OTTAWA – Corus Entertainment has received CRTC approval to proceed with its purchase of a number of television stations being sold by Bell Media.
The Commission said Friday that the $400 million sale of Teletoon, Historia and Séries+ “will result in a consolidation that will facilitate the creation, promotion and distribution of diverse, high-quality Canadian programming for Canadian and international audiences, particularly in the children’s and animation programming sectors. It will also enhance diversity and foster greater competition in the French-language market.”
It did, however, impose conditions of licence designed to “limit the potential for anti-competitive behaviour by Corus”, and ordered the broadcaster to file licence amendment applications by January 30, 2014 to add these safeguards as conditions of licence “for all other television programming undertakings that will be operated by Corus as of the closing of this transaction”.
The CRTC also accepted the Teletoon deal’s proposed tangible benefits package which will see Corus contribute $26.02 million over the next seven years, $23.19 million of which will be directed to production, script and concept development and export initiatives, including $5 million to French-language production. The tangible benefits package for Historia and Séries+ amounts to $14.48 million that Corus must allocate over the next seven years.
In addition, the Commission renewed the broadcasting licences for Teletoon/Télétoon and Teletoon Retro from April 1, 2014 to August 31, 2016, to correspond with the licence expiry date of the other services in the Corus designated group. French-language Télétoon Rétro was renewed from April 1, 2014 to August 31, 2017, which coincides with the end of the licence term for the French-language services Historia and Séries+.
Corus said that the net cash consideration for these assets is $481 million Cdn. and will be paid for with cash on hand and existing bank lines of credit when the transaction closes.
"We are pleased with the CRTC's decision and excited about the future growth opportunities these acquisitions represent," said John Cassaday, Corus' president and CEO, in a statement. "Corus has established a track record for building and stewarding strong brands as well as delivering the best possible content to audiences everywhere.
Corus is still waiting for CRTC approval to move ahead with its applications to acquire two Ottawa-based radio stations, CKQB-FM and CJOT-FM, and said that it "anticipates that it will receive a favourable decision early in the new year. "
