QUEBEC CITY – Remstar Corp., the future owner of the troubled Quebec TV network, TQS, caught its news staff by surprise Wednesday, announcing it intention to eliminate its entire news programming by September.
The move would eliminate 271 jobs, but put the network back on the road to financial health, officials of Remstar and the interim management committee said. The cuts would leave TQS with 210 permanent employees.
Remstar, owned by brothers Maxime and Julien Rémillard, will be applying to the CRTC in the coming days for a transfer of license, and will at the same time ask that…
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TORONTO – While calling for other Canadian companies to follow his lead and grow abroad, Cogeco Inc. CEO Louis Audet added that recent changes to certain tax rules make it far more difficult for Canadian companies to consider expanding beyond Canada.
In 2006, Cogeco acquired Portuguese cable company Cabovisao and turned it into a fine, EBITDA-producing piece of the company. Audet also added he has traveled to a total of 15 countries looking for more buys.
In a speech Monday to the Canadian Club at the Royal York hotel in Toronto, Audet targeted the federal government’s March 2007 announcement…
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OF ALL THE CONFLICTING complaints we’ve heard so far about the hearing still ongoing in Gatineau which will decide the future policies to govern specialty channels and BDUs, the question in the headline has been the most often repeated – from all sides of the debates.
The issues are so numerous, so complex, then again so connected to each other, it’s a wonder the five-member CRTC commissioner panel can make sense of everything. And there are just so many unanswered questions.
Last week at the National Association of Broadcasters convention, one couldn’t help but marvel at the utter sense…
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GATINEAU – What would have been fun, was a debate.
Day three of the CRTC hearings into BDU and specialty service regulations featured the Canadian Association of Broadcasters and Canadian Cable Systems Alliance, two groups with decidedly different constituents, and points of view, on the future policy direction of the TV industry.
The CAB represents most broadcasters in Canada who together serve basically 100% of the Canadian population. The CCSA, on the other hand, has a far smaller group of members whose companies deliver cable and broadband service to under a million rural Canadians.
While each had their turn…
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IT’S FUN TO PROGNOSTICATE. To try and read the tea leaves and make educated (or not) guesses about certain things. Sports (pro and amateur) is utterly built around such predicting, thanks to the billions of dollars bet on the games every year.
Similarly enormous amounts of money and the fate of our industry are collectively at stake beginning this week when the cable, satellite, telco and specialty broadcasting community take their turn in front of a panel of CRTC commissioners who will largely determine how the broadcast distribution undertaking and specialty services industries will be run for perhaps the…
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TORONTO – National radio sales continued its strong performance with an 8.8 % increase in the second quarter of the 2008 broadcast year, ended February 29, 2008, according to information provided by Canadian Broadcast Sales (CBS).
“Given our strength at the midpoint of the year, we continue to forecast an overall increase for national radio in this broadcast year of approximately 8%, assuming the Canadian economy remains healthy.” said Patrick Grierson, president of CBS, in a release. “We’re seeing good growth geographically, especially in the west. In Q2, the national retail category continued to lead all sectors, capturing…
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MONTREAL – Quebec film and television production company Remstar Corporation has won the bidding war for the financially troubled TQS television network.
TQS’s Board of Directors and the networks’ shareholders announced Monday their approval of Remstar’s offer, shortly after it was accepted by Quebec Superior Court Judge Pierre Journet.
The terms and the amount of the offer were not revealed, but Remstar’s co-president and CEO Maxime Rémillard said in a statement that “our business plan will take TQS beyond traditional television broadcasting. That’s how we believe we can best respond to the challenges facing the Quebec television industry.”
“We’re…
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MONTREAL – Four unnamed suitors have submitted bids for Quebec’s financially strapped TQS television network, but neither Rogers Communications nor RNC Média (Radio Nord Communications), who have been rumoured as suitors for the troubled French broadcaster, are among them.
TQS and the court-appointed controller, RSM Richter, said late Monday that four offers were received by the Monday deadline and they will be evaluated in the coming days. TQS entered bankruptcy protection in December and the courts gave the company until this week to find firm offers.
“The deposit of these four firm offers demonstrates the industry’s interest in TQS…
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OTTAWA – Minister of Industry Jim Prentice has been “about to” introduce new copyright legislation for about three months now at least, according to Ottawa sources.
Perhaps March will be the month it happens…
In the meantime, the Business Coalition for Balanced Copyright has submitted a position paper to the minister “urging the government to strike a balance in copyright reform that reflects the needs of users and creators,” says its letter.
Besides the members in the headline, the BCBC also includes smaller stakeholders like EastLink, Cogeco Cable, SaskTel, the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association and the Retail Council of…
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TORONTO – The last remaining Toronto independent cable holdout has decided to sell to the big red machine.
Rogers Cable announced this afternoon that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Aurora Cable, subject to CRTC approval. Aurora Cable provides cable television, Internet and telephony services in the Town of Aurora and the community of Oak Ridges, in Richmond Hill, Ontario.
(Ed Note: While the purchase price was not release by either company, Aurora serves approximately 16,000 customers, offering cable, digital cable, high speed Internet and voice in a wealthy demographic. Using a conservative guesstimate of $2500 per subscriber,…
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