Canada's largest media union says it's bad news that a single television network could soon own most of the country's major newspapers.

The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers union says the deal between CanWest Global and Conrad Black will cause an "unprecedented and horrifying" concentration of ownership.

CanWest Global announced Monday it plans to buy 13 big-city dailies, plus a half-interest in the National Post and various other interests from Hollinger Inc. in a deal valued at $3.5 billion.

Leonard Asper
Leonard Asper

Leonard Asper, president and CEO of CanWest, says it's the largest deal in Canadian media history.

CanWest Global Communications Corp., owner of the Global Television Network, has agreed to buy 136 daily and weekly newspapers in smaller communities as well as 85 trade publications.




CanWest will also buy all of Hollinger's Internet properties, its magazine group and most of the community publishing operations.

Asper told reporters his company is buying content. He called the merger, "momentous and historic," and "the ultimate convergence transaction."

Hollinger chair Conrad Black will become the second-largest shareholder in CanWest, after the Asper family. He'll also have a seat on the board.

The merged company will have complete and unparalleled national and local coverage in both electronic and print media, plus the canada.com network, a leading group of national and local Internet sites.

That level of concentration bothers many critics. Gail Lem, vice-president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers union, called it a "horrifying development."

"If allowed to proceed, this merger will result in an unprecedented level of concentration of ownership in the Canadian news media," Lem said. The CEP union represents 20,000 media workers.

Similarly, Bruce Wark, a professor at the University of King's College journalism school in Halifax, told CBC Newsworld, "Having a TV network own newspapers is not a good thing in a democracy. I think we need a diversity of media ownership and we don't have that diversity in Canada.

How concentrated will that ownership be? In some areas of the country, it will be overwhelming.

In British Columbia, for example, CanWest will own the biggest TV station in the province (BCTV), two other broadcasters (CHEK and CKVU), as well as the two largest newspapers (The Vancouver Sun and The Province), Vancouver's largest weekly papers and other smaller papers.

The transaction is expected to close by the end of September, but is subject to approval by regulators.