OTTAWA – Bell’s proposed takeover of Astral Media will undergo regulatory scrutiny at a hearing set for September 10 at the Palais de congrès de Montréal in Montreal, the CRTC announced Tuesday.
The $3.38 billion deal, announced in March, would see Bell acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares of Montreal-based Astral in addition to its specialty and pay television channels, radio stations, digital media properties and out-of-home advertising platforms. That would mean that Bell, already the country’s largest telecommunications company, would add 22 specialty television channels (13 of which are French-language) and 84 commercial radio stations, including 29…
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MONTREAL – Bell Media has asked the CRTC for permission to flip one of its Montreal radio stations from one official language to the other.
The company said Tuesday that it has filed an application with the Commission asking to convert TSN Radio 990 to RDS Radio 990 as a result of its pending acquisition of Astral Media. The CRTC’s commercial radio policy limits the ownership of multiple radio stations in a given market.
An extension of Bell Media’s French-language sports channel RDS, RDS Radio 990 will air “comprehensive coverage of the Montreal sports scene, along with best-in-class analysis from RDS sports…
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TORONTO – Canada’s public broadcaster has a key role to play, perhaps even more vital in this era of vertical integration, but it needs the Local Program Improvement Fund and “a flexible regulatory framework" to continue to do so.
That was the gist of an address given Thursday afternoon by CBC/Radio-Canada president and CEO Hubert Lacroix at the Economic Club of Canada in Toronto.
In his first public address since the federal government handed the Corp. $115 million in budget cuts this spring, Lacroix wasted no time in taking issue with the popular refrain that CBC, which receives about $1 billion from…
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MONTREAL – Astral Media shareholders nearly unanimously approved the $3.5 billion planned takeover of the company by BCE Inc.
In a special meeting of shareholders held Thursday in Montreal, the deal was approved by 99.8% of the votes cast by holders of Class A non-voting shares, 99.9% of the votes cast by holders of Class B subordinate voting shares, and 100% of the votes cast by holders of special shares of Astral.
The acquisition, originally announced in March, remains subject to regulatory and court approvals. The Quebec Superior Court will examine the deal at a hearing scheduled for Friday.
“This enthusiastic support aptly reflects the…
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MONTREAL – Quebecor saw its first quarter profits jump 52%, however, the majority of the increase was due to a “favourable variance in gain on valuation and translation of financial instruments” rather than the performance of its business units.
Revenues for the quarter ended March 31st were $1.06 billion, up 7.4% year-over-year from $990.5 million, while operating income rose 9.5% to $322.2 million from $294.3 million. Net income attributable to shareholders was $72.9 million over $34.3 million last year.
It’s Videotron subsidiary saw revenues grow by more than 10% to $645.8 million, led by a 9.1% increase in combined cable television revenues due primarily to customer base…
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MONTREAL – Quebec government fees were to blame for a quarterly net loss of $39.3 million, TVA Group said Tuesday in its financial results for the period ended March 31, 2012. Net income attributable to shareholders in the same quarter last year was $300,000.
The Quebecor-owned television and magazine company recorded a $32.2 million impairment charge this quarter related to increased fees for waste recovery services provided by Quebec municipalities for 2010, 2011 and 2012. President and CEO Pierre Dion hinted that the company may dispute the charges.
“In our view, the costs put forward, how they are allocated and the new…
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CAMBRIDGE, ON – The CRTC must move beyond its traditional “gatekeeper” approach to broadcasting to one that offers more flexibility and ensures “that the players in the broadcasting industry have all the oxygen they need to make the system flourish”, according to the Commission’s broadcasting vice-chair, Tom Pentefountas.
In a speech at the annual Broadcasting Invitational Summit in Cambridge late last week, Pentefountas advocated for a “less dogmatic approach to regulation” that takes advantage of "innovation from both the business and creative communities”.
“The Regulator should lay out the lines of the big picture, and leave it to the members of…
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by Steve Faguy
GATINEAU – It's the most important decision about private French-language television in Canada in years, but the CRTC's renewal of licenses for major broadcasters contained few surprises.
On Thursday, the CRTC renewed broadcasting licenses for Quebecor's Groupe TVA, Astral Media and the independent specialty channel Canal Évasion. The Commission also reviewed the licenses of the V network (formerly TQS), which was given exceptional relief from its regulatory obligations in 2008 when purchased by its current ownership while in bankruptcy. For the most part, the decisions were based on proposals made during discussions at the hearings in Montreal in…
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OTTAWA – Shaw Communications has received CRTC approval to buy out the half of specialty channels Mystery and The Cave that it doesn't already own.
Both English-language category A channels are currently jointly controlled by Shaw Communications and Quebecor’s TVA Group. In its decision, the Commission valued Mystery at approximately $36 million and The Cave (formerly known as Men TV) at just over $4 million.
The Commission also approved Shaw’s request to spread out the payment of its tangible benefits associated with the transactions over the next seven broadcast years, and to renew the channels’ broadcasting licences through August 31,…
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Perry Hoffman
GATINEAU – Telcos Telus and MTS Allstream are urging the CRTC to remove vertically integrated broadcasters/distributors from eligibility under the Local Programming Improvement Fund (LPIF).
While Rogers, Shaw and Quebecor all want the LPIF program eliminated, Bell Media Inc. is neither for or against continuing the program. However, each have local stations who are collectively getting millions from the LPIF fund.
Ann Mainville-Neeson, director of broadcast regulation at Telus, noted during her opening remarks, that of the large vertically integrated providers, only Bell is clinging to LPIF despite the fact that it could save more than $1 million if the…
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