Posted on 03/11/2005 6:07:13 AM PST by Loyalist
OTTAWA — The head of PrideVision TV, Canada's gay-television channel, is caught in a bitter divorce battle with his ex-wife that could cost him control of the network. Twelve years ago, Bill Craig was a onetime CRTC staffer turned entrepreneur who lived with his wife and two children. Now, after setting up successful businesses in Bermuda, and a failed webcaster in Canada, he's in a seven-year-long same-sex relationship and is trying to rebuild the gay-TV channel he runs.
But this week, a $1.4-million debt owed to his ex-wife, Sally Craig, as part of their divorce settlement caught up with him. An Ontario Superior Court judge ordered a receiver be appointed over his income and his assets -- which consist mostly of his shares in PrideVision.
"This is classic War of the Roses stuff," Mr. Craig said in a telephone interview in Toronto, likening the court battle to the 1989 movie in which a couple played by actors Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner engage in a bitter postdivorce fight over their house that ends up killing them both.
Mr. Craig and his ex-wife Sally, married for 19 years, separated in 1993.
Although he now makes $120,000 a year from a numbered company, Madam Justice Nancy Backhouse expressed skepticism that Sally Craig would be able to collect the money she is owed out of that income, paid through a numbered company.
She ordered a receiver to take control of Mr. Craig's income and assets, which he listed as a 2000 Jeep, the potential proceeds from a lawsuit filed in Bermuda, and his 24-per-cent controlling stake in PrideVision.
Mr. Craig said that if a receiver moves to sell his shares, they won't be worth much now. And the sale would also prompt the resignation of the executive leading the channel's turnaround plan -- namely, him.
"They're welcome to liquidate it [the controlling stake.] At the moment it's losing money," Mr. Craig said in an interview. "It'd be kind of a dumb thing to do."
"The alternative is to leave it in place, and to let it come to fruition, and let it evolve into an enterprise that can support my wife's needs."
Mr. Craig said that his backers would remain in control of the company if his shares are sold, because a shareholders agreement guarantees them approval of a new shareholder.
But the uncertainty may be coming at exactly the wrong time. Mr. Craig's plans include a relaunch of the station lower down the dial as soon as next month, which could quickly boost its value.
Backed by a group of investors, Mr. Craig stepped in as a so-called white knight last year to buy money-losing PrideVision for $1.4-million, plus taking on $1.1-million in the company's existing debt.
Critics like gay-culture columnist Richard Burnett had by then begun to pan the channel for drifting to a mix of reruns, workout shows, and nighttime porn.
Mr. Craig said his efforts to turn the company around include a new licence and deals with cable distributors that will next month move the channel into bundles where it will be sold as part of a cable package with other stations, winning a bigger subscriber base.
PrideVision is renaming its main channel Out TV for inclusion into regular-grid bundles, and has obtained a licence to operate another channel, to be called Hard.
Mr. Craig's best-known legal battle came in 1999 when he launched the ill-fated ICraveTV.com, a website that grabbed the signals of television in Toronto and streamed them over the Internet.
ICraveTV was deluged with legal threats. Mr. Craig eventually gave up, deciding the technology was not working, anyway.
Exactly. Besides, does anyone care?
Freeper Friends from the North:
What is a numbered company?
Not enough porn, eh, Dick?
Now there's a headline you don't see everyday.
Attention, homosexuals who want marraige expanded to include you, the word is spelled "D.I.V.O.R.C.E". Get used to it.
An amateur psychologist, I suspect that Mr Craig is obviously suffering from a gay borderline personality disorder. Fortunately, there is a medication that can help his affliction....TRYNOASSATALL
I wonder what we will hear from the feminist-lesbians on this one.
..........crickets.............
Another scumbag homosexual.... Aren't we suppose to believe they are just normal upstanding everyday people?
Self Destructive behavior is not a LIFESTYLE.. its a mental disorder.
Simply an incorporated company which uses a number instead of a familiar or trademarked name.
But this week, a $1.4-million debt owed to his ex-wife, Sally Craig, as part of their divorce settlement caught up with him.
Isn't it ironic...don't you think?
Gay T.V.? Do you have to have an AC-DC television to get that?
Note the celebratory terms used to describe the Gay relationship and the glossed over wife and kids. At least Mom didn't get AIDS for Mother's Day.
I'm just amused by the idea that this guy's budding gay TV empire might get nipped because he didn't settle things with his ex-wife. I'm surprised that hasn't showed up as a soap-opera plotline somewhere.
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