MONTREAL – It was almost a game of regulatory Call Of Duty for Bell Canada on Friday as company executives brandished figurative pistols to whack as many of its enemies claims as it could while defending its position on its deal to buy Astral Media for $3.38 billion.
While the company recommitted itself to providing everything it promised earlier in the week, and reiterated how the combined company’s level of ownership and audience share would not “come anywhere close to any reasonable or customary assessment of dominance in any developed country,” said…
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MONTREAL – It's rare to witness tempers flare in the public forum that is a CRTC hearing, but observers saw Cogeco Inc. CEO Louis Audet at his passionate best Wednesday afternoon, ripping a deal he says should be wholly quashed, whatever the consequences.
A combined Bell-Astral would have too much power in TV, too much power in radio and that level of ownership of concentration must be denied because it is not in the public interest, the CEO said, many times, when he faced the panel of commissioners. “We’ve arrived at a crossroads at this hearing you are holding this…
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MONTREAL – Sometimes it’s hard to put a finger on the reasons why we decide to pull something out of the tens of thousands of words spoken at CRTC hearings and turn it into a story.
Other times, such as Cogeco Cable CEO Louis Audet’s focused, furious appearance Wednesday, it’s easy to figure out why we cover some submissions instead of others…
We know everyone works hard on their presentations and the job they all do is commendable. However, as I often tell people, we can’t write about everyone. That said, there are frequent portions in every CRTC hearing that stick…
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MONTREAL – We have a real soft spot in our hearts for those regular citizens, the ones with no industry background, with nothing to gain financially, who are concerned enough about a broadcasting or telecom, issue before the CRTC that they choose to appear publicly to make their case officially.
A few years ago, it was Ottawa’s Marjorie Lemieux at the fee-for-carriage kerfuffle. Thursday in Montreal it was Rahul Majumdar, just a regular Montrealer who doesn’t want to see TSN Radio 690 (formerly 990) turn into RDS Radio. The Montreal sports fan bears the French sports…
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MONTREAL – "Do you know what I did for my summer holidays?" CRTC chair Jean-Pierre Blais asked rhetorically to Bell Media on Tuesday. "I didn't have summer holidays. I read interventions."
Blais held up a large binder with the 774 interventions, most of them by individuals, filed in response to an application by Bell to convert Montreal all-sports AM station CKGM (TSN Radio 690, formerly 990) from English to French. “There are nine volumes like this,” Blais (pictured below on CPAC.ca holding up that binder) said of the 774 interventions filed in relation to this application.
The Commission skeptically grilled Bell…
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MONTREAL – There’s little doubt of who’s the biggest fish in the Quebec media pond. Quebecor CEO Pierre Karl Peladeau is a rock star here, drawing reporters, photographers and others like kids to free candy floss.
We’re hard pressed to think of an executive in English Canadian media whose mere arrival at a CRTC hearing would be akin to a red carpet walk, as the assemblage of shooters blasted away when Péladeau walked in with Group TVA president Pierre Dion and Vidéotron president Robert Dépatie. After their appearance a the hearing, more than a dozen microphones and numerous still and…
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MONTREAL ? With a three-hour break mid-day (we were told someone had to go to a funeral, so quit complaining&), yesterday?s long hearing day featured a ton of back and forth between Bell executives and the panel of CRTC commissioners.
Long lovely narratives explaining each exchange would be nice but time restraints mean we?re going for the bullets only of some of the highlights. We think we?ve hit some of the main points with our bulleted rundown here.
* In his first public appearance as chair of the CRTC, Jean-Pierre Blais acquitted himself well, nailing a few biting comments throughout the…
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WHILE BOTH SIDES OF the Bell-Astral deal debate were ensconced in Montreal hotels on Sunday polishing their lines and rehearsing their delivery in advance of the CRTC hearing starting Monday morning, the SayNoToBell forces fired out one more press release Sunday afternoon.
The Quebecor-Cogeco-EastLink backed public relations campaign claimed Bell has been preventing its TV ads from airing on CTV until just now.
“Twenty-six days after being asked, CTV has finally broadcast its first television commercial opposing its parent company's ambitions to control an even greater portion of the Canadian broadcasting space,” says the Say No press release which was headlined:…
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AND ON IT GOES…
As we said earlier, while both sides of the Bell-Astral deal debate were ensconced in Montreal hotels on Sunday polishing their lines and rehearsing their delivery in advance of the CRTC hearing starting Monday morning, the SayNoToBell forces fired out one more press release Sunday afternoon.
The Quebecor-Cogeco-EastLink backed public relations campaign claimed Bell has been preventing its TV ads from airing on CTV until just now.
“Twenty-six days after being asked, CTV has finally broadcast its first television commercial opposing its parent company's ambitions to control an even greater portion of the Canadian…
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MONTREAL – The SayNoToBell.ca campaigners claim that nearly 50,000 Canadians, both consumers and industry leaders, have signed their petition urging the CRTC and government to deny the Bell/Astral merger. CRTC hearings into the proposed deal are poised to begin next week.
SayNoToBell.ca says 42 of the 60 interveners to be heard have already publicly opposed the deal or questioned the transaction. Notable industry presentations include:
• Québécor – Monday, September 10
• Eastlink – Tuesday, September 11
• Cogeco Cable – Wednesday, September 12
• Rogers Communications – Wednesday, September 12
• Telus – Wednesday, September 12
• Canadian Cable Systems Alliance – Friday, September 14
Notable…
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