Canwest bankruptcy watch

It has implications for many small city newspapers and television stations too. Perhaps they might try to off load those first?

Barack Obama's request that Israel stop expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank and Israel's PM Netanyahu's duplictious response has been the subject of many news stories in the last month.

So I did a search on Canwest's canada.com website for illegal settlements.  There was 1 hit, - and to quote ...

The 'three-week conflict' they refer to was Operation Cast Lead (last January) that resulted in 1300 dead, 5000 wounded, and 5000 homes destroyed in Gaza. If this were considered a terrorist attack (and it should be) it would come in at 2nd place (after 9/11) in rankings.

Critical examination of Israel politics is almost absent from any Canwest publication. You can find much better (and more balanced) discussion [5] in the Jerusalem Post.

Compare these results with searches for anti-semitism and anti-Israeli and take note the efforts to equate the two. This is pure bullshit but it seems to be working.  Just have a look at I am not making this up [6].

I will be dancing a big jig the day they crumble to dust !!!!!!!!!

They deserve death as a company.

Yes Canwest die!!!!!!

I wouldn't put on the dancing shoes quite yet. It wouldn't surprise me if their conservative buddies figure out a way to give all the money they shiestered from the CBC to the pro conservative media empire. But I'm with you..I'm shining them up for a good jig.

Came across this article reading the wikipedia page on Canwest.

Reuters Asks a Chain to Remove Its Bylines

Canwest claimed they were silly mistakes. Right.

Is Canwest too big to fail?

If you had to preside over the Canwest bankruptacy, what would you do?

Given that Izzy Asper supported the Zionist cause, I don't see it as any surprise that their reporting would be so biased.

Meanwhile, here in Winnipeg where the Museum for Human Rights, Izzy's dream, is being built they appear to have no respect for the people whose land it is being built on.

Bravo to Reuters.

from the link above:

" ...

The policy has caused Mr. Anderson's paper to issue two corrections recently as the result of changes it made to articles provided by The Associated Press. On Thursday, The Citizen changed an A.P. dispatch to describe 6 of 10 Palestinians killed in the West Bank by Israeli troops as "terrorists," a description attributed to "Palestinian medical officials." The Associated Press had called those people "fugitives" ...

Sorry, I'm not clear on the topic here. Are we discussing their finances, or their moral bankruptcy?

There's not much to discuss on moral bankruptcy is there?  Or did I miss something?

More seriously - I'd break them up, into their component regional stations and papers, splitting the stock into as many units as required to do so.

I think a breakup is a good thing too.  Big city dailies each print their own edition. Each have a unique local customer base for subscribers and advertisers.  Economy of scale in the business are limited.

The Canwest dailies used to be pretty good community newspapers.  This is a chance to hit the reset button and start over.

CKUA was a Alberta government sponsored radio network that nearly went bankrupt in the early '90's after the gov't appointed bosses started paying themselves six figure salaries because they could.  Protests from across the province poured in when the government announced the network would be shut down.  It was thrown a temporary lifeline but told it must find a way to pay for its operating expenses.  This meant asking for donations.

CKUA survived and thrived. It's a great station now, run by people who love what they do, and with vigorous financial support from across the province.

I think this same dynamic could happen in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Ottawa, Windsor, etc.  Maybe even Toronto?

Canwest is like a vampire that won't stay dead. Let's hope the stake is soon driven through its heart and that the vampire's estate will return to the hands of Canadians.

I'd be the happiest person in Canada if Canwest did a face plant then went belly up.  Time to punt the Zionist propaganda from our lives.  Pathological projection bias is what they suffer from.  It irks me to no end that this shit paper is free in every corporate office. 

If the CHRC commission had any balls, I mean real mandate, they'd be hauling the likes of the Aspers into court for the pure hatred that they spew about everything the Zionists don't like.   The disinformation, the omissions, and the outright lies.

Personally I'd like to paint a UN flag on the Asper's heads and their sycophantic columnists and send them all to Gaza.

Yes those mean and nasty Zionists...

Apparently Canwest is divesting their Austrailia holdings too.

Yes mean nasty and SMART......What irks me is when the zionists sell their papers and stations who is going to buy them? When they were up for sale before ..Did the lefty buy them ? No...Did the honest center party supporters buy them? No...Who bought them. Who was smart enough to know that people are very gullible to media influemce and can be swayed and controlled.

