CHUM WANTS TO GO EDUCATIONAL
By Adnews Staff
CHUM Ltd. is making a second application for a specialty education channel, this time in partnership with the British Broadcasting Corporation. Toronto-based CHUM won a licence for Bravo, an arts and entertainment channel, in the last round of specialty licence hearings held by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. In July CHUM took over the Alberta government's educational television service, Access Network. Now, the Toronto broadcaster is proposing to set up a national educational channel run by a subsidiary called Canadian Learning Television Ltd. The BBC would take a 15% equity holding in this enterprise, leaving CHUM with 51%. CHUM vice-president of corporate development Moses Znaimer would have 17%. Access Network executives Ron Keast and Peter Palframan would share 14% while CHUM vice-president of television programming Jay Switzer would hold 3%. Znaimer says that all research done for the round of last specialty channel applications found that viewers wanted a comedy channel and an educational channel. Jan. 11 is the deadline for applications to the CRTC for new specialty licences. CHUM has 23 radio and six television stations in Canada, and also owns the MuchMusic cable-TV service.