Western International Communications

"Allarcom" redirects here. Not to be confused withAllarco Entertainment.

WIC Western International Communications Ltd.

Company type	Private
Industry	Media
Founded	1982(1982)
Defunct	2000(2000)
Fate	Assets sold toCanwest Global(laterShaw Media),Shaw Communications,andCorus Entertainment
Successor	Corus Entertainment(most media assets) Rogers Communications(satellite distribution assets)
Products	Specialty channels,broadcasting,satellitedistribution

WIC Western International Communications Ltd.(orWIC) was a Canadian media company that operated from 1982 to 2000, with operations includingbroadcastandspecialtytelevision,radio,andsatellitedistribution via a majority interest inCanadian Satellite Communications(or Cancom).

The company itself was acquired byCanWest Global Communications,which kept most of WIC's broadcast television stations and a variety of related television production assets. As a result of a takeover battle leading up to the acquisition,Shaw Communicationsassumed WIC's interest in Cancom, while a separate company owned by the same Shaw family,Corus Entertainment,acquired various radio stations andspecialty services.A handful of assets would be acquired by other companies for competitive reasons.

With the sale of Canwest's broadcasting assets to Shaw a decade later, the Shaw family at that point controlled almost all of the assets of the former WIC – through either Shaw or Corus – the sole exceptions being a handful of resold local TV stations and specialty channel assets, including interests inFamily Channel(currently owned byWildBrain) and ROBTv (nowBNN Bloomberg,owned byBell Media). Corus acquired Shaw Media in 2016, giving Corus the former media assets of WIC, such as its former local television, specialty services, and radio groups.Shaw Communications, including the former Cancom, was acquired byRogers Communicationsin 2023.

History

Frank GriffithsestablishedWestern Broadcasting Company Ltd.in the late 1950s to hold his various broadcasting assets in British Columbia, including radio stationCKNWand a majority interest inBCTV,at the time Vancouver'sCTVaffiliate, and in 1963 added Victoria'sCHEK,which became BCTV's sister station. WBC was publicly traded for a time but was later reacquired by Griffiths's family.

In 1982, the Griffiths' media assets were again floated on the public markets in a restructured form via WIC. The Griffiths retained Western Broadcasting, which in turn held all of WIC's Class A voting shares; the Class B shares were sold to the public. Class B shares did not generally provide voting rights, but would be converted to voting shares should a majority of Class A shares change hands, a so-calledcoat-tailprovision.

Over time, WIC would acquire various broadcasting assets from other companies, includingSelkirk Communications– the other major shareholder of BCTV, and also the owner of independent stationsCHCH-TVHamilton and CFAC-TV (nowCICT-TV) Calgary – as well asCharles Allard's companyAllarcom,which had launchedCITV-TVEdmonton and pay television serviceSuperchannel.Its final major acquisition was Montreal'sCFCF-TV,which it bought in 1997.

Takeover battle

In 1997, wanting to exit the broadcasting business, the Griffiths agreed to sell WIC toShaw Communications.Initially, they sold 49.98% of their Class A shares to Shaw, 49.98% to the Allard family, and 0.04% to CanWest, in order to evade the coat-tail provision while Shaw completed a takeover bid for the non-voting shares.

However, CanWest also coveted WIC, primarily for its independent television stations in Alberta, the largest remaining hole in the company'sGlobal Television Network,Canada's third English-language over-the-air television network. CanWest also offered to buy the Class B shares and filed a lawsuit claiming that the division of Class A shares constituted a change of control.

The lawsuit eventually stalled, and CanWest and Shaw each ended garnered over 40% of Class B shares. The negotiations between Shaw and CanWest continued until 1999, when the two parties, as well asCorus Entertainment,agreed to split the assets.

Under the agreement, CanWest was to acquire WIC's broadcast television division, various production assets, as well as its interests inReport on Business Television.However, inMontreal,where CanWest chose to keep its existing Global stationCKMI,the company was required to divest CFCF, and eventually sold it to CTV. Montreal'sanglophonepopulation was too small to allow one company to own both of that city's anglophone stations. CanWest also retained WIC's interest inReport on Business Television;it was subsequently sold to rivalBell Globemediawhen that company acquiredThe Globe and Mail,which owned the remainder.

