Two settlements down, one to go in the Robertson copyright class action

Canwest Global Communications Corp. has announced the settlement of the long-standing copyright class action lawsuit about the electronic rights of freelancers that has worked its way through the courts for 13 years. Canwest (Canada) Inc., Canwest Limited Partnership / Canwest Societe en Commandite,-- collectively called LP Entities -- and the named writer in the suit, Heather Robertson, have agreed on a $7.5 million valuation of all claims by freelance writers who are parties to the lawsuit as unsecured creditors. 

In return Heather Robertson in the name of those creditors will vote in favour of a plan of arrangement in the insolvency proceedings of Canwest Publishing, which filed for creditor protection in January. All agreements in the case are subject to approval by the court on June 16.

The settlement is part of the dismantling and restructuring of CanWest by its major creditors and holders of its bonds, who have agreed to acquire all of the financial and operating assets of the company for about $1.1 billion, including all shares of the National Post Inc. and to inject about $950 million in cash.  Most of the cash will be used to pay off the senior secured creditors (called AHC) -- mostly made up of chartered banks.

Larger creditors will receive shares in a new corporate entity dubbed Newco, which will issue 40 million shares -- 27 million to AHC at $9.26 a share and 13 million to other creditors at a nominal price of $11.54 per share. Up to $130 million or about 35% of the cash injection, potentially could go to pay off smaller affected creditors, including the freelancers covered by the Robertson class action, providing they have proven claims. Those owed less than $1,000 would receive full cash payments. Those owed more than $1,000 would have the choice of accepting a $1,000 cash payment or receive shares in Newco on a pro rata basis.

The drawn-out class action over copyright in what has become called The Robertson case is winding its way to a conclusion; the suit was launched more than 13 years ago by Heather Robertson on behalf of thousands of freelance writers claiming their work was reproduced electronically without proper permission or compensation.

In May 2009, an $11 million settlement was reached with  with The Thomson Corporation (now Thomson Reuters Corporation), Thomson Reuters Canada Limited, Thomson Affiliated and Information Access Company (formerly The Gale Group Inc.) and CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc. (formerly Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc.), the publishers of the Globe and Mail newspaper.After legal fees and other costs, about $4 to $5 million in compensation was to be available to individual writers, photographers and illustrators for freelance work published prior to May 1, 2009 in various newspaper databases.

The Canwest settlement does not terminate Heather Robertson's lawsuit against the remaining defendants in her class action: Proquest Information and Learning LLC, CEDROM-SNI Inc., Toronto Star Newspapers Ltd., and Rogers Publishing Limited.

Related posts:

•  Robertson suit settlement goes to court for approval
• Long-running freelance suit against publishers settled for $11 million
• Robertson decision explained, more or less
• What's what in the Heather Robertson case?
• Robertson wins groundbreaking freelance suit after more than a decade of struggle
• Decision to come, at last, in Robertson suit against Globe
• Robertson vs Globe gets to high court
• Coming to final arguments

CanWest papers, including National Post, now officially up for sale

The National Post and all the CanWest newspapers in major cities across the country are now officially for sale. 

The chain was put into bankruptcy protection this morning and it was reported that the major creditors, including Canada's five largest banks, plan to put in a "stalking horse" bid for the whole package of papers -- not to own and run them, but to establish the starting price for an auction. The price is estimated at $1 billion give or take.

Prelude to a sale: National Post to join the family of CanWest dailies

If it can get permission from the courts and its senior lenders, the National Post is being moved out this Friday of its holding company, CanWest Media, to join other CanWest dailies and weeklies in CanWest Limited Partnership. This is not mere paperwork, but a means of tuning up the money-losing national daily and putting it in a place where it could be sold along with the other papers in the chain.

According to a story in the Globe and Mail, CanWest Limited Partnership will assume all of the National Post's obligations and liabilities under its pension plan; National Post employees will be offered employment with the new company.

Industry analysts say CanWest could fetch more than $1-billion for its newspaper assets as signs of life in the finances of the newspaper industry drive up interest in acquisitions.

One analyst, who asked to remain anonymous, has said that the National Post is considered a money-loser and that CanWest would want to lump it in with other more profitable papers in order to get it sold.

Chris Diceman, an analyst at Dominion Bond Ratings Service, believes if CanWest does go ahead with the rumoured plans, the company could pull in between $600-million and $900-million for the lumped together assets in a first round of bids.

“If there was a bidding war for these assets either in, or part of, creditor protection, that multiple may go up even higher than that,” he said recently.

CanWest files for bankruptcy protection

Troubled CanWest Global Communications, which owns the National Post, most of Canada's major urban newspapers and Global Television, is filing for creditor protection, according to a story from the Canadian Press. The move will give it additional 4-6 months to restructure its huge debt and, likely, sell off many of its assets.

Canwest Global Communications Corp. (TSX:CGS) has been struggling for months to deal with the debt load, which the Winnipeg-based broadcaster took on when it bought the former Southam newspapers and the National Post earlier this decade.

Business units of the media company that will be filing for creditor protection include the Canwest Television Limited Partnership, which holds Global Television, MovieTime, DejaView and Fox Sports World, and The National Post Company.

