OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Canada’s TV distributors generated $8.95 billion in revenues in 2007, according to the CRTC’s statistical and financial summaries for Canadian broadcasting distribution companies released Wednesday.
The cable companies accounted for $7.1 billion of the total, while direct-to-home satellite and wireless cablecos brought in $1.85 billion.
Cable revenues were up 16.1% to $7.1 billion in 2007 from $6.1 billion a year earlier, according to the data. The number of basic cable subscribers increased 2.3% to 7.65 million from 7.48 million during that period.
This sector’s profits before interest and taxes (PBIT) rose 10% to $1.5 billion in 2007…
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OTTAWA – The Supreme Court of Canada on Tuesday reserved judgement on an appeal of the $53-million takeover of BCE Inc. by a consortium, including the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.
BCE took the case to the Supreme Court after some investors in Bell Canada successfully convinced a Quebec Court of Appeal that the acquisition did not adequately consider the impact on Bell bondholders. The Quebec Court of Appeal rendered its decision in favour of the bondholders on May 21.
BCE subsidiary Bell Canada is guaranteeing the $34 billion needed to finance the deal, but the bondholders contend that Bell…
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TORONTO – Industries have converged. Companies have converged. It’s about time the laws and regulations covering the telecom and broadcast worlds converged, too.
That’s the message CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein brought to delegates today at the 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit. (Ed note: This story is a compendium of von Finckenstein’s written text and his verbal comments during the speech.)
After outlining a number of changes implemented and challenges overcome in the past 12 months on the telecom file, the chairman noted that with all that is changing in the industries the CRTC oversees, the Commission is bound by two…
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WINNIPEG – Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) CEO Jean LaRose praises the CRTC for seeking to “strike a fair middle ground” in its recommendations on how to fix the Canadian Television Fund (CTF).
He added that he’s pleased that the regulator recognized the “special place” that APTN has in meeting the goal of the Broadcasting Act of reflecting the country’s Aboriginal people.
The CRTC recommended that APTN be permitted to tap into both the public sector and private sector streams it is suggesting be created. The CRTC’s suggests APTN get one-third of its funding from the public sector side…
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QUISPAMSIS, NB – The Canadian Cable Systems Alliance (CCSA) conference and annual meeting, including a bulk purchasing trade show, is set for September 21-22 in Mont-Tremblant, Quebec.
The event is an opportunity for CCSA members, programmers, equipment suppliers and other delegates to discuss industry needs and learn about hot topics. The topics of formal presentations on September 22 have not yet been released, but the day also features the trade show, board meeting, CRTC reception for CCSA members only, and a dinner hosted by the board of directors.
The President’s Reception is on September 21, while golf at Le…
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BANFF – Government policy for real new media, including social networks, should not focus on culture, but instead on industrial development, Telus recommends in a white paper on new media released during the Banff World Television Festival.
This approach will provide the flexibility needed to harness the opportunities of new media, suggests the report, entitled “A Friendly Future for New Media.”
“There are huge economic opportunities with new media. We should think about the world as a whole as the market for new media content,” said Telus vice-president of wireless, broadband and content policy Michael Hennessy.
The big western…
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BANFF – Former CHUM president and CEO Jay Switzer and former Standard Broadcasting president and CEO Gary Slaight are among a group of Canadian broadcast executives who have invested $5 million in GlassBOX Television, which runs digital specialty service Bite TV.
Other executives contributing the new venture and strategic capital to GlassBOX are former Alliance Atlantis Communications executive managing director of international television Ted Riley, former XM Radio Canada president and COO Stephen Tapp, and former QuickPlay executive Raja Khanna.
Khanna was named co-CEO of GlassBOX. Tapp, who also headed Chum Television, will be an advisor to the company…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC said today that while many things should change about the Canadian Television Fund, Shaw Communications and Quebecor Media still have to pay into it – and in a timely manner.
And, while the Commission also said it would alter the BDU regs to make monthly contributions to the CTF mandatory, the report says it won’t make that move until the federal government has dealt with the substantive issues covered by the report.
That means distributors could still choose to withhold monthly payments in favour of quarterly or annual ones until Heritage Minister Josee Verner and…
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GATINEAU – Count commissioner Michel Morin as someone who isn’t buying Canadian independent television producers’ traditional “poor me” stance.
In his dissent against a piece of the CRTC’s report to the federal cabinet on the $250 million Canadian Television Fund, Morin ripped the public image of those independent producers and called for more accountability on how they spend the 75% of CTF they are guaranteed.
“(T)he Auditor General put in words what everyone had known for more than a decade: the famous 75% quota allocated to independent producers has not lived up to expectations, as they have invested next…
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WHEN IT COMES TO reading the CRTC, or predicting, or crystal-balling, everyone resorts to their own brand of “reading the tea leaves.”
So take what we have to say next with a grain of salt (hmm, that’s three clichés in less than 50 words, so we’d better get to it!).
Yesterday’s Canadian Television Fund recommendations from the CRTC came with a dissent written by commissioner Michel Morin. As we report here, he was defending Quebecor Media Inc.’s proposal for a new fund aimed solely at producing more French dramatic television and multiplatform content.
In defense of QMI’s TVA and…
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