Shaw would acquire WIC's interests inCanadian Satellite Communications,which was in the process of merging with Shaw-controlled direct-to-home satellite providerStar Choice,meaning that Shaw would obtain a larger majority interest in the combined company. Cancom would be privatized by Shaw a few years later.

Meanwhile, Corus was to acquire WIC's radio, specialty, and premium television assets. The CRTC approved the sale of the radio stations, MovieMax, SuperChannel, and WIC'svideo on demandservices to Corus, but required WIC's shares of The Family Channel and Teletoon be sold to a new buyer.Astral Mediaacquired those shares in 2001.

Effects of WIC breakup

Main article:2001 Vancouver TV realignment

CanWest's acquisition of WIC's television stations finally brought the Global network's service toAlberta,where theCanadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commissionhad repeatedly denied the company's applications to open new stations. An earlier application by Global in 1997 had been turned down in favour ofCraig Media'sA-Channelsystem. However, the WIC stations there were already purchasing broadcast rights to some of Global's programming.

InVancouverandVictoria,Canwest's acquisition of CHAN set off one of the largestsingle-market network association shakeupsinNorth Americantelevision history. There was already a Globalowned-and-operated stationin the Vancouver market,CKVU,but Canwest decided to sell that station and keep CHAN instead.

As a result, on September 1, 2001, the Global brand and programming moved from CKVU to CHAN, the CTV association moved from CHAN to CIVT, and CKVU was purchased byCHUM Limited,adopting theCitytvbrand the following year. CHEK also changed its association, from CTV to Global's newCHsystem; aNewNetstation in Victoria,CIVI,as well as religious stationCHNU-TV,also launched around the same time.

CHCH and CJNT's signals also overlapped with existing Global stations; these two stations were integrated with CHEK into the CH system. CKRD disaffiliated from the CBC in September, 2005, becoming CHCA, the fourth CH station.CHBC's similar disaffiliation was approved by the CRTC on February 28, 2005, and disaffiliated on February 27, 2006, to join the CH system.Montrealwas largely unaffected by the breakup of WIC. The breakup did, however, result in theCBC,CTV and Global affiliates becoming network owned-and-operated stations, as Montreal was the largest television market in which CTV did not own its affiliate. Moreover, CJNT, which had been sister station to CFCF, became sister station to CKMI.

Global did not have a true national newscast before it acquired WIC, although it airedFirst NationalinOntario,Manitobaand, later,Quebec.On acquiring WIC, Global briefly replacedFirst NationalwithCanada Tonighton stations carrying that program, and premiered its successor,Global National,on September 3, 2001.

Later ramifications

While the acquisition was important to fill in some of the gaps of the Global network in western Canada, it eventually proved to be something of aPyrrhic victory.Canwest fell intobankruptcy protectionin 2009 under the weight of debt from various acquisitions including WIC, but more critically the larger purchases of theSouthamnewspaper chain and the broadcasting assets ofAlliance Atlantis.In the process, it closed the CH / E! system, leading in turn to the sale of three of the WIC stations Canwest had acquired in 2000 (CHCH, CJNT, and CHEK), the conversion of another to a Global station (CHBC), and the closure of one other (CHCA).

In 2010, Shaw announced a deal to buy the entirety of Canwest's broadcasting division, which would place most of the former WIC assets under the control of the Shaw family, through either Shaw or Corus.The deal was completed that October, with the Canwest properties now being part ofShaw Media.

