MONTREAL and GATINEAU – BCE Inc. and the investor group led by Teachers’ Private Capital, the private investment arm of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Providence Equity Partners Inc., Madison Dearborn Partners, LLC and Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity, today announced that the CRTC has agreed to extend the deadline for the filing of documents relating to the proposed acquisition of BCE to May 12, 2008.
"We continue to work with BCE to meet all the requirements for closing by the end of the second quarter," said Jim Leech, President and CEO of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.
The…
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GATINEAU – Of all the submissions we’ve heard over the past three weeks, Channel Zero’s boiled the issues down very well, kicking of its oral remarks on Wednesday.
Cal Millar, vice-president and general manager of the company which owns Silver Screen Classics and Movieola said he believes the hearing is about Canadian programming and the fact that the consumer doesn’t really care about all the machinations going on within the CRTC or any of the broadcast and distribution companies.
“Canadians don’t say to themselves: ‘I want to spend money on cable or satellite’,” explained Millar. “They say ‘I want…
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MONTREAL – Kidsmania.ca is now offering more than 500 new online games, animated videos and comic strips for kids, in both English and French, through a new partnership between Bell Canada and Montreal-based Tribal Nova, a creator of safe virtual worlds for children.
Aimed at children aged 3 to 12, the updated kidsmania.ca site offers new features and enhanced functionality. The site’s content features popular characters such as Caillou, Boule & Bill, Doodlebops, Angela Anaconda, Digata Defenders, Franklin, and Toopy & Binoo (Toupie et Binou).
Kidsmania.ca’s kid-safe functionality means there are no pop-ups, distracting advertising or external links to…
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Dear Editor,
THE SIMMERING FEUD in correspondence to Prime Minister Harper seems a little juvenile and very disrespectful of due public process.
Messrs. Shaw, Asper and Fecan should know better. And now apparently, Bell has gotten the scribing urge! But at least Bell asks for some integrity re: the public hearing process – which is a very good thing.
Perhaps it is a tit-for-tat balancing act; but it is not consistent with the Broadcasting Act — and the latter trumps offside rhetorical flourish, we should hope.
Indeed, it is regrettable for all Canadians, and I believe ill-advised, for both…
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GATINEAU – Shaw Communications is so opposed to any type of fee-for-carriage for conventional broadcasters that it wouldn’t even consider a hypothetical question on the matter yesterday.
During the hearing into the policies governing broadcast distribution undertakings and specialty services, which wrap up today in Gatineau, commissioners have been asking such questions of intervenors for the entire hearing, forcing companies and their executives to ponder “what if” scenarios from genre protection to a shrunken basic cable package.
But clearly, the most contentious issue facing the CRTC policymakers from this hearing is the potential for a fee-for-carriage being paid to…
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MONTREAL – Bell Canada technicians represented by the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers’ Union of Canada (CEP) have voted at 59.1% to reject a final contract offer presented by the company on April 1.
"We are disappointed with the results," said Patrick Pichette, president, operations, for Bell Canada. "The contract would have ensured our technicians continued to benefit from top salaries over the next five years while preserving benefits, pensions and job security. It was a very good offer."
Among its key elements, says the Bell release, is that the April 1 offer included wage increases amounting to 12.6% over…
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OTTAWA – The craft and services employees who yesterday rejected Bell Canada’s latest contract offer by a 59-per-cent majority were in essence rejecting the concession demands put forward by Bell, concerning the extension of their work week, among others, said a union press release.
“From the start, bargaining has been difficult because Bell is demanding clawbacks from our members,” said John Edwards, administrative vice-president, Ontario, for the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP), which represents 5,000 craft and services employees working for Bell in Ontario and Quebec.
Edwards said Bell’s craft and services employees are rejecting the…
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GATINEAU – The main attraction on Tuesday, day 10 of the hearing into the policies governing specialty channels and their carriers, was a posse of independent broadcasters arguing that the system as it now stands, isn’t quite as broken as some would have everyone believe.
Of course, the system ain’t quite right, but it’s not broken – and surely doesn’t need the massive overhaul proposed by cable and satellite companies, said the group
The panel featured S-Vox (VisionTV, The Christian Channel, One: Body, Mind and Spirit), Stornoway Communications (ichannel, bpm:tv, The Pet Network), TV5, APTN and Ethnic Channels Group…
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TORONTO – The offices of one of North America’s largest distributors of free-to-air (FTA) receivers were raided earlier this month, during which large quantities of receivers and access cards were seized to preserve evidence for litigation announced Dish Network Corp. of Englewood Colo., NagraStar LLC and Bell ExpressVu.
The consortium of companies announced civil search and seizure orders had been executed on April 9 against David Fuss and Incredible Electronics, Ariza Technology, and Electronics Wholesale, all based in Toronto.
As a result of the raid, Dish Network receivers and access cards were recovered, along with Nagravision “embedded” FTA receivers,…
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GATINEAU – They compete aggressively for U.S. programs, audience share, and advertisers, but in an exceptional show of unity, executives from CTVglobemedia Inc and CanWest Global Communications sat shoulder-to-shoulder Thursday to persuade the CRTC to open up new sources of funding.
Together, the two networks argued the economic viability of conventional television is “under threat”, because of lack of fair access and fair compensation. They attacked cable and satellite distributors, saying that if their vision were adopted, they and not consumers would control television programming.
“The outcome of this review will decide who will program the remote controls of…
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