You got to hand it to them...no one was interested in owning the media except them and it sure makes Canadians look stupid...damn zionists....Maybe now Canadians will wake up and take control of their media...but don't hold your breath..more likely they are all sitting in front of a tv set crosseyed with there tongues hanging out waiting for there next zionist newscast.

These are not your little people where you would have been bankrupct a long time ago.

Usually rich people survive these financial situations - they design the laws to protect themselves.

CanWest will survive, just like GM, Air Canada, etc.

Are you kidding?  There's no way Canwest is going bankrupt.  No way will the Conservative Party let their house organ collapse.

A few of their organs may have to be sold, and National Post is costing them the most to hang on to.  They are selling off TV assets in Australia to try to appease creditors at this point. Not gettng much though.

Any theories on how Canwest is staying alive? 

I think a bankruptcy restructuring along community (read 12 big city dailies) boundaries would be a great remedy.

Surely, Canwest is not "Too Big To Fail"?

In Canwest's case, Canadians are in fact controlling and owning those media outlets, although they harbour agendas and priorities that some of us do not share an interest in.

Yes, if they were not  biased, slanted, one-dimensional organs for the Conservative Party of Canada and the conservative parties of their region, leaving their readership with biased, slanted, one-dimensional views of the world and Canada's place in it...   they would be native publications we could all "share an interest in" helping to survive.

I tried to convince rabble's board to buy the National Post, but they haven't gotten back to me yet. :D

(Kidding, kidding!)

Unfortunately, pensioners at the stations Canwest are disposing of are facing the brunt of the mismanagement as the company winds down their pension plans. Current employees (those lucky enough to be in units being sold) will lose their defined benefit plans and be switched to defined contribution plans under new owners. There are still no signs that Canwest will continue operating or sell stations in Red Deer and Victoria.  On  August 31st about 80 people will be left unemployed in those communities.

Canwest denies newspaper sale deal

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/story/2009/10/02/canwest-newspapers-private-report.ht

Canwest Global Communications Corp. denied Friday a report that a deal is close to sell a number of its newspapers.

The universe is unfolding as it should.

My sympathies to those workers who are getting stiffed. Is this any surprise?

Only in Canada you say? Pity.

What has your politician done for you lately?

Doh! double post!

Technnically, Canwest is not bankrupt and only parts of it are under creditor protection.

Fortunately one of those parts is the National Post. Woo-hoo!

The bad news is that workers and their pensions are stiffed again, true to form for any Conrad Black enterprise.

Canwest Employees wonder what's next - Severance payments halted

Canwest operations squeezed [35]

Employees in the US, Britian and most of Europe are much better protected in Canada - see the Macleans article Hung out to dry [36]

A comment posted by Mr. Dark to this G&M story. It's not perfect but it's pretty funny (in a dark kind of way)...

I wonder how this will affect CanWest:

http://www.lfpress.com/money/2009/10/07/11335276.html

It's something that will affect the entire tv industry, whether Global's in bankruptcy protection or not.  The world keeps on spinning.  There's a battle royal going on over fees for carriage, and that's a part of that can of worms.

Canwest is already so far in the hole, I don't think not paying their share of the 450 mil will help them much - bricks in the Grand Canyon. 

I'm going to want more details from that LFPress\CP story.  Isn't this just another form of a bailout?  I wonder if the CBC is part of that package?  Considering the gov provides funding to the Ceeb, I suspect they don't also pay taxes on the money they recieve.  They would, I presume, be taxed on the ad revenue and other streams of money the CBC gathers.

Fee for carriage is a complete joke.  I'm not a big fan of the cable and satelite companies, but the carriage fee deal is a really disgustingly cynical move by CTV and Global.  Saving local tv... please.  It's an attempted cash grab, made out of pure frustration that the cable\sat companies are making money while the over the air stuff isn't as profitable as it once was.  Apparently control of the tv itself market isn't enough for CTV\Global... they also now need direct gov stimulus to keep their international companies afloat during these tough economic times.

It's actually more complicated than that, Farmpunk...  Can't expand on it now, though, writing to a deadline today.  I'll try to come back to it later.

http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/10/20/the-short-end-of-the-canwest-stick/

If you were to ask the general public how much of a bonus Canwest Global Communications executives deserve for steering the country's biggest media company into the ground, the answer would fall somewhere between squat and diddly. But according to their bankruptcy protection filing this month, the correct response is $9.8 million....

