MONTREAL – "Looking at the performance of our divisions, the television group recorded very strong growth for the quarter with subscriber-related revenues up 9% and advertising revenues increasing by 13% over the same period last year," said Astral Media president and CEO Ian Greenberg in today’s press release on the company’s third quarter financial peformance.
Consolidated net earnings for the first nine months of fiscal 2007, ended May 31st, increased by 9% over last year, rising to $93.1 million ($1.76 per basic share). Consolidated net earnings for the third quarter increased by 8% over the same quarter last year,…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – John Traversy and Paul Godin have been promoted at the CRTC.
Traversy is the new director general, consumer affairs, policy and telemarketing while Godin is now director general, competition, costing and tariffs, telecommunications. Both appointments are the result of a competitive process and are effective immediately and both men had been serving in those roles but only as acting directors.
Traversy and Godin have spent many years at the Commission. Traversy came to the telecom side after years in the Commission’s broadcasting sector and had been director, strategic research and economic analysis in the industry analysis, economics…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Offering local telephone service just might be working out for Canadian cable operators.
For anyone paying attention to the increasingly positive results for Canadian cable operators of late, the CRTC’s figures on the industry, released today, will come as no surprise.
Total revenues for cable companies passed $6 billion in 2006, a 12% increase over 2005. Subscribers also grew and profits before interest and taxes (PBIT) for cable companies totalled $1.4 billion in 2006, and the PBIT margin was 22.92%.
However, within the report itself on the Commission’s site, comparisons from year to year are not…
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TORONTO – As long as it doesn’t mean opening up the border to American cable channels, Corus Entertainment president and CEO John Cassaday says he’s okay with the CRTC dumping its policy of one specialty channel per genre.
In a conference call this afternoon with financial analysts discussing the company’s strong third quarter results, Cassaday touched on the company’s positioning with several regulatory proceedings under way.
"Our view is Canadian competition is fine and will improve the system," said Cassaday. He added he is opposed to allowing American channels in because they will not be subject to the same…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – With a number of important, high profile files in front of the Commission, and one long-time CRTC staffer headed towards retirement, Scott Hutton, associate executive director of broadcasting announced some people moves on Friday.
Nick Ketchum, the Commission’s senior director of television policy and applications, is considering retirement but has agreed to stay on through the end of the year to lead the Diversity of Voices proceeding as well as to help address ongoing Canadian Television Fund (CTF) issues. He will continue to report to Hutton as senior director, broadcasting policy.
However, “for both succession planning…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Remember 1997? Almost nobody had the Internet and even fewer had satellite TV. Digital cable barely existed. VOD was a lab engineers dream. HD was nowhere to be found and PVR still only meant player value ranking.
Tier III, with such brands as The Score, HGTV, History Television, and Teletoon, launched that fall. Titanic was the top-grossing film. Worldcom and MCI had announced their $37 billion dollar merger (which, of course, failed spectacularly and helped marked years of doom for telecom and related stocks), and we were all glued to our news channels for a time that…
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TORONTO – The OMNI brand will live on in Vancouver after all. Rogers Media announced today that it will buy the city’s multicultural station, Channel M, from Multivan.
The acquisition of Channel M will significantly expand Rogers’ ethnic television operations into the rather diverse lower Vancouver mainland and Vancouver Island markets, which are home to three million residents.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The station will copy Rogers’ successful multicultural stations in Toronto, branded OMNI. Once the deal is done, Channel M will become OMNI. Right now, Rogers owns an OMNI-branded station in Vancouver, but it…
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OTTAWA – CanWest Media Works Inc. is arguing CRTC approval of its $2.3 billion acquisition of Alliance Atlantis Communications would “create a viable and healthy competitor for CTVglobemedia in the domestic broadcasting television sector.”
The Winnipeg-based broadcaster also tells the CRTC to view the purchase as “both a reflection of, and response to, changing dynamics, trends and technologies in the domestic and international media industry (esp. a rapidly fractured media landscape; changing viewing patterns and erosion of media boundaries).”
The comments were made in CanWest’s application seeking CRTC approval of the acquisition. The documents were made public Friday, when…
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DARTMOUTH, N.S – The CRTC today granted two new radio station licenses to Newfoundland Capital Corporation’s Newcap Inc. to serve Sydney and Kentville.
The company also received approval from the CRTC earlier this week to convert its existing AM licence to FM in Carbonear, NL.
“These new licences in Nova Scotia represent our entry into the Sydney and Kentville markets and we are eager to serve each by giving an additional voice to community groups and local organizations there. We will launch these new FM stations and convert the Carbonear, NL station to the FM band as soon as…
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TORONTO – "The best that can be said about this report is that the Task Force has not recommended to scrap the CTF altogether," said ACTRA national executive director Stephen Waddell in a press release.
That, and it "will change the broadcast distribution regulations to ensure cable companies pay regularly into the fund," he said.
Waddell was talking about the CRTC’s Task Force Report on the Canadian Television Fund, released Friday, as reported by Cartt.ca. The task force, led by Commission vice-chair, broadcasting, Michel Arpin, confirmed the need for the fund’s existence, but called for massive changes in how…
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