Losses of £2.1 million (€2.68 million) were incurred by the independent television station, TV3, in the three months to February 28th, according to figures released by its major shareholder, CanWest, the Canadian broadcasting company.

But CanWest's quarterly results for the period show the North American operation received a special dividend of 13.4 million Canadian dollars (€8.31 million/ £6.6 million) from its 29.9 per cent share of Ulster Television.

TV3, which went on screen on September 20th, has "attracted strong audience and advertiser interest", CanWest stated. It has previously indicated that it expects TV3 to go into profit in 2001. For the first five months of its operations, the new station has made an average weekly loss of £190,000 (€242,000).

TV3, which has initiated High Court proceedings against Cablelink over its position on the frequency bandwidth, had a turnover of £4.4 million (€5.61 million) for its first five months of operation but aggregate losses amounted to £3.3 million (€4.2 million).

CanWest said it was seeking to increase its profile in Britain to complement its Irish interests. It has an international distribution company based in London which, it says, will allow it to capitalise upon "CanWest Entertainment's growing production activity and library".

But it recently failed in a bid to acquire an 18.6 per cent stake in Scottish Media Group, the fourth-largest ITV company, after the Mirror Group sold out its share to Granada Group for £110 million sterling. CanWest's broadcast operating profit in its second quarter decreased by 20 per cent to Can$56.4 million (€35 million/ £28 million) compared to the same period last year due mainly to losses incurred in its New Zealand holdings which include the TV3 and TV4 networks.

The results also reflect "the anticipated and normal start up losses" incurred by its Global Prime cable network in Canada and the TV4 network in New Zealand.