But the Canwest 20 are among the few winners in the company's failure. Stockholders, who have seen share value plummet from more than $20 a few years ago to less than 25 cents (trading was halted Oct. 6), are in line to receive just 2.3 per cent of the new entity. Suppliers whose goods and services are not "essential" to day-to-day operations (pretty much everything outside of TV shows and newsprint) will find themselves at the back of the long line of creditors. Canwest pensioners are losing their company-funded medical and dental coverage-a net savings of $400,000 a year according to the court filing. And some 60 employees across the country who were laid off earlier this fall will no longer be receiving their severance.

As sadly usual in business, those responsible for failure get rewarded.

That is so evil.

$400K is chump change in the TV business - less than a single day's ad revenue on Global.

Also from this same article...

Is this really true?  I suspected the same, but never came across any news items that stated that.

So Canwest now joins Nortel for a spot in the Canadian Corporate Hall of Shame.  Employees and retirees go to the back of the line, please. 

Severance and vacation pay? Hahahahaha - good one! Failed executives will get retention bonuses, approved by the same gullible bankers who lent these guys the money in the first place, to ensure that they, the bankers, get first pick at the spoils remaining.

And it's all legal.  Only in Canada you say?  Pity.

And what is our government going to do about this? Hahahahaha! [45]

Only dailies in the center of the universe matter or u never knew that Toronto = KKKanda everybody else is just copying

Business scum.

If you were to ask the general public how much of a bonus Canwest Global Communications executives deserve for steering the country's biggest media company into the ground, the answer would fall somewhere between squat and diddly. But according to their bankruptcy protection filing this month, the correct response is $9.8 million.

The Key Employee Retention Plan (KERP) already approved by Canwest's creditors, and given an initial thumbs-up by the courts, was the subject of "extensive" negotiations from the very beginning of the company's efforts to extract itself from under its $4-billion debt load last December. Three directors, four top executives and 13 other senior members of management will receive two hefty cash payments-one at the end of this year, the other early next spring-in exchange for sticking around until the streamlined company emerges from the process. The details of just who is receiving the bonuses and how much have been sealed by the court at the company's request to protect "sensitive personal and financial information." But it's clear at least some of the "retentions" will be decidedly short-term as the agreement calls for the three unnamed directors to resign from the Canwest board once the restructuring period ends. Leonard, David and Gail Asper, the children of the late Canwest founder Izzy Asper, are all currently directors, but are expected to have a much reduced role, and ownership stake, in the new company.

The agreement, under the Company Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA), will see three hedge funds exchange billions in debt for controlling equity in Canwest's national Global TV network, six cable channels, and the National Post newspaper. (The 13 specialty channels Canwest acquired when it took over Alliance Atlantis two years ago are not part of the deal.) A separate CCAA filing covering Canwest's 12 daily and 22 community newspapers and their $1.3-billion debt is expected in the coming weeks. It's not clear whether executives in that division are also in line to receive bonuses.

But the Canwest 20 are among the few winners in the company's failure. Stockholders, who have seen share value plummet from more than $20 a few years ago to less than 25 cents (trading was halted Oct. 6), are in line to receive just 2.3 per cent of the new entity. Suppliers whose goods and services are not "essential" to day-to-day operations (pretty much everything outside of TV shows and newsprint) will find themselves at the back of the long line of creditors. Canwest pensioners are losing their company-funded medical and dental coverage-a net savings of $400,000 a year according to the court filing. And some 60 employees across the country who were laid off earlier this fall will no longer be receiving their severance.

"I'm finding it hard to wrap my head around," says Pat Vanderburg, who has worked for CHBC TV in Kelowna, B.C., for the past 23 years. When he was given three months' notice in early September, the program coordinator was told he was entitled to just over $95,000 in compensation and vacation pay. On the day of the CCAA filing, a company HR representative told Vanderburg that the new amount will be $0. "I'm still coming to work every day," says the 45-year-old. "These management bonuses just add insult to injury." Kirk Mitchell, 55, who is losing his job as a senior VTR editor after more than 33 years at the station, stands to lose more than $50,000 in promised severance. "You shake your head and ask, what the hell are they thinking? They won't pay me what they owe me, but they're asking for $9.8 million to pay bonuses to the people who got them into this mess."

In a company-wide email last week, Leonard Asper wrote that "we sincerely regret the impact" the CCAA filing is having on laid-off employees and pensioners. In an interview, John Douglas, senior vice-president of public affairs for Canwest, said all efforts were made to limit the cutbacks and noted that the company will continue to pay all wages and benefits to its current employees, as well as any outstanding payments due to freelancers. The close to $10 million in retention bonuses are a necessary part of the restructuring process, says Douglas. "We're doing it for the same reason that every company in this situation has a KERP. It's straight business logic. It's required," he says. "These are people who are essential for driving the restructuring and  the operation of the business."

