Edmonton Journal from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada • 5

by Richard Helm Journal Television Writer Cover Story OS fOlF Edmonton gets its Tirsx new iv swuon in ycau Cf koo Please adjust your dials, bdmonton airwaves iust got a little 1 nave aDSOiuteiy no uouni uic movie imcup win on the research we've done in this market and based on our experience in Winnipeg, where we essentially own primetime with the same format," says A-Channel president Drew Craig. "We're not in the series game. We offer an alternative." That alternative amounts to a string of mostly American features not that far removed from the movie theatres. Titles like Clear And Present Danger, Four Weddings And A Funeral, Star Trek Generations, Batman Forever and Lethal Weapon will be screened in the opening week. more crowded.

The A-Channel, the city's first new television station in 23 years, blazed its way into local living rooms Thursday night in what it promises will become its trademark fashion. A hip and energetic launch party blocked off a downtown Craig, 39, is the eldest grandson ol John Boyd Craig, the Scottish immi grant who founded the family broadcasting dynasty 50 years ago when he traded in his Brandon car dealership for a radio station. The empire now consists of several radio holdings across the Prairies, including K-97 in Edmonton, and A-Channel' prototype, the Manitoba Television Network, or MTN, launched by the Craigs in 1986. Craig says the company relishes the chance to hitch its Edmonton fortunes to a young aggressive NHL franchise. "We've been in a market where we've gone through a similar situation where the club is in jeopardy and the city is going to have to rally behind whoever wants to look at street next to the new TV studios as part of a live two-hour opening show, complete with all the requisite dignitaries and a marquee lineup of Canadian musical talent.

There's a new rabbit-eared kid on the block, one who makes a virtue of playing against the rules. The A-Channel, owned by Brandon-based Craig Broadcast Systems, was approved last year by the federal broadcast regulator after two attempts at a licence, edging out a far larger Manitoba rival in Izzy Asper's Can West Global. The Craigs have been battling since 1994 to get into the thick of things in Alberta, the third-largest English-speaking market in the country. Now here in Edmonton, they're at centre ice in more ways than one. First, they've set up shop in the heart of the city's under-nourished downtown core, creating storefront studios in one corner of the historic ownership," he says.

"Hopefully we'll play a major role Craig: "a little more rallying the community. We're nlH Hudson's Bav buildins on Jasper Avenue. Second, the upstart station has secured the broadcast rights to the Edmonton Oilers this coming season, giving them instant credibility among the team's rabid fans. Offering a program schedule heavily weighted with movies, A-Channel hopes to seize and hold a substantial portion of the local viewing audience. It takes over the old ABC cable slot on Channel 7 the first ripple in a major realignment of cable channels coming with the onset of the new specialty services.

Broadcasting in a new digital format, the station will make its stamp with primetime movies every night of the week, including a double-bill Sunday nights, and 90 minutes of daily supperhour news Monday through Friday. Viewers will also eet nightly reruns of The Simpsons, Friends, essentially going to be in the heart of it." A-Channel will broadcast 26 games this season, most of them on the road, and is bringing back play-by-play man Bruce Buchanan, who did the Oiler ITV broadcasts for nine years. Craig is promising a funkier, ESPN2-like package. "When you see the Oilers games on the A-Channel they're going to look much different than the way they looked on CFRN," says Craig. Funky is also the byword for the A-Channel's studios, still settling in as the first, and so far only, tenant of the Port Alberta redevelopment' project within the old Bay building.

Like its sister station in Calgary, the Edmonton outlet is wired for broadcast so that the entire facility is a working studio environment. With an informal design similar to that of CityTV and MuchMusic in Toronto, the activity inside the A-Channel will be on display for the public walking by the big windows. Frasier and Highlander, but conventional series fare comes a distant second in this programming philosophy. 4 TV Times.