AND ON IT GOES…
As we said earlier, while both sides of the Bell-Astral deal debate were ensconced in Montreal hotels on Sunday polishing their lines and rehearsing their delivery in advance of the CRTC hearing starting Monday morning, the SayNoToBell forces fired out one more press release Sunday afternoon.
The Quebecor-Cogeco-EastLink backed public relations campaign claimed Bell has been preventing its TV ads from airing on CTV until just now.
“Twenty-six days after being asked, CTV has finally broadcast its first television commercial opposing its parent company's ambitions to control an even greater portion of the Canadian…
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“OH, PEOPLE CAN COME UP with statistics to prove anything… 14% of people know that.” – Homer J. Simpson
Released this week, the 240-page mound of data known as the CRTC Communications Monitoring Report was reduced to a pair of press releases this week, one which purported that Bell buying Astral was a very bad and scary thing, and the other that Bell buying Astral was a very good and normal thing.
According to the Say No To Bell forces – the public relations effort put together by Quebecor, Cogeco and EastLink and co-ordinated by National Public…
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PARIS – Both Quebecor’s Pierre Karl Péladeau and Bell Canada’s Wade Oosterman will attend Mipcom this fall to deliver keynote addresses. The keynotes will be part of the Canada Country of Honour tribute presented by Mipcom, in partnership with the Canada Media Fund (CMF) and Telefilm Canada. Organised by Reed Midem, Mipcom will take place in Cannes from October 8-11, 2012.
On Monday, October 8, Péladeau, President & CEO, Québecor Inc., will share his views on how to ensure the success of TV programming in the global digital market context. The following day Oosterman, President, Bell Mobility, will expand on…
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DESPITE THE OPPOSITION to its planned purchase of Astral Media, Bell Canada remains steadfast that this deal is good for Canada and Quebec – and will foster innovation and competition to the benefit of Canadian media consumers.
In its reply comments submitted to the CRTC last week (the final paper stage before the public hearing in Montreal starting September 10th, Bell takes a hard line especially against those standing utterly opposed to its $3.4 billion purchase of the company which owns such brands as The Movie Network, Super Écran, HBO Canada, Family Channel, Virgin Radio, NRJ Radio, Rouge FM and…
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TORONTO – Canadians object to the purchase of Astral Media by Bell Canada, when told the resulting company would control 38% of the TV market and 29% of the country’s radio market, according to a poll released Friday and posted on the 'Say No To Bell' website.
In a sampling of public opinion taken this week by the Forum Poll, 6-in-10 (60%) of respondents 18 years of age and older said that they disapprove of the deal. That disapproval was highest among Ontario residents (64%), as well as federal Bloc and NDP supporters (78% and 65%, respectively). Males were more likely…
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THESE CRTC HEARINGS INTO big acquisitions have simply become giant public negotiating exercises where a lot of dirty laundry is aired in public by those who feel they’ve been wronged in the past. It becomes payback time, if you will.
The applicant – in this case, Bell Media – puts in an application that is a swing for the fences. It cocks its regulatory bat and takes a mighty swing, looking for that grand slam home run on the first pitch, where all of its proposals are accepted by the Commission – but knowing full well it’s likely to miss…
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MONTREAL – Quebecor's Videotron is making its first step toward eliminating analog cable television service throughout its network.
Last Friday, the company issued a stop-sell order for new analog television subscriptions. The end goal is the transition of its approximately 412,000 remaining analog TV customers (many of which are hotel rooms or other business customers) to the company's illico digital service.
"We need more space in the network," said Videotron vice-president Isabelle Dessureault. In areas like western Montreal, where analog cable is still prevalent, Videotron devotes about 55 of its 135 6-MHz television channels to analog service. Ending analog service completely…
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WHILE WE HAVE NO inside information to give you, we have covered enough CRTC hearings featuring the current crop of Bell executives and regulatory folks to guess at what the thrust of their presentation will be when they face the panel of CRTC commissioners in Montreal come September 10th.
They are probably going to ask what all the fuss is about. The media industry has consolidated at a rapid pace with the likes of Bell, Rogers, Shaw, and Quebecor owning significant carrier as well as media assets. With one more company, Astral Media, assimilated into Bell…
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OTTAWA – The ‘Say No To Bell’ coalition is taking issue with interventions filed by Telefilm Canada and the Terrace, BC detachment of the RCMP in support Bell’s proposed takeover of Astral Media.
In a letter addressed to Heritage Minister James Moore, the heads of Cogeco, Eastlink and Quebecor expressed surprise that the publically funded federal agencies would submit interventions that “go beyond their respective competence and mandate”.
“In our view, these federal public bodies should have known better than to take sides on this public policy debate before the federal regulators in charge of reviewing the proposed merger”, reads the letter…
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MONTREAL – Responding to widespread criticism, Bell said Wednesday that should its $3.38 billion buyout of Astral be approved, it will pony up $80 million in new funding for French-language content development in Quebec.
That new content, which Bell said would be led by the Montreal-based Astral team, will consist of French-language programming of national/international interest, new content for children and youth, and expanded TV and radio music programming, all of which will bump up Astral's current French-language content development by approximately 5% annually.
"This new content funding committed by Bell-Astral will ensure much greater viewing choice for Québec consumers…
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