CHEK-TV checking out
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Updated: July 22, 2009 4:18 PM
After several rounds of layoffs, CHEK-TV in Victoria is shutting its doors for good.
Canwest Global Communications Corp. announced the station will close its doors Aug. 31.
Forty employees will lose their job, said Richard Konwick, president of the local media branch of the Communications, Energy and Paperworks Union of Canada.
“People are disappointed, of course,” he said, adding the news comes as a shock but not a surprise.
Six months ago, Canwest began a review of five local stations. On Wednesday, the company announced it will close stations in Victoria and Red Deer, continue the station in Kelowna, and work to close conditional sales agreements for stations in Hamilton and Montreal.
“From the outset, we said that closing stations would only be considered as a last resort. We recognize that the decision to close CHCA (in Red Deer) and CHEK will negatively impact the employees of those stations and the communities that those stations have served so well,” said Canwest Broadcasting President Peter Viner, in a press release.
Last November, CHEK-TV laid off 16 employees. Two months before, it laid off a number of technical staff.
CHEK went on-air in Victoria on Dec. 1, 1956.
rholmen@saanichnews.com
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