My heart bleeds. Bwahahaha…

Oh, poor CanWest Global. The poor, poor National Post. Look at what’s happening to them now. Don’t you feel sorry for them?

Weighed down by debt, media giant CanWest Global Communications Corp. isn’t ruling out possible asset sales after buying itself some wiggle room by renegotiating debt covenants and cutting 560 jobs across the company.

[…]

CanWest yesterday posted a loss of $1 billion, or $5.73 a share, for the three-month period ended Aug. 31.

The loss was attributed in part to a $1.01 billion non-cash writedown on the goodwill and broadcast licences related to the company’s Canadian conventional television business – a move Asper said had been taken by other big media companies.

Revenue, meanwhile, rose to $725.9 million from $678.4 million a year earlier as the company benefited from last year’s acquisition of specialty TV-operator Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc.

CanWest, which also owns the Global television network and big city newspapers across the country, has come under increasing pressure in recent weeks as an economic recession threatens to further sap advertising revenue.

Analysts have expressed concern that the company is in danger of running out of cash to service its $3.7 billion worth of debt obligations.

“Given the high degree of operating and financial leverage across CanWest’s operations, we believe a deteriorating economy will remain a major headwind for the company,” said Drew McReynolds, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets.

A “deteriorating economy”? That’s not their biggest problem. Their biggest problem is that all of CanWest’s products, without exception, STINK. Their TV network has long been consistently the worst in Canada (with ratings to prove it), and the National Post–Convict Black’s old vanity rag–has been trying (and failing) to drag us to the far fringe of the rabid right since its inception in the late neo-con 1990s. With pompous know-nothings like, for example, this one pontificating on Venezuela, the National Pest is doomed by its own putrescent innards, not its external environment. It will fold; it’s a question of when, not if. (And frankly, I hope none of its so-called journalists ever find a job in the field again, because they’ve done nothing but lie, mislead, misdirect, lie, lie, lie, and did I mention that they lie?)

And of course, here’s what they plan to do about their general lacklustre suckiness and the money pit it’s dug for them:

In a bid to fix its balance sheet, CanWest said this week it is cutting 560 jobs, or about 5 per cent of its global workforce. The company said the move would save $61 million a year.

As well, CanWest took steps earlier this month to improve the performance of the National Post, its flagship newspaper, by focusing more on profitable markets and cutting back on deeply discounted circulation.

Notice that NONE of this involves actually improving their product. They could fire all their drivellers and dreck-writers and replace them with real journos who know what they’re talking about, but of course that means losing the far-right slant that’s made them so infamous and inedible (and indebted) in the first place!

See why I say it’s doomed, and why I won’t miss it when one more stinking media empire collapses?

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2 Responses to My heart bleeds. Bwahahaha…

  1. Simon says:

    Excellent. I used to think that the more diversity…even on the right…was good. But I don’t anymore. For all the reasons you mention and more. I’ve got my bottle of champagne…er…ginger ale…on ice waiting for the happy moment… 🙂

  2. Yeah, that “diversity” thing got old on me pretty quickly at j-school, when I first saw how much of the media was conservative, and how conservative it was. If you wanted a LIBERAL media, or a progressive one (heresy!!!), you had to write for the alternative newspapers or else just start a ‘zine. (This was before buh-logging came along. I feel SO old.)
    Diversity, schmiversity. These days, when I see honest reporting anywhere, I all but keel over in shock.

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