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The government says 35 SCN employees will be affected by the closure of the TV operation. (CBC)SCN, Saskatchewan’s publicly owned TV channel, will stop operations in May as the province shuts down the Saskatchewan Communications Network to save money.

“SCN’s viewership is quite low,” Dustin Duncan, the minister of tourism, parks, culture and sport, said Wednesday in a news release about the cut. “We feel that there is no longer a role for government in the broadcast business.”

Thirty-five employees will be affected. SCN was among several cuts announced in Wednesday’s provincial budget, which reduces total spending by $121.3 million.

According to the province, surveys indicate only four per cent of television viewers tune in to SCN for at least 15 minutes in any given week.

‘There is no longer a role for government in the broadcast business.’— Dustin Duncan, Saskatchewan minister of culture

This rating has been consistent for six years, the government said.

While the news release cited a four per cent viewership rating, the most recent annual report of SCN says 16 per cent of people who responded to a questionnaire about the channel had tuned in during the week before being surveyed.

The TV channel was made in 1989 and started operations a year later. According to the province, closing down SCN will save $2.4 million the first year and $5 million a year after that.

CBC News reporters approached staff of SCN on Wednesday, but no one was available to speak. The SCN offices are in the same building in Regina as CBC Saskatchewan.

While the signal will end in May, the government said some employees will stay on the job until the end of June to end some outstanding contracts.

“It’ll be a loss, a huge loss for the producers,” Don List, the head of Birdsong Communications, a Regina production company, told CBC News. “TV audiences will suffer too because unfortunately Saskatchewan tales are becoming harder to watch, and where else are we going to see them?”

In addition to showing general interest programs, SCN also provides distribution services for some distance education services. It also carries proceedings of the Saskatchewan legislature.

Former head dismayed

Richard Gustin, a former top executive of SCN, called the government’s choice a tragedy.

“I was at SCN for its first 20 years of existence,” Gustin said. “I reckon this is a tragedy.”

Richard Gustin, a retired executive of SCN, says shutting down the television channel is a tragedy. (CBC)Gustin retired in 2009. He told CBC News Wednesday that SCN had spent more than $15 million on local productions while he was there.

“That just disappears,” he said. “Commercial broadcasters do nothing here.”

Gustin said the cost of producers having to travel to Toronto to pitch programs will be a barrier to many budding artists.

“With the loss of SCN, we get more and more packaged information out of Toronto.”

Allan Bratt, the local president of ACTRA, says SCN provided opportunities for Saskatchewan artists to tell their tales. (CBC)“We’re losing a voice,” Allan Bratt, the local head of the performers’ union ACTRA, told CBC News at the legislature in Regina Wednesday. “I know that it’s not the first spot that people dial to when they watch television. But it’s surprising how often you’ll pick something up there when you’re surfing through and say, ‘I know that place. I know those people’. And you’re going to lose that.”

According to its website, SCN offers a wide range of program types, from documentaries to dramas. It buys its content from a variety of sources, including local film and television producers.

The channel is seen on satellite and cable television. It also uses the internet to deliver some content.

The province said some elements of SCN’s content will continue to be made available but will be transferred to Sask Tel, the communications Crown corporation.

U.S. President Barack Obama, left, speaks with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Singapore in November. The two sides are near a landmark deal to reduce their nuclear arsenals. (Mikhail Klimentyev, Presidential Press Service/Associated Press)

The U.S. and Russia agreed to a historic deal Wednesday to reduce the nuclear arsenals of the former Cold War rivals, the most significant pact in a generation and an vital milestone in the decades-long quest to lower the risk of global nuclear war.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev are to sign the treaty in two weeks in Prague, once final technical details are worked out, officials in Washington and Moscow said.

The landmark treaty would require nations to reduce their number of strategic nuclear warheads to roughly 1,600, well down from the current limits. The New York Times reported Wednesday it would also require both sides to reduce their number of nuclear bombers and sea-launched missiles to 800, down from 1,600 currently.

Obama reportedly wants to bring the total number of allowed warheads down to less than 1,000 each as quickly as possible. Buoyed by the political capital he has accrued by passing his hard-fought health care legislation on Sunday, those farther-reaching agreements are now expected later in his presidency.

Replaces START treaty

The pact would replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 1991. START quietly expired in December 2009, but the two sides have been discussing a replacement since at least April 2009. START originally limited nuclear stockpiles to 6,000 weapons each. Subsequent amendments, most recently in July, brought the limits down to roughly 2,000 each.

Obama spent Wednesday briefing Democratic Sen. John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Sen. Richard Lugar, the committee’s ranking Republican. Both would play major roles in Senate ratification of the emerging treaty.

A formal, 20-page protocol document is expected within days, followed by an “annex” of amendments before the unveiling in Prague.

Negotiations are centred on disputes over verification measures and Russia’s objection to U.S. missile defence plans for Europe.

Russian negotiators have balked at including some intrusive weapons verification measures in the new treaty. The Obama administration has warned that without these, Senate ratification could prove hard.

Any agreement would need to be ratified by the legislatures of both countries and still would leave each with a large number of nuclear weapons, both deployed and stockpiled.

Raptors forward Andrea Bargnani, left, knocks the ball loose from Jazz guard Wesley Matthews. (Frank Gunn/Canadian Press)

Deron Williams led a balanced attack with 18 points, 16 assists and eight rebounds as the Utah Jazz trounced the hometown Toronto Raptors 113-87 on Wednesday night.

Carlos Boozer added 18 points and 11 rebounds, while seven Jazz players finished with at least 12 points.

Utah had an 18-point lead at the half.

Chris Bosh scored 20 points for the Raptors, who lost ground to Charlotte in the race for seventh place in the NBA’s Eastern Conference.

The Bobcats topped Minnesota 108-95, to extend their lead over Toronto to one-and-a-half games. The Raptors saw their record fall to 35-35.

More to come