MONTREAL – Shovels hit dirt today in Montreal as Quebecor began construction on a new 19-story office building which will house Videotron and Canoe by 2008.
The $36 million, 145,000 sq.-ft. structure will be built right beside the company’s existing head office at 612 Saint-Jacques Street in Montreal.
The expansion, by building a new office tower, is the best option for meeting the 2007 deadline to relocate most of Quebecor’s employees, who currently occupy 300 Viger Street East – Videotron’s long-time HQ – in Montreal, said the company in a release on Thursday.
This group of employees from the…
Continue Reading
WE ALL KNOW SUN TV (formerly Toronto 1) has had a terribly rough go of it since its launch in September of 2003.
Maybe the CRTC shouldn’t have granted a license for this one. Craig Media got it, went deep into debt to launch it – so deep it had to sell the whole company to get out of it. So, CHUM Ltd. bought Craig, keeping the A-Channels and selling off the new Toronto stick to Quebecor Media – owners of the super-popular broadcaster TVA in Quebec – and a company which has been looking for a way into…
Continue Reading
MONTREAL – On Friday, Quebecor Media’s TVA Group announced a net loss of $2.7 million for the first quarter of 2006, well off its Q1 2005 result – net income of $2.9 million.
The decline was due in large part to the 7.3% decrease in advertising revenues for the company’s television sector and to the reduced profitability of its publishing sector, said the company’s press release.
TVA reported an operating loss of $400,000 for the quarter, against operating income of $6.8 million for the same year-ago period.
"Market fragmentation, the staging of the Winter Olympics and a difficult advertising…
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Mega-popular web site CANOE and newspaper The Toronto Sun are still more popular than television channel SUN TV, so it only makes sense the corporation is using all of its assets in the launch of a new current affairs show on the broadcast station.
"A new media experience" begins tomorrow with the launch in Toronto of CANOE Live, says the press release, "integrating print, TV and on-line media in a format that will encourage Canadians to send in content and participate in a new dialogue on current affairs issues." While the web component will launch tomorrow, the…
Continue Reading
THIS TV POLICY REVIEW will not be an easy thing.
The new Conservative government certainly wants a say. The CBC’s TV licenses are up for renewal at the same time. Private broadcasters are demanding a fee for the carriage of their signals, a way to deal with distant signals, more ad time per hour and since the high definition conversion is under way and very expensive, maybe the right to abandon tower transmission. Televised dramatic programming is resurgent Stateside but there are few new Canadian-made dramas and not enough money in the current system to make enough of them….
Continue Reading
TORONTO – Struggling Toronto broadcaster SUN TV has acquired three new American network programs.
Starting April 16th, the Quebecor Media-owned station will air the final season of The West Wing in simulcast with NBC, Sunday nights at 8 p.m., back to back episodes of Scrubs on April 18th starting at 8:30 p.m. followed by ABC’s Less Than Perfect at 9:30.
While certainly not the top-rated shows on the air, the programs are better-rated shows than SUN TV has carried thus far and the company hopes that will boost viewership and revenue.
www.suntv.canoe.ca
Continue Reading
MONTREAL – Videotron Business Solutions began targeting small businesses this week with a new cable telephony offering.
Business customers who choose to take advantage of available business packages will be able to bundle their telecommunications services and enjoy all the benefits of one-stop shopping at Videotron: one call to customer service, one technician, one bill for all services.
Videotron Business Solutions will roll out its cable telephone service in two phases. In the first phase, the service will be offered to small businesses that need one or two lines and are located in the greater Montreal area including North…
Continue Reading
WINNIPEG – After reporting a consolidated net loss of $19 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2006 (way off the $28 million earned during the same time last year), CanWest Global Communications CEO Leonard Asper renewed his persistent calls for a regulatory overhaul.
Asper said he was pleased to read that the CRTC is considering a review of its television policy. "More and more, the CRTC is taking a market-driven approach, so we do think there will be a rebalancing of the television system, allowing conventional television stations to have the same revenue opportunities as other television…
Continue Reading
SHOULD BROADCASTERS RECEIVE a wholesale fee for their signals from BDUs?
That will be one of the key questions for the industry and the Commission to answer in the coming months because while the CRTC’s radio review is well under way – with public hearings in May – we can likely expect a TV policy review to begin late this year with hearings in 2007, sources told www.cartt.ca this week.
The desire by broadcasters to be paid a fee for carriage, or for retransmission, is about as old as the cable industry itself. In the 1950s, broadcasters called nascent…
Continue Reading
MONTREAL – Pierre Karl Peladeau is returning his focus towards his company’s cable and media division as CEO, the company announced this morning.
Peladeau is now vice-chairman of the board and CEO of Quebecor Media, announced Serge Gouin, chairman of the board of QMI. The media division operates such companies as cable operator Videotron, the Sun Media newspaper group and broadcaster TVA.
Peladeau remains president and CEO of Quebecor Inc., but is stepping down from the CEO’s chair at Quebecor World, the company’s mammoth printing arm. The Peladeau family controls the majority of the voting shares of the public…
Continue Reading