The union that represents many of the affected workers, the Communications, Energy & Paperworkers, is vowing to take up the battle. CEP vice-president Peter Murdoch calls the management bonuses "immoral" and questions why it is necessary to squeeze out such relatively small savings-$2 million to $3 million-in what is a gargantuan restructuring. The union is also concerned about Canwest's employee pension plans, which have a reported solvency deficit of $13.3 million, and is calling on Ottawa to step in and protect the rights of current and former employees. "I think the government has been asleep at the switch here," says Murdoch. "We need someone to back the workers up."

However, recent history suggests the federal Conservatives, who were considering a bailout of Canwest earlier this year, have little interest in involving themselves in such disputes. When Nortel Networks filed for bankruptcy protection last January, executives and senior managers divvied up more than $30 million in court-approved retention bonuses, despite the protests of 1,000 workers who were denied severance. In a nod to an anti-bonus backlash south of the border, Jim Flaherty, the finance minister, has since warned Canada's banking sector to change the way it structures executive compensation. But Industry Minister Tony Clement, who oversees CCAA agreements, has not followed suit. In an email to Maclean's his spokesperson refused to comment on the Canwest bonuses as the matter is before the courts, but pointed to new amendments to the process to increase "transparency and fairness." Among the changes that came into effect last month, workers are now guaranteed up to $2,000 in back wages and $3,250 in lost severance.

http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/10/20/the-short-end-of-the-canwest-stick/

Incredible.  Thanks for the links.

Slightly off topic...  CBC managers took at 50% bonus cut in the spring, which must have been a little disconcerting to laid-off employees and fans of shows that were cut or mangled.

From far and wide...

Protest on Parliament Hill

Yesterday there was a protest on Parliament Hill by former Nortel employees about bankruptcy laws, pensions, severence payments, Long Term Disability. and employee rights in bankruptcy proceedings. 

Canwest is also bankrupt and has applied for "restructuring" under the CCRA.  Canwest has a $13 million pension liability. 

source: Canwest operations squeezed [35]

This is how it works for the top brass

Under the restructuring plan approved by the first line creditors, a Key Employee Retention Plan (KERP) allocates bonuses of $9.8 million to 20 executives in Canwest (including Leonard, David and Gail Asper) as an incentive to remain at Canwest throughout the bankruptcy proceedings.

source: The short end of the Canwest stick [50]

And this is how it works for everyone else

The underfunded pension find liability?  Get to the back of the line, pal.

Retirement Lost [51]

Goodbye National Post

In an ironic twist worthy of a greek tragedy, employees of the National Post, the invention of convicted felon Conrad Black and arguably the most right-wing newspaper in Canada, now find themselves at the mercy of the very same ideology they so staunchly defended and shamelessly promoted over the years. Of course, most were pressured to do this.

As much as I hated the National Post, they had some good writers and good journalists. They will be missed, but only for a while. And they may have a different point of view when we hear from them next.

"Freedoms just another word for nothing left to lose".

Now you can start writing about important stuff. Good luck to you all.

The good writers and journalists all left the Post years ago.

The ones still there can rot in hell for all I care.

A good article today from the Guardian in the UK

Conrad Black's shadow hangs over the collapse of a media empire

More breaking news.  From this thread

National Post may close after Friday [55]

and

National Post must move assets or close [56], Joe Schneider, Bloomberg

and a great op-ed piece by Gary Engler published here [57] on Rabble and here [58] on Dissident Voice

LOL

Buddy Kat might put this great thought into one of his brill videos!

Published for eleven years, and never made nickle one.  

Makes you wonder about their business reporters and pundits abilties, don't it?

Tigana: In case you didn't know, I tried replying to you by PM, but you have incoming messages turned off.  I just wanted to say that I appreciate your comments here and hope you become a frequent babbler.

The one way to fight back is for a progressive conglomorate buy the national post - like the CLC, rabble, Canadian Centre of Policy Alternatives, and who knows who else - I'm quite serious. How about the teacher's pension fund backup? Why don't workers use their "clout" in stored pension funds to save their asses so to speak.

Pension funds of workers are used "to act against their interests" with the corporate loving press. It would be "money well invested" even if this newspaper just broke "even" on a yearly bases. And even is to play in relation to the field of corporate dominated media day in and day out.

IMV

Brilliant idea, Jan. 

