MONTREAL — Quebecor’s TVA Group media division reported Thursday its consolidated operating revenues in the fourth quarter of 2019 totalled $164.2 million, a year-over-year increase of 9.1% compared to Q4 2018.
Net income attributable to shareholders was $16 million, compared with net income attributable to shareholders of $9.5 million in the same quarter of 2018. TVA Group’s consolidated adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) totalled $33.6 million in Q4 2019, representing a 29.6% increase from the same quarter of last year.
The company’s broadcasting segment, which includes its TVA Network and specialty channels, reported adjusted EBITDA of $21.3…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Lawmakers envisaged the Broadcasting Act giving the CRTC broad powers to temporarily regulate disputes between broadcasters and program providers in the public interest, including when they involve economic relationships, the federal government is arguing in court documents.
The argument hits at the heart of an appeal by Quebecor which last April pulled its TVA Sports signal from Bell TV subscribers because the company believed its channel was undervalued compared to the Bell Media’s RDS channel. The move caused the CRTC to convene an emergency hearing and forced Quebecor to redistribute the signal based on the…
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Consumer groups say it’s worth risking network quality for MVNO access
GATINEAU – The only two telecoms which appeared in front of the CRTC on Tuesday during day six of the Commission’s wireless policy review took some time to urge the commissioners to look at the limitations of Cogeco’s hybrid mobile network operator model.
That model would allow MVNOs which already own and operate wired or wireless networks to lease network space from the big three national players – Bell, Rogers and Telus – in exchange for continuing to invest in their own infrastructure in their own operating territories.
Quebecor said it…
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By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – A hearing that culminated in an unprecedented federal court order forcing internet service providers to block certain websites was unbalanced and will likely fall by the wayside as more intervenors weigh in at the appeal level, according to emails from a CRTC lawyer.
“What I would like to see is a re-do of the Federal Court motion,” William Abbott said in an email to an address that is redacted in newly unveiled communications obtained through access to information law. Abbott is a former Bell lawyer who took a legal counsel role at the CRTC in…
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OTTAWA – Telus and Cogeco are arguing in court that the standstill rule that has effectively forced Quebecor to deliver its TVA Sports signal to Bell customers is a completely valid way for the CRTC to enforce the status quo in the public interest, contrary to the claims of the two principal players in this legal battle.
The role of the CRTC under section 10 of the Broadcasting Act is to ensure consumers don’t become “collateral damage when either attempts to leverage its market position in an anti-competitive fashion to extract unfair benefits from its counterparty,” Telus said in…
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MONTREAL — Quebecor today publicized the intervention it filed with the CRTC, asking to appear at the public hearing into CBC/Radio-Canada’s licence renewal in May, where it will argue the public broadcaster needs to be given a clear public service mandate.
In a news release issued Monday, Quebecor says it agrees with the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review panel report that CBC/Radio-Canada should be “animated by a public purpose and not a commercial one.”
Among the questions Quebecor would like raised during the public hearing are the following:
Is it desirable for the public broadcaster to be driven by a…
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Québecor replies to Bell’s reply after the hearing
By Denis Carmel
MONTREAL – When Cartt.ca wrote about the CRTC hearing examining Bell Canada’s proposed purchase of V Télé, we had anticipated the advertising markets issue as well as program acquisition was an important issue since the CRTC’s Diversity of Voices policy considers the French and English Market separately – and that Québecor argues that if Bell were to get into the French conventional television side of the business, its weight in English Canada would give it an advantage when it negotiated with major players.
So when the reply came, the…
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MONTREAL — Videotron announced Wednesday the official launch of its mobile network in Rimouski and 12 neighbouring communities in Québec, after months of build-out and testing in the Lower Saint Lawrence region.
Videotron was already serving the Rivière-du-Loup and Trois-Pistoles areas, making Rimouski the logical next step in the company’s drive to expand its mobile coverage and serve more customers, says the news release.
In addition to Rimouski (pop. 48,000, about a 3.5 hour drive north from Quebec City), the 12 communities that now have access to Videotron’s mobile network include Mont-Joli, Saint-Anaclet-de-Lessard, Sainte-Luce, Price, Saint-Gabriel-de-Rimouski, Sainte-Angèle-de-Mérici, Saint-Donat, Sainte-Flavie, Saint-Joseph-de-Lepage,…
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By Denis Carmel
MONTREAL – On the second day of the CRTC hearing into the proposed purchase of Groupe V Media by Bell Media hearing, the first intervenors were the Independent Broadcast Group.
The concern of the group of broadcasters which included Channel Zero, Stingray Digital, OUTtv and others, is the diversity of voices issue.
“The Canadian broadcasting landscape is now even more consolidated and integrated than it was even nine years ago, in 2010, when the Commission last looked squarely at some of the consequences of vertical integration and ownership concentration in the Canadian market,” their intervention reads.
At the time the…
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Will the CRTC let Bell buy Groupe V Media?
By Denis Carmel
MONTREAL – Another chapter in the ongoing saga between Québecor and Bell took place on Wednesday when Bell appeared in front of the CRTC to seek permission to buy Groupe V Media (once known as TQS), a French conventional television network operating in the Quebec market.
The transaction has a price tag of $20 million. The sellers are Remstar (45.14%), Fiducie Seismikmax (9.86%), Caisse de Dépôt et de Placement du Québec (15%), Fonds de Solidarité des travailleurs du Québec (15%), and Investissement Québec (15%). Maxime Rémillard, through Remstar and…
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