MONTREAL — Quebecor and Bell are going to see each other in court again, this time over Bell's practice of door-to-door sales, which Quebecor alleges is unfair competition and against the law.
Quebecor subsidiary Videotron Ltd. filed a request with Quebec Superior Court on Sept. 21 for an injunction against Bell Canada, requiring Bell to change its practices and pay $78.5 million "to compensate Videotron for losses suffered and to be suffered as an immediate and direct result of the civil fault committed by (Bell)."
The issue, Videotron alleges, is that Bell's sales representatives (either employees or subcontractors) pitch Bell's services…
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MONTREAL – Quebecor is once again backing the Festival du nouveau cinéma (FNC) which this year will take place October 3 – 14, 2018 in Montreal.
In addition to presenting the prestigious Louve d'Or and its $15,000 purse to the best feature film in the international competition, Quebecor will award the Prix de la diffusion to the best Canadian feature film. The new award comes with $30,000 in advertising to help promote the winning film.
Videotron will provide telecom services and air a selection of films from the FNC's 2018 schedule on its illico service, and MELS will present the Prix…
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MONTREAL – Quebecor is urging all of Quebec's political parties to formally commit to maintaining the province’s film or video production services tax credit and to support the local production industry.
With the Quebec general election now days away, Quebecor president and CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau said his company is seeking “fiscal predictability” in order to move forward with a $40 million investment to build new MELS studios to keep up with demand for production space.
Noting that the 23 foreign films shot in Quebec last year generated direct expenditures of $383 million, up 28.5% from 2016 and 440% from 2009, Péladeau said that Quebec…
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OTTAWA – After having paused for Parliament’s summer recess, the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology reconvened in the nation’s capital on Wednesday to continue its statutory review of the Copyright Act.
Representatives from the Canadian Network Operators Consortium, Société des auteurs de radio, télévision et cinema, the Movie Theatre Association of Canada and the Professional Music Publishers' Association faced the committee this week. (Some larger organizations will face the committee next week from the likes of Bell, Quebecor, Rogers, Stingray Digital, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, Teksavvy and Shaw Communications.)
Canadian Network Operators Consortium (a group of independent ISPs)…
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ST ANDREWS, N.B. – A little over 200 of the Canadian independent network operators (and vendors and others) gathered this week in tiny and beautiful St Andrews, New Brunswick for the 25th annual Canadian Communications Systems annual Connect conference – just down Highway 1 from the CCSA’s home in Quispamsis.
Delegates spent some of their time at the historic (and apparently haunted) Algonquin hotel pondering just how much has changed in a quarter century – from the recent Alliance name change swapping “cable” for “communications” to how back in 1993 just about all anyone…
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MONTREAL – Quebecor and TVA Sports are the major sponsor and official broadcaster for this weekend’s Grands Prix Cyclistes de Québec et de Montréal (GPCQM) for the seventh consecutive year.
On September 7 and 9, the world's elite cyclists and the next generation of North American riders will compete in the prestigious events in Montreal and Quebec City, the only North American stops on the UCI WorldTour, both of which will air live on TVA Sports.
TVA Sports is also setting up "cheerboosters" at the starting and finish lines at both sites, with fans able to be hoisted aloft on a lift…
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Feds told CRTC to take another look
GATINEAU – In decisions issued today, the CRTC determined that increases in Canadian production spending are required to preserve a Canadian presence in a changing viewing environment, but did not mandate an increase in local content, as the CRTC limited its examinations to issues listed in the Government order. That is, for PNI: short films and short-form documentaries in English – and levels of original programming in French – and music programming for both languages.
For the French-language market, the CRTC now requires each broadcsting group to make adequate investments in the creation of French-language programs, representing…
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Feds demanded CRTC take another look
GATINEAU – Back on May 15, 2017, the CRTC issued a series of decisions to renew licences for the television services of large English- and French-language private ownership groups (Bell Media, Corus Entertainment, Rogers Media, Groupe V and Quebecor Media).
These outlined new conditions of license which allowed, among other things, broadcasters to spread their Cancon spending collectively over all of their channels, rather than counting it brand by brand. It also standardized a Canadian programming expenditure (CPE) rate of 30% of revenues for each large broadcaster. The Commission also set…
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MONTREAL – Quebecor said Wednesday that it has filed a motion in Quebec Superior Court seeking an injunction and damages from the Quebec Press Council, a private, nonprofit organization that claims to be devoted to “the protection of the freedom of the press and to the defense of the right of the public to quality reporting.”
According to Quebecor, the Press Council recently issued two decisions “tarnishing the reputation and image of Quebecor's media properties”, despite the withdrawal of TVA Group and Quebecor's newspapers from the voluntary organization in November, 2008 and June, 2010, respectively.
The company added that it is…
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MONTREAL — Growth in Quebecor’s telecom business helped to offset a decline in its media segment, enabling the communications company to maintain relatively flat revenues in the second quarter of 2018.
Quebecor released its consolidated financial results on Thursday, reporting its Q2 2018 revenues of $1.04 billion were up $4.9 million, or 0.5%, compared to the second quarter of 2017. The company’s second-quarter 2018 adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) was $417.1 million, an increase of $12.8 million or 3.2% from the same quarter of 2017.
However, Quebecor’s net income attributable to shareholders was only $41.3 million, or…
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