On January 13, 2016, the aforementioned Corus Entertainment, which remained under the control of the Shaw family and retained all of the former WIC radio properties, announced that it would acquire Shaw Media (including much of WIC's former group of local television stations) for $2.65 billion. The sale, which was intended to help fund Shaw Communications' purchase ofWind Mobile,required shareholder and CRTC approval, but closed less than three months later, on April 1, 2016.At the time Corus also owned WIC's former pay television properties (by then known asMovie CentralandEncore Avenue), but the company had announced in late 2015 it would sell those services' subscriber base and programming rights toBell Media's The Movie Network, which took effect on March 1, 2016 (TMN was later renamed toCraveafter astreaming service of the same name).

Assets

Television stations

WIC was primarily an ownership group, not a television network. Some WIC stations were network affiliates ofCBCorCTV,while others operated as independent stations, although some of these stations also had program supply agreements with CanWest. At the same time however, WIC produced or purchased Canadian rights to enough programs to fill the schedule of CHCH (which had no third-party programming source), and many of these programs, including the newscastCanada Tonightand foreign programming such asTouched by an Angel,aired on other WIC stations. The WIC library of programming would ultimately form the initial basis of Canwest's ill-fated second broadcast service,CH (later E!).

At the time of its sale to CanWest, WIC owned the following stations. The year WIC first acquired control of each station, and the programming carried by each station immediately prior to the breakup of the company, is also noted.

City	Station	Year acquired	Primary programming source	Other programming sources	Current status
Calgary	CICT	1989	Global	WIC	Global O&O
Edmonton	CITV	1991	Global	WIC	Global O&O
Hamilton	CHCH	1990	Independent (WIC programs only)	N/A	Independent station owned byChannel Zero
Lethbridge	CISA	1989	Global	WIC	Global O&O
Kelowna	CHBC	1989	CBC	Global / WIC	Global O&O
Montreal	CFCF	1997	CTV	WIC	CTV O&O
Montreal	CJNT	1999	Independent multicultural	N/A	CitytvO&O
Red Deer	CKRD	1991	CBC	Global / WIC (programs not carried on CICT/CITV)	Later CHCA; closed in 2009 following shutdown ofCH / E!
Vancouver	CHAN	1982	CTV	WIC	Global O&O
Victoria	CHEK	1982	CTV (timeshifted)	WIC (different programs from those on CHAN)	Independent station owned by CHEK Media Group

WIC's CTV affiliates, CHAN and CHEK, as well as CFCF (even before its acquisition by WIC), had a hostile relationship with the network, due to these stations' desire to take a greater role in Canadian program production for the network. This relationship deteriorated even further in 1997, when rivalBaton Broadcastingbecame the sole corporate owner of CTV, and opened its own independent station,CIVT,in Vancouver. Baton, which owned the national rights to many programs aired in Vancouver on CHAN or CHEK, was able to move these programs, now being advertised as CTV programs outside British Columbia, to CIVT. However, the CTV network, which supplied 40 hours of programming each week, was still bound by affiliation agreements with CHAN and CHEK; these agreements did not end untilSeptember 2001.

Unlike many other ownership groups, which during the 1990s tended to brand their stations generically under a network / system brand (sometimes combined with the stationcall sign), WIC tended to favour regionally based station branding. For example, under WIC's ownership, CHAN used the brandBCTV,with CICT being known asCalgary 7and CKRD Red Deer asRDTV.WIC also changed CHCH's branding toOnTVin 1997, when the station added several rebroadcast transmitters throughout Ontario.

Specialty and premium television

• Superchannel (laterMovie Central;now defunct)
• MovieMax (laterEncore Avenue;now defunct)
• Viewers Choicein Western Canada (nowShaw PPV)
• Report on Business Television (nowBNN Bloomberg) - 50%
• Family Channel- 50%
• Teletoon(nowCartoon Network) andTélétoon- both 20% (via 40% total interests that were held by Family Channel)

Radio stations

At the time of its sale to CanWest, Western International Communications owned 12 radio stations. These were acquired byCorus Entertainment.

• Calgary-CHQR,CKIK
• Edmonton-CHED,CKNG
• Hamilton-CHML,CJXY
• Toronto-CFYI,CILQ
• Vancouver-CKNW,CFMI
• Winnipeg-CJOB,CJKR