided on its own to cut CHEK’s ties with the CBC in 1981.
I’ve also read the CBC’s never launched station in Victoria got as far as having its own call letters - CBUVT. And it was supposed to go on Channel 10, which eventually got taken over by Vancouver’s CKVU.
CHEK had an interesting news schedule for many years under BCTV ownership. They had a local Vancouver Island newscast weeknights at 5:30, and then they simulcast BCTV’s News Hour at 6:00. Both aired CTV National News at 11:00 but then each aired separate local newscasts at 11:20. Apparently that arrangement existed right up until 2001 when BCTV joined the Global network and CHEK became “CH”, and they aired fully separate news programming thereafter.
Last edited by MJ Vancouver (March 16, 2023 9:38 pm)
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Re: How Canada's Only Employee-Owned Major TV Station Came To Be
Turns out the Bell layoffs were good for CHEK-TV in Victoria, which hired several talented people let go in the purge. I continue to be impressed by what I've heard about this place, which is entirely owned by the people who work there. Could this model come to other TV or radio outlets across the country?
“Ten years ago, the job security came from the big stations owned by these big corporations,” [new anchor Paul] Haysom said. “But the model of CHEK being completely employee-owned and -operated, and embedded in the community, is one you’re going to start seeing replicated across the country.”
It sounds like an interesting place to work, although there is one drawback - unlike most stations, with the employees in charge, you can't sit around and complain about the boss!
TV in Greater Victoria continues to evolve, with CHEK emerging triumphant
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Thread Starter- paterson1
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Re: How Canada's Only Employee-Owned Major TV Station Came To Be
CTV, CBC, Global owning more or less all of their stations has killed local television. All the stations run network programming 95% of the time. The connection to the local viewer is gone. Also with national ads on the skids, get back into selling more local advertising The business is there, but it will be work to get back these advertisers who have been absent for so long.
- haydenmatthews14
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Re: How Canada's Only Employee-Owned Major TV Station Came To Be
paterson1 wrote:
CTV, CBC, Global owning more or less all of their stations has killed local television. All the stations run network programming 95% of the time. The connection to the local viewer is gone. Also with national ads on the skids, get back into selling more local advertising The business is there, but it will be work to get back these advertisers who have been absent for so long.
The only time you see local advertisers is during local newscasts like on CTV London for example you see a lot of local businesses advertising during the 6pm and 11pm newscasts. A few national ads make it on there. CTV Kitchener you see a couple of local ads on there but mostly national ads like Lotto 649 etc during the noon, 5, 6 and 11:30 newscasts. But on the other hand you see a lot of local ads during the newscasts in the US like on WXYZ in Detroit and WIVB in Buffalo.
- RadioAaron
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Re: How Canada's Only Employee-Owned Major TV Station Came To Be
Local is priced-out of the biggest markets and it's not coming back - for several reasons.
-You'd need lower rates for local clients; doing this creates downward pressure on national rates, while simultaneously raising sales, creative, production, and traffic costs.
-As bigger markets expand geographically, mass media becomes a very inefficient way to reach local customers, especially for businesses with a small or single location footprint
-There are fewer local businesses per capita than ever, especially in the suburbs where TV viewing is strongest. Even places that appear local are often part of a larger conglomorate and don't have autonomy over advertising decisions
This genie can't be put back in the bottle, and applying 1986 solutions to a 2023 problem isn't going to work.
Last edited by RadioAaron (July 4, 2023 11:55 am)
- paterson1
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Re: How Canada's Only Employee-Owned Major TV Station Came To Be
Was not really talking about the biggest markets like Toronto, Calgary or Vancouver etc. I am talking about medium and smaller markets like K/W, London, Regina etc.
The current way is not working, and national is tanking. There are lots of medium sized businesses that have access to co-op dollars and have reasonable advertising and marketing budgets but are never on television locally.
The networks owning all of their affiliates and monopolizing almost all of the commercial time for national is not working. Why do we see endless promos for CTV's specialty channels, Bell initiatives, CRAVE, and promo after promo for their shows. CTV Kitchener has prime time breaks with one paid national commercial and the rest all promo. Can't live on that.
All of the cuts and streamlining at local television operations over the past 10-15 years and they still can't make money??? The sales managers, accountants and whoever thinks this is still a solution should be fired. It ain't working guys.
With all of this empty time available especially with the smaller and medium sized markets, free up more time for local advertisers and aggressively go out and get it. That is the forward thinking 2023 solution.