DENIED. We’re still surprised (and most anyone who tells you they feel otherwise is pretty much full of it).
I mean, many of us had suggested a full-on denial could happen – and the overall tone of the public hearing last month surely had some believing it was a possibility, but it was pretty difficult to find anyone who would actually say with any certainty before Thursday afternoon this deal would be nixed. The CRTC hasn’t really fully said “No” to a significant deal since Vidéotron tried to buy CFCF in the 1990s and Power Corporation wanted to buy Quebec…
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THE ASTONISHED FEEDBACK came fast and furious late Thursday as people tried to give voice to their feelings on the Commission decision to deny Bell Canada’s $3.4 billon purchase of Astral Media.
******************** “Like most observers, we had expected conditional approval,” said analyst Dvai Ghose of Canaccord Genuity in a note to clients. “This could also have implications for other potential media transactions such as Shaw-Corus, although in that case both entities are already controlled by the Shaw family. We also believe that the speculation of a Corus bid for Astral could rise and could be more palatable for regulators.
“While…
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ORLANDO – The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) board of directors has re-elected Mike LaJoie, executive vice president and CTO of Time Warner Cable, as chairman of the board for the 2012-’13 term.
In addition to LaJoie, the board elected its other officers on the eve of SCTE Cable-Tec Expo 2012. LaJoie is joined on the 2012-’13 SCTE Board’s Executive Committee by:
Vice Chairman: Terry Cordova, senior vice president and CTO, Suddenlink Communications
Secretary: Jim Hughes, senior vice president, global broadband sales, CommScope
Treasurer: Ed Marchetti, vice president, engineering/operations, Comcast Cable Communications
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MY FIRST MEETING WITH SHAW Communications president Peter Bissonnette in the winter of 1998 seems like a lifetime ago. It was in Richmond Hill, then the home base of Shaw’s substantial Ontario cable operations. I think it was February.
This was before Bissonnette was even president of the company. Before Shaw and Rogers traded their Ontario and British Columbia cable systems to each other. Before Izzy Asper and JR Shaw split up WIC (Western International Communications). Before the Shaw family spun its media assets into Corus Entertainment. Before a Jean Monty-led BCE bought CTV the first time, claiming – a…
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WHILE CONCEDING THAT THE various accusations and complaints levelled against it over the past weeks and months show a high level of “competitive and financial tension” evident in the Canadian TV business nowadays, Bell Canada told the CRTC Friday that this tension should not impact the approval of its purchase of Astral Media.
In its final written reply to the CRTC hearing into the purchase, Bell Canada insisted its decision to buy Astral Media and all of its radio stations, TV properties and other assets is in the public interest and that only by owning the…
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GRANTING BELL THE RIGHT to buy Astral Media will make an already big company that acts badly, enormous, add incentive for it act even worse, which in the end will crush competition and choice in Canada. Therefore, the deal needs to be quashed altogether or tough new rules applied to constrain the biggest player in Canadian media, say final replies to the CRTC’s public proceeding into Bell Canada’s quest to buy Astral Media.
Those last written rejoinders to the Commission’s public proceeding into Bell Canada’s purchase of Astral Media (CRTC 2012-370) from intervenors were due into the Commission on Friday,…
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I DON’T RECALL THIS question being clearly asked last week of the company executives who would block Bell Canada’s purchase of Astral Media: Why do you fear Bell would act the way you say it will?
The subject was broached a few times last week during the CRTC hearing and was sort-of asked, just not in as direct a way as we’ve put it above. The answer was given a number of times. Put simply, the executives of Quebecor, Cogeco, Rogers, EastLink and others say Bell is behaving poorly already and they fear an even bigger Bell would act as…
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MONTREAL – An American consortium of cable companies which have banded together to let their customers roam freely on each others’ Wi-Fi networks may soon gain a Canadian partner.
Earlier this year (as reported on by Cartt.ca from the Cable Show in Boston), a number of U.S. MSOs forged a new partnership to let their respective customers share 50,000 wireless hotspots for free when they travel. When traveling outside their home markets, high-speed Internet subscribers of the participating companies (Cablevision, Comcast, Cox, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House) will look for the “CableWiFi” network and through…
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TORONTO – North American wireless carriers reported strong Q2 margins, with combined wireless EBITDA service margins for Rogers, Telus, Bell, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, LEAP and MetroPCS up 342 basis points and EBITDA growth up 14.5% over the previous year. This according to figures reported in Dvai Ghose’s Canaccord Genuity Daily Letter for September 17.
He says the improved margins were driven by reduced device subsidy pressure. Wireless equipment subsidies dropped an estimated 12% in Q2 due to a “dearth of iconic device launches.” He noted that with the Samsung Galaxy S III and the iPhone 5 recently launched “we…
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TORONTO – Astral’s re-branded classic movie channels, The Movie Network Encore and The Movie Network Encore 2, launch today across Eastern Canada.
Formerly known as Mpix and MorePix, the re-branded channels have a new look and feel that more closely aligns graphically with The Movie Network, the primary brand and channel in the suite of pay services it offers says Astral. All TMN Encore and TMN Encore 2 titles are available on the SVOD service TMN Encore OnDemand, and on TMN Encore OnLine, an Internet-based content streaming service.
“By visually aligning TMN Encore and The Movie Network we are…
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