HALIFAX and TORONTO – Children's entertainment company DHX Media is buying Family, Disney XD, and the English- and French-language Disney Junior channels from Bell Media for approximately $170 million in cash, the companies announced Thursday.
The deal comes as part of Bell Media's requirement to divest some properties to comply with regulatory body conditions attached to its acquisition of Astral Media last July. The transaction is expected to close in 2014 pending approval by the CRTC and the Competition Bureau.
"The acquisition of these high-quality Canadian channels represents an exciting new addition to DHX, one that complements and enhances all areas…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Rogers’ new 12-year $5.2 billion broadcast and multimedia deal with the NHL may have grabbed headlines across the country, but will likely have little impact on the company’s bottom line, say industry analysts.
Rogers Communications executives said Tuesday the deal will be immediately EBITDA-accretive to its Media division, predicting an influx of $25 – $35 million in the first year, rising to more than $60 million per year after that. But Dvai Ghose, managing director/head of research for Canaccord Genuity, pointed out that Rogers Media only accounted for 4% of the parent company’s 2013 third quarter adjusted EBITDA.
In…
Continue Reading
WINNIPEG – With the CRTC’s Wireless Code of Conduct set to kick in within the week, MTS said that it is putting the finishing touches on its policies to bring them in to compliance.
The company said Wednesday that as per the Code requirements, it will soon provide customers with alerts that notify them when their data use surpasses defined thresholds, in order to help customers manage their data consumption when travelling outside of Manitoba. It will also provide wireless contracts in alternative formats such as braille, large font, and PDF, upon request.
In August, the regional telco announced plans to…
Continue Reading
AT THE 2013 Canadian Telecom Summit, just a day after the CRTC released its Wireless Code of Conduct, Commission chairman Jean-Pierre Blais told delegates, essentially, what’s good for your business should be good for the customer – and vice versa.
In his June 4 speech, he quoted Mary Kay Ash, the enormously successful founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics – a brand built on direct personal relationships who said: “Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying, 'Make me feel important.' Never forget this message when working with people."
Blais went on to note: “Mary Kay…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – A coalition of American border television stations is hoping that the CRTC’s Let’s Talk TV policy initiative will help them in their quest for compensation for their over-the-air programs that are being imported and retransmitted in Canada.
The group, which includes ABC, CBS, NBC and CW affiliates in Detroit, Buffalo and Minneapolis, says it’s seeking equitable and non-discriminatory remuneration opportunities under Canada’s TV retransmission regime, as Cartt.ca has reported.
The group maintains that Canada's Broadcasting Distribution Regulations were amended in 2011 to provide retransmission consent and new remuneration rights for operators of distant Canadian TV…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – Bell has received CRTC approval to launch its own community channels via video-on-demand to select official language minority communities in Ontario and Quebec.
The Commission said Friday that it will amend the broadcasting licences for Bell’s terrestrial BDUs so that it is authorized to redirect up to 2% of its gross annual revenues derived from broadcasting activities to each of its English- and French-language community VOD channels in Hamilton/Niagara, Kingston, Kitchener, London, Oshawa, Ottawa, Peterborough, Stratford, Toronto and Windsor, and their surrounding areas, in Ontario.
In Quebec, the communities include Drummondville (region of Centre-du-Québec), Gatineau, Joliette (region of…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA-GATINEAU — The CRTC released a model of its new municipal access agreement Thursday, designed to assist municipalities and telecommunications companies navigate the installation of telecommunications infrastructure.
Municipal access agreements (MAAs) are negotiated between municipalities and telecommunication providers for access to municipal rights-of-way, such as street crossings and other municipal property, for the purposes of installing, operating, and maintaining transmission facilities.
The model agreement was developed, at the CRTC’s request, by a working group that included representatives from Canadian municipalities and the telecommunications industry. While the Commission said that the model agreement will streamline the negotiation process and reduce the likelihood…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – What is the best way to offer choice to your customers when the very act of choosing is personal and subjective?
That was the basis of a panel entitled ‘Packaging Flexibility: Customer Choice vs. Brand Investment’ at the CTAM Canada Broadcaster Forum held Wednesday in downtown Toronto. And that panel, a mix of broadcasters and distributors moderated by Rogers’ senior vice-president of content David Purdy, all agreed that Canadians’ ability to choose their own television channels was inevitable, whether mandated by the government, the Regulator, or driven by consumer demand.
“This…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – Turns out that creating actual public policy is far more complicated than a few easy sound bites about choice and protecting jobs.
While the federal government last week demanded a report from the CRTC on letting Canadians break up their subscription TV bundles by April 30th, the written direction to the CRTC from the Privy Council shows an argument that is far more complex than the throw away sentences about “protecting consumers” which were a part of the Speech from the Throne on October 16. It seems to be demanding a report on providing pick and pay without…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The federal government’s vague plans for lower wireless prices, and pick and pay TV channel packaging seem to be ploys to curry consumer favour and not in the public interests, overall, argued members of a panel at the International Institute of Communications Canada’s annual conference in Ottawa on Tuesday.
Rather, the federal Conservatives are focused on scoring political points and on short-term outcomes without considering the potential long-term ramifications of their actions on the broader Canadian public.
Richard French, a professor in international and public affairs at the University of Ottawa and former vice-chair of telecommunications at…
Continue Reading
