MONTREAL – Despite an uptick in revenues, Quebecor saw fourth quarter profits fall by $57.7 million from a year ago when it recorded a number of favourable non-operating items, the company said Wednesday.
Revenues for the quarter ended December 31, 2017 inched up 0.8% ($8.8 million) to $1.06 billion year-over-year. Revenues increased in Telecommunications ($36.2 million or 4.5% of segment revenues), though dropped in Media ($22.7 million or -10.2%) and in Sports and Entertainment ($3.8 million or -7.0%).
Net income attributable to shareholders fell to $65.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2017, compared with $123.3 million in the same period of 2016, due in part…
Continue Reading
MONTREAL – Quebecor’s broadcaster/TV producer/publisher TVA Group reported last week that it posted $9.2 million in net income attributable to shareholders in the fourth quarter, up from $5.7 million in the same period in 2016.
Revenues, however, dropped to $155.3 million for the period ended December 31, 2017, down from $169.5 million year-over-year. This is due in part to $1.21 million unfavourable variance in its broadcasting and production segment, mainly because of a 9.5% decrease in the adjusted operating income of TVA Network, the company said in a press release.
“We are satisfied with our results for the last quarter…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The federal government has followed through on its commitment to top up the Canada Media Fund in the face of declining contributions from broadcast distribution undertakings (BDUs). Minister of Canadian Heritage Melanie Joly first made the announcement last September when she unveiled Creative Canada.
Budget 2018 has committed $172 million more dollars over five years, starting this year, to maintain the CMF’s funding” at 2016-2017 levels. CMF will receive $15 million this year, $29 million in 2019-20 and then $42.5 million in the following three years.
The Liberals noted that the actual amount of money will vary each year…
Continue Reading
FOR MANY DECADES, THE Canadian TV market had the luxury of being a walled garden protected by the limits of technology. We even carved out a national production industry and nurtured significant cultural achievements next door to the world’s largest content market.
Now, however, digitalized content has climbed over the garden’s walls and caused content markets to globalize and flatten.
We responded to this change with the defensive strategy of vertical integration. We tried to create barriers, concentrating our domestic market, but the problem was this just deepened our dependence on our domestic market and made us less competitive globally. We’ve…
Continue Reading
5e partie dans notre série sur la révision des Lois sur la radiodiffusion et des télécommunications. Une entrevue exclusive
EN 1999 LORSQUE PIERRE Karl Péladeau était le PDG de la plus grande imprimerie au monde et un important propriétaire de journaux, il ne connaissait sans doute pas l'ordonnance d'exemption relative aux nouveaux médias (OERNM) du CRTC, rendue publique cette année-là. Et pourquoi aurait-il été préoccupé?
À cette époque, les téléphones cellulaires étaient encore un nouveau phénomène utilisé que pour faire des appels téléphoniques et qu’une personne sur cinq possédait.* Tout le monde regardait la télévision grâce à des oreilles de lapin ou au…
Continue Reading
Part V in our series on rewriting the Broadcasting and Telecom Acts. An exclusive interview
BACK IN 1999, WHEN Pierre Karl Péladeau was the CEO of the world’s largest printer and a significant Canadian newspaper publisher, he didn’t know or care about the CRTC’s New Media Exemption Order, released that year. Why would he?
Back then, cell phones were still-new devices that primarily just made phone calls – which only about one in five of us owned.* Everyone got their TV off-air or via cable and just over a quarter of Canadians reported a home internet connection – upon which precious…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The Federal Court of Appeal ruled late yesterday that a Montreal man was indeed enabling the pirating copyrighted content by making TV shows from Rogers, Bell and Quebecor available online through a website dubbed TVAddons – and that the search and seizure of evidence done in 2016 was done lawfully.
A lower court judge had originally sided with TVAddons owner Adam Lackman, but yesterday’s decision overturns that.
The appellants (Bell, Rogers and Quebecor division TVA and Vidéotron) have established “a strong prima facie case of copyright infringement for the purposes of the Anton Piller order sought, and the Judge’s…
Continue Reading
MONTREAL – The Canadian Union of Public Employees wants the CRTC to drop its digital media exemption order.
"The CRTC has the power to act swiftly and put a stop to the preferential treatment internet giants are receiving from the federal government,” said a press release issued Friday. “We have petitioned the CRTC to reverse a decision made years ago which is completely obsolete. There is no reason Netflix and other corporations like them should be under an exemption order" said Rejean Beaudet, recording secretary for CUPE's Quebec Provincial Council for Communications (CPSC) and provincial president for the local union…
Continue Reading
Commission favoured Bell
MONTREAL – Quebecor has filed for leave to appeal a “baffling” CRTC decision that ruled against its French-language sports service TVA Sports in a carriage dispute with Bell.
The company said Friday that it is asking the Federal Court of Appeal for a review of the Commission’s January 17th decision in the final offer arbitration process between the two companies that selected Bell’s per-subscriber wholesale rates for the distribution of TVA Sports in the francophone market, defined as the province of Quebec.
“Quebecor fails to understand the CRTC's position in this case”, reads the company’s statement. “TVA Group's…
Continue Reading
Phase one of “Total Business Transformation” had targeted just 650
CALGARY – Over the next 18 months, fully 25% of Shaw Communications’ current workforce will leave. Company president Jay Mehr says that’s a good thing.
Last month the company offered 6,500 employees the chance to move on with their careers outside of Shaw, enticing them to think hard about their futures with one of the most generous severance packages we’ve ever heard of – six months of full pay plus one month of pay for every year worked at Shaw. These are the types of buyouts companies normally save for executives.
When…
Continue Reading