Rolling my eyes, suppressing the gag reflex...

National Post editorial board: The rumours of our demise...

Surely not the one that runs Cadillac Fairview, which locked out and sent termination notices to their unionized employees at the TD Centre in downtown Toronto?  I wouldn't trust that fund's management to change the editorial focus of the Post.

So the bleeding of cash continues, but so does the National Post. What gives?

Here is an article that appeared in the Ottawa Citizen, courtesy of the National Post:

Israel announces partial settlement freeze

What the articles fails to mention is that this settlement freeze only last for 10 months and does not include nearly 3000 units already under construction or the exemptions in East Jerusalem.  It's a totally bogus offer, which is why it has not got much attention in the international press.

But the National Post soldiers on with its Asper inspired campaign of making aparthied Israel the saint amoung nations. What bullshit.

I was offered a free three month subscription to the nazional post today, with no obligation, along with a twenty dollar gift card for the grocery store I was shopping in. 

They're awfully damn desperate for readers these days.

BTW, I told the lady trying to peddle their poison that I'd rather gnaw off my foot. That got a smile out of her, anyway.

Canwest is now owned by Shaw Communications, everybody. Have a nice day.

...so despite the history of disaster involved, media concentration continues unchecked.

Not necessarily so, Lard. Not all new ownership or buyouts are bad.

The problem isn't "new ownership," but control of the media in fewer hands.

Monoculture is no less poisonous to the media as it is to any other field.

I'll bet the Cap'n can tell us what constitutes "good>"   :D

I'll bet you can tell me how you would be able to afford running a media company like Canwest? At least, it's in Canadian hands; if things had gone the way they would have, it would have been in American hands instead. So no, this is not really the best option, but for now, at least it isn't truly bad. Oh yeah, let me guess; you were hoping Canwest would split into separate component parts, each part owned by media collectives/trusts? Dream on. Or better yet, give me a realistic way of how the various parts of Canwest post-breakup would, and could, exist? Especially the TV stations and specialty channels.

Bet you can also tell us what television should be doing for a would-be sovereign country after your smug "for now", say, in the long run, Cap'n...what the kids will have to deal with?  I mean, beyond its commercial viability, its democratic responsibility, aspects so demonstrably important to Shaw et. al.

That's what they said when Lord Tubby injested Southam Inc.

So Shaw is buying Global so they can get content for their wireless network-to-be. Do these idiots never stop chasing convergence? It's the crystal meth of media companies. You overpay for content providers that nobody reads/watches in the belief that if the content is provided on another platform it will magically become irresistible. Dump your Shaw stocks pronto. Btw, I see Tim Horton's is buying their own stock back, another symptom of management that's run out of ideas. Dump your Timmy's stock too.

I don't think it's so much about convergence - there's lots of talk but SFA re: a strategy for monetizing.  Here's a related discussion:

http://www.rabble.ca/babble/media/canwest

Come in Cap'n... Cap'n?   Gaia I hope he's not flying blind in a fog of delusion.

I'm guessing you know this one is, or you'd be proclaiming why it's not.

I put the question to you guys & gals first: I'm awaiting my answer. This issue of what Canwest should be is a lot more complex than just 'it should just die and go away' or who should own it, and it will have to be arrived at realistically as well. And no, Lard/George Victor, I really don't know what the answer is either. But you guys sure seem to, by the way you've all been talking about it. So, what are your solutions?

Once upon a time, before Neo-con, the Canadian people were served by a national radio/TV service that was established by the Neo-cons predecessor, the Progressive neo-cons, in 1936, in a desperate attempt to stay in power after helping usher in 25 per cent unemployment (a central bank and Canadian airline were also birthed a display of state intervention aimed at national survival. )

Now the national service is being starved into oblivion by people who couldn't give a fiddler's fart about an informed nation, independent of the commercial drool offered by the CanWests.  The answer is to return to a mixed economy and a healthy radio/TV service on the public dime (far, far less than the Brits pay for the very best in news and entertainment and a healthy industry. ) As for the newspapers, it is possible to sell them independently as NECESSARY elements for healthy civic journals that allow  citizens to appreciate municipal institutions and functions.  A mix of opinion made available.

Oh I know, all pie in the sky democracy and citizenship, but it must be resulved by a public demanding those things. Left to commerce, we become even more ignorant and vulnerable to the make-believe world of the power brokers. Or are you willing to leave our future up to the responsible folks at Shaw et. al? Is the bottom line the only consideration for you folks? (Back to you Cap'n)

Good proposal.