By Ahmad Hathout
TVA Group will be able to broadcast fewer newscasts and hours of local programming to allow it to be nimbler in a rough financial environment, the CRTC ruled Monday.
TVA parent company Quebecor a year ago filed to the CRTC the request to ease the regulatory obligations on CFCM-DT in Quebec City, saying it would need some relief from the need to broadcast two newscasts every weekend and reduce by two hours the requirement to maintain 18 hours of local programming per week. The alternative to that, it warned, is that it would have to make “difficult…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC has on Monday finally decided to ease Corus’s financial obligations and delay the payback period to certain Canadian content funds, more than six months after it requested said relief.
That means Corus will see its obligations to programs of national interest (PNI) reduced from 8.5 per cent of previous year’s revenues to 5 per cent and extend beyond the current licence term the repayment period of certain amounts owed to its Canadian programming expenditure (CPE) that were deferred from the pandemic.
“The evidence on the record of this proceeding demonstrates that Corus is under considerable financial strain,”…
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By Ahmad Hathout
As the three largest carriers saw higher wireless customer turnover in the first quarter, the presumptive fourth carrier is doing a victory lap over what it said is its relatively stable churn.
“Our churn is stable, whereas our competition is increasing,” said Hugues Simard, Quebecor’s Chief Financial Officer on a quarterly conference call Thursday. “I think that continues to be a very encouraging .”
Rogers, Bell, and Telus all reported higher churn in the first quarter this year compared to the same period last year. The higher figure was met with concern, but one for which they…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Telus is the last of the three largest telecoms to report Thursday a higher rate of customer turnover in its mobile wireless business.
The Vancouver-based telecom pointed to aggressive retail pricing in the second half of 2023 that seeped into the first quarter as having an outsized impact on the defection rate this quarter, which was up to 1.13 per cent compared to the 0.9 per cent it held in the same period last year.
Telus prides itself on its low churn, as for years it held the distinction of being able to tout a sub-1 per cent rate…
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Following its merger with Shaw Communications last year, Rogers Communications announced Wednesday it is now the title partner of Canada’s only PGA Tour Champions tournament, formerly the Shaw Charity Classic.
Now called the Rogers Charity Classic, the annual August tournament in Calgary has long helped to raise money through its charitable arm for Alberta youth charities, raising more than $100 million since its inception, according to a Rogers press release.
Rogers is kickstarting the fundraising this year with a $1 million donation, the release says.
“This tournament has made a real impact…
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Rogers said last week it contributed a “record” $14 billion to Canada’s gross domestic product in 2023, citing data in the company’s first economic impact assessment since its merger with Shaw in April of last year.
The cable giant’s assessment includes Rogers’s economic impact for the full 2023 calendar year, but does not include Shaw’s economic impact prior to the merger (from Jan. 1 to April 2, 2023).
The combined company supported 92,000 jobs across Canada in 2023, according to Rogers.
“Our commitment to bring more investment and innovation to Canadians was…
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Regulator says it is aiming for wholesale internet decision by end of summer
By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC said Friday it will not immediately decide whether the three largest telecommunications companies should be banned from accessing the large telcos’ bundled middle- and last-mile fibre facilities, effectively greenlighting Bell, Rogers, and Telus to ride on those networks in the interim.
A consortium made up of Bell, Cogeco, Eastlink, TekSavvy, and the indie rep the Competitive Network Operators of Canada filed a late March request for the CRTC to rule that the Big 3 are banned from accessing Bell’s and Telus’s fibre facilities…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Bell CEO Mirko Bibic said Thursday that the higher rate of customers switching to other carriers is “concerning,” but that the telco is mitigating that with bundled offers.
Last week, Rogers CEO Tony Staffieri blamed competition from aggressively priced mobile wireless offers in the market and ease of switching for its postpaid churn rate rising to 1.1 per cent in the quarter compared to the same period last year. While Staffieri said he expects the trend to continue, he added the company isn’t worried about it.
Bell’s postpaid churn rate for the first quarter that ended…
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Wireless prices in Canada decreased an average of 18.2 per cent for data plans in 2023 when compared to 2022 prices, according to Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada’s 2023 Price Comparison Study of Telecom Services, published Tuesday.
The annual report — which provides a comparative price analysis of wireless and home internet services in Canada, both regionally and relative to G7 peer countries and Australia — also found home internet prices in Canada declined across all service plans in 2023. There were significant decreases on plans up to 100 Mbps, including decreases…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Bell’s joint request of the CRTC to permanently block the three largest telecommunications companies from accessing its bundled fibre facilities is an attempt to nullify the competitive impact of the interim access regime, Rogers and Telus argued earlier this month.
The country’s largest telco partnered with wholesale competitors to ask the regulator in a procedural request to clarify that the Big 3 are ineligible to access the bundled middle- and last-mile facilities of Bell and Telus before the May 7 deadline to implement the interim regime in Quebec and Ontario. The CRTC did not explicitly…
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