MONTREAL – It's the darling of the Canadian telecom field these days among Bay Streeters, and Telus again had a strong quarter, posting a 13% increase in quarterly profit in its Q1 results released Thursday as it added tens of thousands of new wireless and IPTV customers.
It’s wireless ARPU has grown to over $60 a month and the price of its newly split shares is on the rise. Churn is down, customer satisfaction is up, wireline revenues are increasing, and dividend payouts are growing for investors. According to EVP and chief…
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MONTREAL – Spend long enough in a hearing room and you’ll zone out for a bit. Yes, we admit, it’s happened to us. “I wonder if we’ll be done in time for the hockey game… I really have to cut the grass when I get home…”
Then, one or more of the parties says something that makes you say: Did he/she just say that? Sometimes those moments make it into a story. Other times, not. Here are a few of those other times: ************************* DURING ITS INTERVENTION on Tuesday, Rogers SVP of video content David Purdy told commissioners he sees…
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Story and photo by Steve Faguy
MONTREAL – After Telus, Rogers, EastLink, Cogeco and Quebecor, the last word on Bell’s failed relationship with competing BDUs went to the little guys. And they had some eye-opening facts and figures to back up their claims that Bell isn’t playing fair.
“We are not here to engage in regulatory arbitrage,” said Jim Deane, chair of the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance, which represents about 115 small cable companies across Canada. “CCSA members are fighting for their lives.”
Speaking as one of the final interveners in the hearing over Bell Canada?s proposed purchase of Astral Media, the…
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MONTREAL – In a lengthy appearance before the CRTC commissioners on Wednesday (more than twice as long as either Rogers or Telus the day prior) Cogeco Cable left no doubt where it stood on the question of Bell Canada buying Astral Media: There can be no compromises, no new regulatory caveats that make this deal palatable, and so the merger must be denied. Again.
Cogeco’s argument was similar to the one EastLink made earlier on Wednesday, but the Montreal-based cable and radio firm offered up more detail. CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais has asked the opposing interveners Tuesday and Wednesday for…
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Story and photo by Steve Faguy
MONTREAL – Maintaining the CRTC has no alternative but to "categorically refuse" Bell's purchase of Astral Media, Quebecor refused to provide the Commission with a list of assets that the combined company should be forced to divest if the transaction is approved.
"If approved, such a project would inevitably create prejudicial repercussions for consumers, the public interest, broadcasting policy, the Canadian broadcasting system and the Canadian companies that work in it," Quebecor CEO Robert Dépatie told the commissioners on Wednesday morning during its appearance as an intervener. Joined by TVA group president Pierre Dion and…
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MONTREAL – Interveners told the CRTC Tuesday that just because Bell Canada has decided it will spin off a few TV assets with this latest attempt to purchase Astral Media, that doesn’t make the deal any better for Canadians, or for them.
“This second application raises the very same concerns in the English-language television market,” Rogers SVP regulatory Ken Engelhart told commissioners on Tuesday morning. “The acquisition of Astral’s premium pay television services will threaten diversity and endanger the ability of distributors to deliver programming to Canadians at affordable rates and on reasonable terms on multiple platforms.
So for Rogers, the…
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HALIFAX – Nova Scotia and PEI is introducing 10-digit dialling for all phone calls on August 23, 2014, as part of preparations to pave the way for a new 782 area code in November 2014.
The growing demand for services is driving the increase in demand for phone numbers in the region. A CRTC decision on the issue required the changes to 10-digit dialing for all wireline and wireless local calls. This dialing method allows for the introduction of a new area code that will create millions of new phone numbers as the 902 area code…
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MONTREAL – Bell Canada and Astral Media executives attempted a bit more of a conciliatory approach in presenting its new, sharper, different, application to the CRTC which seeks permission to bring the two companies together under changed conditions compared to last time; but the questions from the panel of commissioners were equally as tough as the first go-around in September 2012.
(The details of the deal – already approved by the Competition Bureau, can be found here – and the company’s opening presentation unveiled nothing new, as demanded by the CRTC. So, the real story was…
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MONTREAL – An advocacy group led by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) told the CRTC today it should reject a second attempt at a Bell-Astral merger because it would further erode competition in the Canadian media market that’s already dominated by a select few large players.
PIAC made the comments before the Commission as part of a week-long hearing examining the proposed merger, representing the Consumers’ Association of Canada (CAC), the Council of Senior Citizens’ Organization of British Columbia (COSCO), the National Pensioners and Senior Citizens Federation (NPSCF), and Option consommateurs.
The group…
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MONTREAL – As part of its application to buy Astral Media, BCE is asking for an exception to the CRTC's common ownership policy that would allow it to own an extra English-language radio station in Montreal. This would allow it to keep sports talk station CKGM (TSN Radio 690) while buying three Astral stations. Without it, Bell says it will be forced to sell the station or turn in its licence.
But during questioning on Monday at a hearing in Montreal, commissioner Suzanne Lamarre floated the idea of another option: forcing Bell to keep CKGM in its current format and…
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