OTTAWA – The Communications Energy and Paperworkers Union, Canada’s largest media union, said today it is consulting lawyers to explore avenues of appeal of the CRTC CanWest/Alliance deal, announced late yesterday by the CRTC.
"This is an appalling decision which skirts foreign ownership regulations based on a financial rationale that would bring a grin to the face of Karlheinz Schreiber," said Peter Murdoch vice-president media for CEP.
"We are not going to sit back and let the CRTC sell off Canada’s broadcasting industry to the U.S. The decision is a violation of the Broadcasting Act and we expect…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – CanWest Global’s uniquely structured deal to acquire the broadcasting assets of Alliance Atlantis was approved late Thursday by the CRTC.
CanWest is buying the 13 specialty channels owned by Alliance Atlantis (BBC Canada, BBC Kids, Discovery Health, Fine Living, Food Network Canada, HGTV, History Television, Independent Film Channel Canada, National Geographic Channel, Showcase, Showcase Action, Showcase Diva, and Slice ) for about $1.4 billion. The deal also includes the acquisition of partial ownership in The Score, One: Body, Mind and Spirit, Historia and Series+.
The acquisition is being financed through debt, $260 million from CanWest and…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – A newly established consumer agency, the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services, was given a conditional go-ahead by the CRTC this Thursday afternoon.
"We are very pleased that the industry came together to establish this consumer agency so quickly," said Konrad von Finckenstein, chairman of the CRTC, in a press release. "It will provide residential and small business customers with an effective, accessible and consumer-friendly recourse when they are unable to resolve a disagreement with their service provider."
As reported by Cartt.ca, the agency was launched on a provisional basis in July 2007. During the first…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – Bell Canada has won a five-year contract to run the newly established National Do Not Call List (DNCL), the CRTC announced today.
The company was the only bidder that was compliant with the requirements of the Request for Proposal.
Bell Canada will be responsible for registering numbers, providing telemarketers with up-to-date versions of the list, and receiving consumer complaints about telemarketing calls.
In addition, Bell Canada will operate the National DNCL using the fees that telemarketers will pay to subscribe to the list. The contract stipulates that the list should be launched by September 30, 2008.
Once…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – CanWest Global’s unusually structured deal to acquire the broadcasting assets of Alliance Atlantis was approved today by the CRTC.
CanWest is buying the 13 specialty channels owned by Alliance Atlantis (BBC Canada, BBC Kids, Discovery Health, Fine Living, Food Network Canada, HGTV, History Television, Independent Film Channel Canada, National Geographic Channel, Showcase, Showcase Action, Showcase Diva, and Slice ) for about $1.4 billion.
The deal also includes the acquisition of partial ownership in The Score, One: Body, Mind and Spirit, Historia and Series+.
The acquisition is being financed through debt, $260 million from CanWest and $650…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – The CRTC has scheduled a public hearing into the transfer of Bell Canada Enterprise’s broadcast licenses to an Investor Group led by Teachers Private Capital, Providence Equity partners, Madison Dearborn and Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity.
Since Teachers owns 25% of CTVglobemedia and BCE owns 15% of the media company (bringing the new company’s CTVgm stake to 40%) and all of Bell ExpressVu, the Commission must approve this part of the transaction to ensure, among other things, that non-Canadians don’t control those assets.
While the overall price tag on taking Bell private is $39.8 billion, the deal…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – Right now, we would just call it “rumoured rumblings,” so one can never tell the veracity of the statements, but sources tell Cartt.ca they believe a decision from the CRTC on the CanWest Global purchase of Alliance Atlantis could come as early as Thursday.
What we do know is that CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein was pushing staff to get the decision done and released prior to the end of 2007 – and the timing of a release this week would place it right in the range of other 2007 broadcasting acquisition decisions. For example, the regulator…
Continue Reading
MONTREAL – Seems as though in the burgeoning new media world, holding a broadcast license is less of “a license to print money.”
Quebec broadcaster TQS today said it has “obtained an order by Québec Superior Court under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act with a view to protecting TQS and its subsidiaries from claims by creditors and allow it to reorganize its operations,” in the official press release.
In other words, TQS – a broadcaster 60%-owned by Cogeco Inc, and 40% by CTVglobemedia, is now under bankruptcy protection.
Issued for a period of 30 days, the order also applies…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – There are two large cable operators based in the province of Quebec, but each have their own different ideas of where growth will come from.
One, Videotron, envisions building itself into an important wireless player. The other, Cogeco Cable, has so far shunned wireless investments in favor of pursuing growth outside of North America.
Its 2006 acquisition of Cabovisao, which now serves over 300,000 customers in Portugal has been nothing but positive for the company as revenue and margins have risen throughout 2007. The integration of the new division is now complete.
The company launched digital cable…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – Shaw Communications has told the CRTC it will implement high definition simultaneous substitution as the Commission has previously told it to.
A December 7th letter to the Commission says the HD sim-subbing Shaw Cable and Star Choice weren’t doing, will begin being done by December 31st. Two weeks prior to that letter the CRTC set a January 15th, 2008 hearing date for Shaw to appear and explain its non-compliance.
After a complaint filed by the Canadian Association of Broadcasters in June that said neither Shaw Cablesystems nor its sister satellite company Star Choice were performing their…
Continue Reading
