Probing The Presidents

This Friday in Vancouver, I am moderating "The President's Panel" at the 65th meeting of the British Columbia Association Of Broadcasters.  Again this year, they have an amazing slate of impressive speakers and presentations.

Further proof of the pace of change affecting the media business:

A month ago I figured that most of our discussions would center around Bell Media's multi-billion dollar (just the RADIO assets are valued at more than a billion dollars) acquisition of Astral Communications which was announced as a continuation of the company's "four screen strategy."

I had been planning to talk to the executives about what their companies plan to do in the wake of that.

Then came the even more recent news that Vista Radio, with new backing from Westerkirk, is buying the Haliburton group, adding Haliburton’s 24 Ontario stations to fill in a geographic hole for Vista, which owns 38 stations in British Columbia, Alberta and the Northwest Territories.

Just last week,  Rogers Broadcasting announced its intent to acquire Métro14 Montréal (CJNT), enabling Citytv to expand its footprint in Quebec.

Almost immediately Citytv announced an affiliate agreement with the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group that will deliver Citytv programming to new audiences on a long-term basis on all three of Pattison’s television stations in Western Canada.

Is everyone else going to have to get bigger or go home?

I'll try to get your answer to that on Friday.