CALGARY — Shaw Communications today announced its financial results for the second quarter of its 2022 fiscal year, reporting year-over-year decreases in its consolidated revenue, adjusted EBITDA and net income.
For the quarter that ended February 28, 2022, Shaw’s overall revenue decreased by 2% to $1.36 billion, adjusted EBITDA dropped slightly by 0.8% to $632 million, and net income fell 9.7% to $196 million, compared to the same quarter of fiscal 2021.
During Q2 2022, Shaw added 16,892 new wireless customers, consisting of 8,632 postpaid net additions and 8,260 prepaid additions. This is notably less than the company’s…
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QUISPAMSIS, NB — The Canadian Communication Systems Alliance (CCSA) said today it has called on the CRTC to stop Rogers Communications “from shutting down the satellite delivery of television signals to thousands of Canadians living in rural communities and the Far North.”
Just prior to the Commission’s March 24 approval of Rogers’ purchase of Shaw Communications, which includes Shaw Broadcast Services (SBS), “Shaw announced that a critical component of the SBS service, known as HITS-QT Plus, would be shut down by year end,” according to the CCSA’s press release.
The CCSA has been calling on the…
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By Douglas Barrett
AS BILL C-11 WENDS its stately way though the legislative process, one issue crops up that has seemingly not been batted about before in the context of the new legislation. And it’s a pretty basic one: the definition of a Canadian program.
Both the current Broadcasting Act and Bill C-10 authorized the CRTC to determine by regulation “what constitutes a Canadian program for the purposes of the Act.” In a new approach, Bill C-11 in section 10(1.1) requires that in making such regulations the Commission “shall consider” five specific policy questions. As many as three of those questions,…
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Despite ongoing concerns from Canadians
By Amanda OYE
IT WAS NOT that long ago a major topic of discussion in the country was concern about the authorized distribution of the Russian state-funded English-language channel RT.
Cartt.ca readers will recall Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez tweeted to say the government was also concerned and looking into its options. Soon after, service providers began dropping the channel from their channel lineups.
Within the week, the government passed a motion to order the CRTC to “hold a hearing to determine whether RT (formerly known as Russia Today) and RT France (collectively RT) should be…
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By Howard Law
IT’S FIVE YEARS since the Public Policy Forum published The Shattered Mirror calling for Facebook and Google to become major funders of the journalism ecosystem that their digital advertising oligopoly impoverished.
Bill C-18 the Online News Act will do just that. The legislation is about a year behind the Liberal government’s schedule, having been derailed last spring by the Conservative filibuster of the Netflix Bill C-10 and a federal election.
That unanticipated delay after years of lobbying by news publishers discouraged most of them enough to sign take-it-or-leave-it deals with Google and Facebook on compensation for…
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Also proposes $5M for new Changing Narratives Fund
OTTAWA – While Minister of Canadian Heritage Pablo Rodriguez has sought to reassure Canadians the CRTC will have the resources it needs to take on the new responsibilities proposed for it in the recently introduced Bills C-11 and C-18, today’s budget provides a few actual details.
Tabled by the federal government today, Budget 2022 proposes to provide the CRTC with $8.5 million over two years, beginning in 2022-2023, “to establish a new legislative and regulatory regime to require digital platforms that generate revenues from the publication of news content to…
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WIND MOBILE FOUNDER Anthony Lacavera (above) wants Canadians (and the federal government) to know he knows they deserve better.
In an open letter posted to his website, Lacavera argues Canada now has the “opportunity to permanently solve our decades-old mobile competition problem.”
That opportunity, of course, is centred around the sale of Freedom Mobile.
Early last month, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry François-Philippe Champagne issued a statement saying he would not allow Rogers Communications to acquire all of Shaw Communications’ wireless licences.
Rogers’ acquisition of Shaw requires approval from ISED, the Competition Bureau and the CRTC. (The CRTC is the…
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OTTAWA – With lots of people busy posting spicy takes on the federal government’s recently introduced Bill C-18, it is worth a reminder we are coming up on a year since two major CRTC decisions were issued.
The first is the CRTC’s decision on mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), issued April 15, 2021, and the second is its decision on wholesale Internet rates, issued May 27, 2021.
Both have proved controversial, and CRTC chair Ian Scott has found himself in the position of defending each decision on multiple occasions in the past year. (You can catch up on…
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ISED says the initiative helps “Canadians who need it most”
WHILE THIS WEEK’S news the federal government has officially launched Connecting Families 2.0 was welcomed by some, critics believe the federal government is not doing enough to ensure Canadians have access to affordable Internet.
Connecting Families, which first launched in 2018 and expanded this month, is a federal government initiative to support access to affordable high-speed Internet in Canada.
When it first started it gave eligible low-income families access to a broadband subscription with a minimum download speed of 10 Mbps and a minimum of 100 GB of data per…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC yesterday initiated a show cause proceeding and call for comments on the use of the term “manufacturer’s suggested retail price” (MSRP) in the Wireless Code.
The CRTC is examining the term after Quebecor submitted a letter to the Commission last March, which claimed it had observed Bell, Rogers (RCCI) and Telus “appear to be inflating the retail price of their mobile devices,” the CRTC’s notice of consultation says.
The retail price of mobile devices is relevant to the fees consumers are on the hook for if they terminate their wireless contracts early.
Termination costs are limited “to the…
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