After the restructuring, Canwest creditors would receive shares of the restructured media company. Canwest's current shareholders would own just 2.3 per cent of the shares of the new Canwest.

Although the Asper family will invest up to an additional $15 million under the restructuring Canwest didn't say how much voting control that would give them.

Canwest has been selling pieces of its business in recent weeks to show lenders that it's making progress on reworking its operations.

Most recently it sold off its majority stake in Australian broadcaster Ten Network Holdings, in addition to past sales of its E!-branded TV stations and U.S. political magazine The New Republic.

Designing the daily Dose

The Torontoist blog carries an interesting retrospective on the art of the 270 covers of the late daily magazine Dose. As you'll recall, CanWest MediaWorks killed the project after one year of publication.

Former editor-in-chief Pema Hegan submitted to a q & a with Marc Lostracco about the creative process behind Dose's designs. Seen all together, the covers are much more impressive than they seemed to be at the time.

Hegan said that the process for picking a cover was deceptively simple:

We would come up with a few ideas in the morning news meeting and at noon, the editors and art department would huddle up to answer three questions:

1. What are people talking about or could they be talking about today?
2. What one simple idea do we want to communicate about this subject?
3. How can we visually express this idea in the most simple, powerful way?

Sometimes the meetings were a fun fifteen minutes and sometimes they were a difficult hour. After the meeting, the designers, editors, photographers and illustrators had seven hours to execute the idea and create the cover. I was constantly amazed by what a great job they did in such a short time.

CanWest buys out editor-in-chief at The New Republic

CanWest now owns 100% of the New Republic. When it bought control, editor-in-chief Martin Peretz was said to be retaining a 25% stake. But according to a story in the New York Observer, that was just a negotiating hiatus and Peretz has now sold his stake, which means that, for the first time in 30 years, he owns nothing of the magazine he edits (at least for now).

There are no guarantees in the sale that Peretz will stay as EIC. Most of the heavy lifting on CanWest's revamp of the magazine is being done by editor Franklin Foer, whom Peretz hired a year ago. (It seems likely that after a decent interval, Peretz will be given emeritus status, perhaps as an editor-at-large and keeping his blog, The Spine.)

According to the Observer story, Foer and art director Joe Heroun are planning to make the magazine much different than its current dour self.

“I’m really grateful for the opportunity to take this institution that I’ve always worshipped, and try to take it very distinctly in a different kind of direction,” Mr. Foer said.

That direction will be a departure from the current Spartan, college-magazine look.

“Drew Friedman has a column in the makeover,” said Mr. Foer. “We’re going to have a lot of stand-alone pieces from illustrators, artists. One of my ambitions is to experiment with fine art in the magazine, too.”

“We’re adding new little cuts in the magazine, like those little spoon-size illustrations that The New Yorker has,” Mr. Foer said. “We will have original photography in the first issue.”

CanWest now owns The New Republic

CanWest Global Communications now owns The New Republic. Without much fanfare, the company bought control by acquiring 50% of the magazine from a pair of investment bankers to add to the 25% they already bought last January. Editor-in-chief Martin Peretz retains 25% . According to a story in the New York Times, CanWest plans major renovations, including reducing the magazine's frequency to every two weeks and increasing the number of pages per issue and the amount of illustration in what has always been a fairly text-heavy and austere publication.

Mr. Peretz said that the takeover by CanWest would help guarantee the magazine’s financial future, [the Times story said].

“It just seemed to me, given my own intellectual and moral synergies with Leonard J. Asper, a very good partnership,” he said, referring to the chief executive of CanWest. Mr. Asper was not available for comment yesterday.

The 97 year old, slightly right-inclined magazine of comment and politics seems an oddball fit for CanWest. For one thing, its circulation has been in freefall since 2000, when it was over 100,000 and now stands at about 60,000.

[S]ome critics have attributed the weakening sales to a murky and sometimes conservative editorial voice, as progressive causes have intensified, particularly in the blogosphere and particularly over the war in Iraq. The New Republic initially supported the war but has since apologized for that support. It also backed Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, who lost the Democratic primary in 2006 but retained his seat as an independent during the election.

While the circulation of other liberal magazines, including The Nation and The Progressive, increased after President Bush’s re-election in 2004, that of The New Republic did not.

There is a familiar face at the helm. Greg MacNeil, a consultant to CanWest and the former President of St. Joseph Media (Toronto Life, Fashion, Wedding Bells, Canadian Family), has been the interim publisher of The New Republic since November. He said that CanWest would provide some media-business savvy that the magazine has lacked in recent years:

“It’s a garden that needs watering.”

Not that most Canadians need to be told, but CanWest owns most of the newspapers in Canada and is this country's second-largest broadcaster. (Just yesterday it announced it was increasing its stake in the acquisition of Alliance Atlantis Communications to $200 million. Perhaps this overshadowed the TNR takeover news, which appears nowhere on the CanWest website.)

[UPDATE] Some comment in the bitchy blog Gawker about the decision by The New Republic not to extend subscriptions to compensate for halving frequency; the magazine argues that each issue will be fatter. Hence, fewer, fatter issues for the same price.