TORONTO and MONTREAL – A group of broadcasters along with the Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA) have filed a complaint against the Bell Fund pertaining to the guidelines of its new TV Program and the composition of its Board of Directors.
A not-for-profit organization founded in 1997, the Bell Fund invests in Canadian digital media and TV content and is certified by the CRTC as an independent production fund eligible to receive and administer contributions from broadcast distribution undertakings (BDUs). It receives annual contributions of approximately $17 million from Bell TV as part of its BDU contributions.
Blue Ant Media, CBC/Radio-Canada, the…
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MONTREAL – Led by results at Videotron, Quebecor saw first quarter profits jump by over $52 million, the company said earlier this week.
Net income attributable to shareholders for the period grew to $56.7 million from $3.9 million year-over-year, which the company said was due primarily to a favourable variance on the valuation of financial instruments.
Revenues of $1.01 billion inched up 0.5% from the first quarter of 2017. Revenues increased in Telecommunications ($18.4 million or 2.3% of segment revenues), but fell in Media ($10.9 million or -5.9%) and in Sports and Entertainment ($1.1 million or -2.9%). Adjusted operating income grew…
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MONTREAL – Quebecor has bought back all of the shares of Quebecor Media (QMI) still held by provincial pension fund manager Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec.
The agreement provides that Quebecor and Quebecor Media purchase 17,628,911 shares, representing a 18.47% stake in Quebecor Media, with respect to which the parties have agreed on a value of $1.690 billion.
“Thanks to its currently very favourable financial profile and the substantial amount of cash it has on hand, Quebecor is now in a position to complete the repurchase of the share capital of Quebecor Media initiated in 2012”, said Quebecor president…
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MONTREAL – Quebecor Content has named former Groupe V Média exec Louis Pearson as director, film development.
In this role, Pearson (pictured) is tasked with developing full-length feature films, in keeping with Quebecor Content’s commitment to supporting original Quebec production. He will report to senior director of acquisitions Christine Maestracci.
Prior to this role, Pearson was director of specialty channels and acquisitions at Groupe V Média. In addition to his experience in film production, content acquisition, programming strategy and broadcast rights negotiations, he has a strong reputation among local distributors and in international markets, reads the announcement.
“Louis is the ideal person…
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MONTREAL – Quebecor’s broadcaster and publisher TVA Group Inc. announced today it recorded a net loss attributable to shareholders of $5 million in the first quarter of 2018, better than the $8 million loss posted in Q1 2017.
"We are satisfied with our results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2018. The broadcasting and production segment's financial results were up slightly because of improved results at TVA Sports and our other specialty channels as a whole,” said France Lauzière, president and CEO of TVA Group, in the press release.
TVA Network's market share held steady at 24.1% despite the…
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MONTREAL – Quebecor Media’s TVA Group today announced an agreement to buy the Serdy Media and Serdy Video group of companies for $24 million.
The acquisition, which requires CRTC approval of its broadcasting assets, would see TVA add the Évasion (french language travel and adventure) and Zeste (food and cooking) specialty channels. According to CRTC filings, Evasion had 1.8 million subscribers as of August 31 2016 (latest figures available), $12.4 million in revenue and $2.3 million in pre-tax profit. As a category B Zeste does not have to file subscriber or profitability numbers but did report revenue of $6.6 million…
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THE CRTC WILL SOON make a decision on Bell’s bid to get its hands on Séries+ and Historia again.
Bell had been forced to sell off the two specialty channels in 2013 when it took over Astral. It’s high time for the CRTC to start promoting innovation instead of shoring up Bell’s dominance.
Does the CRTC realize that its decisions are helping to increase TV ownership concentration and giving Bell enormous bargaining power, enabling it to crush the competition by snapping up the most coveted content in both languages? The CRTC is also allowing channels that were…
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MONTREAL – Club illico and Quebecor Content are doubling down on their commitment to made-in-Quebec programming with new forays in to film production and original series.
At the 2018 conference of the Association québécoise de la production médiatique (APQM) earlier this week, the Quebecor-owned entities announced plans to develop three feature films this year which will premiere on Videotron’s subscription video-on-demand service Club illico before moving to all of the company’s platforms.
"Feature films are very popular in Quebec," said Quebecor Content’s Chief Content Officer and TVA Group president and CEO France Lauzière, in the news release. "That's why we've chosen…
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TORONTO – Corus Studios has finalized new broadcast deals for a number of its unscripted lifestyle series ahead of MIPTV.
Sales highlights of new international deals secured include:
– Backyard Builds (pictured) has been sold to Quebecor Media’s CASA in Canada, and an undisclosed buyer for the Pan-Asian region, totaling 55 territories for this series to date;
– Sales of home renovation series Worst to First for Digicast’s Dove in Italy, NBCUniversal International Networks for Bravo New Zealand, and an undisclosed buyer for the Pan-Asian region have been confirmed. This series has now been sold in 57 territories;
– To date, Masters of…
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QUEBEC – In the provincial budget announced Tuesday, the government of Quebec followed through on its threats to have foreign firms digitally hawking their wares in the province collect the 9.975% provincial sales tax from their customers.
Specifically, the budget says the government is "making the collection of the Québec sales tax (QST) mandatory for suppliers outside Québec, and it is "eliminating certain loopholes, particularly with regard to international taxation."
That means the likes of Netflix, Amazon, Spotify and others will soon have to begin collecting the tax from consumers, something both companies said they would do, when…
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