Source: CBC News

Moses Znaimer, co-founder of Citytv, is back in the TV business.

On Tuesday, Canada's broadcast regulator approved his deal to buy the broadcasting assets of VisionTV, a Toronto-based network that broadcasts multi-faith religious programming and family fare.

The assets include two over-the-air local TV stations in western Canada: CHNU-TV in British Columbia and CIIT-TV in Winnipeg.

Znaimer's ZoomerMedia Ltd. has also bought the related digital service One: the Body, Mind & Spirit channel, for the equivalent of $1.9 million.

The total deal for Vision and its assets, including its programming, is valued at $29 million.

The broadcasting licence for VisionTV was originally awarded to the not-for-profit corporation S-VOX, but the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission ruled that non-profit status is not necessary to hold the licence.

In taking over the licence, ZoomerMedia is bound by the same conditions for multi-faith religious programming that Vision agreed to. The broadcast licence must be renewed in August 2011.

As co-founder of the influential Citytv, Znaimer pioneered videography and innovative news presentation in a format designed to capture a youth audience. He resigned from Citytv in 2003 but had traded his interest in the network for CHUM stock and then sold the CHUM stock when CTV bought the company in 2005.

His new media empire, ZoomerMedia, launched in 2005, is going after baby boomers and retirees and already owns a magazine and commercially successful jazz and classical music radio stations.

© CBC News