GATINEAU – Three previously announced radio transactions will face the Commission in a non-appearing hearing in November, but their CRTC applications for permission show that there’s still a lot of value in Canadian radio.
Together, the three purchases total $65 million. Rogers is making two of them, buying London’s BOB-FM from CTV for $16 million and Edmonton’s The Bounce FM from a CTV and Milestone Media partnership for $22 million.
Click here and here for the hearing notice and to see the proposed benefits packages.
The most expensive station being acquired is in Toronto, of course. As Continue Reading
GATINEAU – Despite the fact that when compared to the likes of Rogers, Shaw, Bell, Telus, Videotron and Cogeco, Bragg Communications (EastLink) is pretty small, the CRTC told the company in a letter this week that it won’t be exempted from the CRTC’s requirement to file a public version of its aggregated annual return.
“In Broadcasting Regulatory Policy 2009-560 the Commission determined that the disclosure of the public version of the aggregated annual return filed by the large ownership groups, including Bragg, was in the public interest, and that any harm that would result from such disclosure did…
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TORONTO – Mobilicity has bulked up its sales team as it gears up to expand into new markets like Ottawa and Western Canada.
The wireless provider said Tuesday that it has named Matthew Gould as GM for Western Canada, Tim Velichka as market manager for Calgary, and Janet Holt as its market manager for Ottawa.
Gould, who joins Mobilicity after more than a decade at Telus Communications in a variety of sales and distribution roles, will oversee all sales operations, distribution and retail channel initiatives in Western Canada.
Velichka will establish the regional sales and distribution team. He spent the last 11 years in…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC made public today 10 new specialty service applications made by Rogers Communications.
The company has asked for cat 2 licenses for:
Ampersand, “devoted to romance, love and relationships and would include series based on relationships, feature films, mini-series, made-for-television movies and occasional magazine-style shows focusing on this genre and its stars," reads the application.
Contessa, “devoted to programming related to relationships, lifestyle, beauty, trends and style, and would focus on the interests and needs of working women aged between 25 and 54 years.”
GGBG, “would feature entertainment programming about police, law, the courts, emergency and medical response teams,…
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TORONTO – Citytv has launched an iPad video application that will feature shows from its prime time broadcast schedule, along with favourites like CityLine and Breakfast Television Toronto.
The free, ad-supported app allows viewers the ability to catch up on full-length television programs and clips on their Apple iPad. It also includes features such as a TV schedule and a notification service that allows users to be reminded of when their favourite shows are available on the app and on TV, as well as viewing history and favourites. Other features include the ability to share video links on Facebook, Twitter…
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Perry Hoffman
GATINEAU – Canadian cable operators do not believe that a local-into-local signal carriage regime imposed on DTH companies would be disastrous for the operations of Bell TV and Shaw Direct.
Bell TV and Shaw Direct say in their submissions on 2010-488, the review of the direct-to-home satellite distribution policy they don’t have the capacity to carry all local over-the-air (OTA) signals, and despite technological improvements in compression coming online in the future complying with a local-into-local regime will be problematic.
Both say that if forced to carry all over-the-air (OTA) stations, they will have no choice but to remove specialty…
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TORONTO – Rogers Communications rolled out a $900 million senior notes offering on Wednesday.
The notes are priced at $999.45 per $1,000 principal amount, for an effective yield of 4.707% per annum if held to maturity. They will mature on September 29, 2020.
Rogers said that the net proceeds from the offering will be approximately $895 million, which are intended to be used to repay outstanding advances under its bank credit facility and for general corporate purposes.
Moody’s assigned the offering a ‘stable’ ratings outlook, saying that it viewed the transaction “as being accommodated within Rogers’ prevailing Baa2 senior unsecured rating”.
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OTTAWA – The big players in Canada’s wireless broadband space have told Industry Canada that it should avoid adopting the U.S. plan for the 2500 MHz band and instead opt for the international band plan. They say the economics resulting from such a decision are much better for the Canadian wireless sector.
“Harmonization of the Canadian band plan with the globally adopted band plan will be essential if Canadians are to benefit from the global ecosystem for wireless network technology and consumer devices that are already developing for the band,” Inukshuk Internet tells Industry Canada in comments filed…
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TORONTO – While more and more Canadians opt for smart phones like BlackBerry’s, iPhones and Android-powered devices, increased competition in the market is going to hurt the incumbent wireless operators’ bottom lines, says a new report.
Toronto’s Convergence Consulting forecasts a Canadian wireless service ARPU decline of 1% for 2010 (ARPU saw a 3% decline in 2009), driven by a 7% drop in voice ARPU (2009 saw a 9% voice ARPU drop). While data service ARPU will grow by 26% in 2010, the company estimates, that will not be enough to counter overall ARPU decline according to its report ‘Canadian Wireless 2008-2014:…
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TORONTO – As the CRTC considers Shaw’s proposed purchase of Canwest Global’s TV assets, one industry analyst specualted on the implications of content providers making their content proprietary.
In a note to investors on Tuesday, Dvai Ghose, the managing director and head of Canadian research for Canaccord Genuity, said that companies like BCE and Rogers “see content ownership as an essential bargaining chip when negotiating content deals”, which, he continued, could make it difficult for companies who do not own content, naming TELUS and MTS as examples, to compete in the broadband, TV, and wireless segments.
“This does not seem to be in the interest…
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