Winnipeg-based Canwest Global  said it will close CHEK-TV in Victoria and CHCA-TV in Red Deer, Alta., by the end of next month. It will also rebrand CHBC-TV of Kelowna, B.C. into an affiliate station of Canwest's Global network. Last month, Canwest agreed to sell two stations in Montreal and Hamilton for an undisclosed sum to specialty TV operator Channel Zero Inc.

This follows a months-long campaign to get the CRTC to force calbe operators to pay a "fee for carriage" for their publicly-available broadcast signals, obstensibly to support local broadcast stations. This network tanturm had ended in a ruling where cable operators and broacasters have a year to find a suitable mechanism to do this.

Let's hope that the cable companies use this to show the CTRC regulators that the networks never meant to save local TV stations, but needed to find another source of cashflow to stem losses from massive amounts of debt incurreed to fund corporate media take-overs in past years. Let's not let the network moguls use this as an opportunity to skewer (te nice word) the Canadian public.