OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Canada’s broadcasting distribution companies continued to show healthy growth as the sector’s collective total revenues grew by $1.1 billion to reach $11.4 billion in 2009, according to a CRTC report.
Cable’s revenue growth slowed marginally to 11.9% last year after having increased by over 16% in both 2007 and 2008. Total revenues climbed from $8.2 billion in 2008 to $9.2 billion in 2009m while operating expenses rose by 10.6% over the same period, or from $4.6 billion to $5.1 billion.
The number of Canadian households that obtained basic-television service from a cable company grew by 2.2% to 8.1 million subscribers.
Between 2008 and 2009, total…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Just prior to announcing its new broadcast regulatory framework on Monday, the CRTC released the financials on Canada’s conventional television stations for the 2009 broadcast year.
From September 1, 2008, to August 31, 2009, private broadcasters saw their total revenues shrink by 7.9%, going from $2.14 billion in 2008 to $1.97 billion in 2009. Although operating expenses were cut by 2.4%, these broadcasters lost $116.4 million before interest and taxes over the year, which resulted in a negative profit margin of 5.9%.
In 2008, private broadcasters reported profits before interest and taxes (PBIT) of $8 million and a PBIT…
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EDMONTON – Canada’s current broadcast legislation fosters anti-competitive behaviour among the dominant cable companies, says Allarco Entertainment, owners of Canadian pay-TV service Super Channel.
In a letter to the Heritage Committee on Wednesday, the Edmonton-based company called for “ways to enforce meaningful consequences to anti-competitive behaviour” such as including administrative monetary penalties (AMPs) in the Broadcasting Act, and adding “civil remedies” for licensees that have been “harmed by breaches of regulatory obligations by Broadcast Distribution Undertakings (BDUs)”.
It also asked that the Heritage Committee acknowledge “the ineffectiveness of the present regulatory system to enable the CRTC to achieve its mission of…
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TORONTO – Launching first in a market can bring tremendous rewards, but as Wind Mobile seems to be experiencing, it can also represent a serious misstep.
Wind Mobile, the first of the new entrant wireless companies, launched service last December, but recent actions demonstrate that the company may have stepped into the market with the wrong foot.
Chief customer officer Chris Robbins left earlier this month, and then, in what seems more like an act of desperation, the company announced that it would pay $150 to potential customers to break an existing wireless contract and switch. Continue Reading
OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The highly-anticipated CRTC decision on fee-for-carriage/value-for-signal will be released this Monday.
The Commission will institute a media lock-up that afternoon at its headquarters on March 22 while it unveils the regulatory policy framework on group-based licencing of ownership groups (also known as decision 2009-411).
Cartt.ca will be there with full coverage of the decision.
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TORONTO – Mobilicity is the latest new entrant wireless carrier to find itself in the CRTC’s ownership review crosshairs, but the company’s chief executive says it is much ado about nothing.
In a letter to the Toronto-based company dated March 5th, the Commission said that while the service provider appears to comply with the legal control requirements in the Telecommunications Act, it points to a significant debt facility from foreign interests and the “sufficiently complex nature” of its ownership structure as reason to investigate whether Canadians remain in control of the company. In ‘legalese’, this is referred to…
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TORONTO – Goldman Sachs is appealing an Ontario court’s decision to allow Shaw Communications to proceed with its takeover of debt-laden CanWest Global.
The move means that the bid put forth by Toronto-based investment fund Catalyst Capital, the Asper family and former Rogers execs Rael Merson and John Tory, is still in play.
In documents filed in court this week, Goldman Sachs, which financed CanWest’s purchase of specialty channels from Alliance Atlantis back in 2007, appears to be pulling out all the stops to protect its investment, while accusing the new buyers of trying to pick up the…
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GIVEN WHAT HAS now happened since the value-for-signal/fee-for-carriage hearing, an alert reader reminded us of something CRTC commissioner Timothy Denton pondered as the folks from Shaw Communications appeared in front of the Commission panel.
Back on November 20th, the now infamous hearing visit by CEO Jim Shaw featured a lot of, well, interesting exchanges. In the official transcript the word “Laughter” appears 23 times, more than on any other day.
It also featured the word “woosa”, which we thought was something misheard by the official transcribers – until we looked it up. It means, according to urbandictionary.com, “to calm down and…
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MONTREAL – TVA blamed its modest fourth quarter growth on the economy and the continuing sluggish advertising market.
“While we are posting positive results, the potential for future growth in advertising revenues, which still account for close to 75% of the Television sector’s revenues, is severely limited in view of the economic environment and current market trends”, said president and CEO Pierre Dion, in the statement announcing the company’s financial results.
TVA reported that its consolidated operating income increased by 43.8% to $32.2 million, compared with $22.4 million in the same quarter of 2008. For the fiscal year ended December 31,…
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DARTMOUTH – Growth in its broadcasting segment helped power Newfoundland Capital Corporation (NewCap) to its “best fourth quarter ever”.
Broadcasting revenue of $29.7 million was $1.3 million or 4% better than the same quarter last year, while for the year, broadcasting revenue of $101.8 million was $2.0 million or 2% ahead of last year. The company’s Atlantic Canada radio properties and “organic” (same-station) operations accounted for primarily all of the revenue growth in the quarter and for the year, the company said.
Consolidated revenue of $30.5 million in the fourth quarter improved by 4%, and for the year ended December 31,…
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