The Province from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 45

Joseph: A technicolor extravaganza B4 0 Keeping fit B6-7 PULLOUT SECTION T5 ft 1 KTD HI tarn ft IJ 4 WWW 1 1 mm 311. :1 iSilfSlii 1 VTVhitthe local airwaves this morning. Here fs how it happened By Jonathan McDonald Television Writer If you're reading this, I'm assuming you're awake. OK, now click on the TV. Channel 9.

No, I'm not asking you to watch Barney on KCTS. Channel 9 is CIVT VTV for short. And, officially, it's on the air this morning. Frankly, it's too early to figure out how they're doing. But figure this: Twenty-iour hours a day, seven days a week of programming, starts now.

There's no going back. Think the staff at Robson and Burrard or at 1055 W. Georgia, which has served as temporary HQ just snapped its fingers to make this work? Unh-hunh. And the last Seven Days to Launch give a pretty good indication of the nuttiness of trying to get a station up and rolling. SEVEN TO GO The sign in the newsroom says it all: "I don't wanna hear it, man.

There's too much goin' on for me to give a damn about what you think is smart." That's an Easy Rawlins line, but it could mMmj Staff photo by David Clark VTV morning show host Aamer Haleem and weather expert Linda Freeman rehearse amid the set's gigantic breakfast motif. have come from reporter Allison Vuch-nich. The 26-year-old Toronto transplant is running on something "adrenaline and coffee," she suggests as her days run from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. and her last day off came sometime in August.

A 1 VUCHNICH ing, when the powers that be in Vancouver granted VTV a partial occupancy permit, so they could move into the old public library building at Robson and Burrard. Crisis du moment? Oh, just a little one. "Power," says Boyce, her helmet at the ready. "Will we have what it takes to be a TV station?" Power. You mean, like, BC Hydro? "There's this little thing called a dimmer.

Will it get wired? It's a big one." Basically, with six days to go, VTV has no way of reaching the people. Count among that group one of VTV's power brokers: Baton vice-president Susanne Boyce. In town since mid-March, overseeing the launch of the new station, Boyce has kept afloat despite the rising tide of crises as L-day draws near. There are rumors. Funny rumors.

Rumors of folks at the Guinness Book of World Records calling to let them know they've shattered the record for getting a station up and running. "We're compressing a year into a week," says Boyce. "You go through a roller-coaster in an hour. Every hour has a crisis." An earlier crisis was solved this morn "This is about risk." Risky it is. There hasn't been a single mock newscast not of the noon news, not of the 6 o'clock news.

Vuchnich, like the other reporters, has stories in the can, for broadcast at a later date. So what if they haven't actually done a show? "That's the reality of it," says the former legislature reporter for parent Baton's TO station, CFTO. "We'll get in there. We'll be great." SIX TO GO Lots of hard hats wandering around today. Still, even as Vuch-nich is running on empty, she believes in a concrete philosophy.

"A lot of different populations are left out of the news. The station is dedicated to telling their stories," says Vuchnich. "If you're not prepared to take the risk to move here and give up your life, you don't believe in what we're doing here..