Asper and CanWest Global

CanWest Global, controlled by Izzy Asper, has major broadcasting operations in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland, along with a Canadian newspaper chain and the usual media mogul bric-a-brac such as outdoor advertising and multimedia operations.

     the group 

For Australians Mr Asper arrived on the scene with a contentious - see ABA report (PDF) - but ultimately successful bid for the ailing TEN television network. He was in the news in 2000, when he relieved Conrad Black's Hollinger group of its Canadian newspapers for around US$2.2 billion.

In 1995 CanWest made the highest bid for Britain's Channel 5 television network (now controlled by RTL) but was reportedly rejected by regulators unhappy with its programming plans. Claims in Canada that it's "nothing but toll collectors between Canadians and their access to popular American shows" have resulted in defamation action.

As of late 2001 the group covers broadcast television (reaching over 94% of English-speaking Canada and competing with the Rogers cable tv group), radio, newspapers, minor film/tv production and distribution interests, advertising and multimedia. The Hollinger acquisition gave it 15 major metropolitan newspapers and 126 community newspapers across Canada; Mr Black got a stake in CanWest (later sold for C$271m cash)

A map of the holdings is here.

     the man 

Like Roy Thomson - whose favourite music was the sound of a cash-register - Israel (Izzy) Harold Asper appears to have been concerned to portray himself as just plain folks, with a famous anecdote about his first job scraping chewing gum from the seats of a cinema concluding "I was too dumb to realize you weren't supposed to chew it." A likely story, since his dad owned the cinema and he went on to become a QC in 1975 after practice as a tax lawyer.

Asper served as leader of the Manitoba Liberal Party from 1970 to 1975 before launching independent television station CKND in 1974 and expanding into Australia, New Zealand and Ireland with a low-cost business model that's earned him a reputation as the "bargain-basement broadcaster."

The Asper family holds around 45% of CanWest.

     studies 

There are no major biographies of Asper or studies of CanWest. A perspective is provided by Susan Gittins' CTV - The Television Wars (Toronto: Stoddart 01). Perspectives on the newspaper chain are provided by Leaving Readers Behind: The Age of Corporate Newspapering (Fayetteville: Uni of Arkansas Press 01) edited by Gene Roberts, Thomas Kunkel & Charles Layton and The Menace of the Corporate Newspaper: Fact or Fiction? (Ames: Iowa State Uni Press 96) by David Demers.




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