MONTREAL and TORONTO – BCE Inc. today officially completed its $3.2 billion acquisition of Astral Media Inc., just a little over a week after receiving approval by the CRTC for the merger.
The company also announced its first set of initiatives as it moves to satisfy the various conditions set by the CRTC as part of the merger approval. They include a new Discovery-branded French-language specialty channel that is scheduled to launch by the end of the fiscal fourth quarter. Bell Media will also expand its GO TV Everywhere products to include French-language stations Super Écran, Ztélé, Canal D, Canal Vie, and VRAK.TV in early 2014
As of today, Bell Media will also begin integrating content across its TV and radio platforms, starting with CTV national news, which will now feature segments on radio stations CJAD 800 in Montreal and NewsTalk 1010 in Toronto. RDS sports updates will be heard on Radio NRJ stations, and ETalk and The Movie Network will also share content. Bell now owns 107 radio stations across the country.
As previously reported, the newly combined Bell/Astral company will be led by both Astral and Bell Media executives.
Three Astral executives will join the Bell team: Jacques Parisien has been named president, national specialty and pay TV, radio, and out-of-home; Charles Benoît has been appointed president, television and radio, Québec; and Luc Quétel has been named president, Astral out-of-home. Benoît and Quétel will both report to Parisien.
Reporting to Bell Media president Kevin Crull, and based in Montréal, Parisien will oversee Bell Media’s national specialty and pay television and radio properties as well as the company’s out-of-home operations, which will be led by Quétel from Montréal. Benoît will oversee Bell Media's French-language (non-sports) TV, radio, and new media teams, which will be united in one unit in Montréal.
Parisien will be responsible for Bell Media’s 34 national specialty television, four pay TV services, and 107 radio properties, in English and French, as well as the operation of Bell Media’s OOH business, which will retain its name as Astral Out-of-Home.
Pierre Roy, currently president of Les Chaînes Télé Astral and MusiquePlus Inc., will retire. In addition, André Bureau, chair of Astral’s board, will continue his work as counsel at law firm Heenan Blaikie. Astral president and CEO Ian Greenberg will join the BCE board of directors.
Parisien, Benoît and Quétel will join Bell executives Rick Brace (president, specialty channels and CTV production), Chris Gordon (president, Bell Media Radio and local TV), Phil King (president, CTV programming and sports), Bart Yabsley (EVP, content sales and distribution), Wendy Freeman (president, CTV News), and Adam Ashton (senior VP business operations).
According to a source, Bell announced to its employees Thursday afternoon that several other senior Astral executives would not be continuing with the new company, including: Jean-François Bergeron, Astral’s VP and CIO; André Bureau, OC, OQ, who was is also a former chair of the CRTC, will continue his lawyer practice at Heenan Blaikie; Brigitte Catellier, VP of legal affairs and secretary; Arnold Chiasson, who is retiring as VP of human resources; Jocelyn Côté, SVP of regulatory and government affairs; Robert Fortier, VP finance and CFO; Stéphane Goyette, VP of Astral Digital; Claude Lizotte EVP of Astral Plus; John Riley, president of Astral Television Networks/Astral Télé Réseaux.
Sidney Greenberg who co-founded Astral almost 52 years ago along with his brothers Harold, Harvey, and Ian, will retire.
Rita Fabian, Bell’s EVP of advertising sales, is also leaving the company later this fall.
On the financial side, Bell announced today it has acquired all class A non-voting shares of Astral for $50 per share, for approximately $2.8 billion. It also acquired all class B subordinate voting shares for $54.83 per share for approximately $151 million, and all special shares for $50 million.
The astral class A Shares and class B shares will be delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange at the end of trading on July 8, 2013.
Financial details of the Astral acquisition will be included in Bell’s second quarter results, to be released August 8, 2013.
