Media ownership in Canada

Media ownership in Canada
by: Astrid Lange

Astral Media owns 29 radio stations in Quebec and the Maritimes and 17 pay television stations (including The Movie Network, Mpix and Family Channel, and half of Teletoon). In April 2007, Astral Media announced it had struck a cash and stock deal to acquire 52 radio stations and two TV stations from Standard Broadcasting.

CanWest Global owns the Global Television Network's 11 stations as well as the three TV stations in the CH-branded network. In January 2007, in partnership with a group from Goldman Sachs, CanWest bought Alliance Atlantis, which added 13 specialty channels including Showcase, HGTV Canada, Food Network Canada and History Television. CanWest owns 11 of Canada's biggest dailies (including the National Post, The Gazette in Montreal, the Ottawa Citizen and both of Vancouver's dailies, the Vancouver Sun and The Province).

CTVglobemedia owns the CTV network and its 24 affiliates, and has full or partial ownership of 40 specialty television stations, The Globe and Mail and 35 radio stations across the country. CTVglobemedia's other conventional television assets include A-Channel, a second system that operates in major markets of Ontario and British Columbia: CKX-TV, a CBC television affiliate in Brandon, Man.; TQS; and ASN, a cable channel in Atlantic Canada.

Osprey Media, a Quebecor media company since 2007, owns 21 dailies in Ontario (including the Kingston Whig-Standard and Peterborough Examiner) and 36 other papers. In 2001, Osprey bought 16 dailies and 12 other papers from Hollinger International. In 2002, Osprey acquired 30 more newspapers (including four dailies) from CanWest Global.

Rogers Media owns several over-the-air and specialty TV channels (including OMNI, Rogers Sportsnet, the Shopping Channel and the Biography Channel), 44 radio stations in six provinces and magazines such as Maclean's, Chatelaine and Canadian Business. In June 2007, Rogers Media bought five Citytv stations, in Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver.

Torstar Corp. publishes the Toronto Star, The Record in Kitchener-Waterloo, the Hamilton Spectator, and the Guelph Mercury. The company also publishes 95 community newspapers in the southern Ontario marketplace.

Quebecor Media owns eight dailies and 200 other local and community newspapers. In 2000, Quebecor bought Quebec's largest cable company, Vidéotron, and its French-language TV network, TVA.

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