TORONTO – Bell and Telus could be the winners when the 700 MHz wireless spectrum hits the auction block, predicts one industry analyst.
Responding to Cartt.ca’s report that Industry Minister Clement may accelerate the 700 MHz mobile spectrum auction in Canada, Canaccord Genuity managing director and head of Canadian research, Dvai Ghose, told investors Monday that the two big telcos appear to have an advantage over Rogers because they share spectrum, while Rogers does not have a national spectrum sharing partner.
“We also believe that the 700 MHz auction poses a key risk to cash flow and dividend growth for…
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TORONTO – Bell Canada’s announcement this morning that it will spend $1.3 billion for all of CTV looks like a bid to protect and power a lot of its asset engines with a lot of superb oil and fuel.
The deal comes with $1.7 billion in debt, and factoring in Bell’s 15% ownership of CTVglobemedia, places a total value of $3.2 billion on CTV. The Globe and Mail newspaper has been carved out, as the Thomson family will take majority ownership of the paper.
If approved (and this doesn’t look to ring any Regulatory warning bells) the new company will…
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GATINEAU – Canada’s major cable companies and telcos are squaring off against MTS Allstream and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre over the CRTC’s authority to mandate broadband as an essential service.
Comments filed with the CRTC in late August show that Bell Canada, Telus and all of the large cablecos are, not surprisingly, opposed to any Commission intervention on this matter, while PIAC and MTS firmly believe that the CRTC can make broadband essential.
The issue has become a central theme in an ongoing proceeding on a broad variety of telecom matters, generally referred to as the obligation to…
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EVERY TUESDAY AFTER Labour Day, because it’s a fun analysis of our year and lets us have the weekend off… we re-publish the top stories from the last 12 months.
Why a “Happy New Year” now? Simple. September is the “new year” for broadcasters. The new fall shows are coming out and speaking from a regulatory perspective, the 2010 broadcast year ended August 31st and we are into a new year for them.
(Ed. Note: Not so incidentally, we’re now less than a year away from the analog shut off – which was a popular topic this year – and there’s…
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OTTAWA – Hundreds of thousands of Canadians are being deprived of access to their local CBC or Radio-Canada signal, and it’s up to the CRTC to right that wrong, according to the ‘pubcaster.
CBC/Radio-Canada is asking for the public’s help as the CRTC prepares to review its policies for direct-to-home (DTH) satellite distribution. In a statement on Wednesday, it said that Bell TV carries only nine of 14 CBC stations and eight of 13 Radio-Canada stations, while Shaw Direct carries only 10 of 14 CBC stations and six of 13 of Radio-Canada stations.
Conventional television licensees have argued in the past…
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GATINEAU – The five-year term of Michel Arpin, the vice-chair of broadcasting at the CRTC, ended Monday without a replacement being announced.
According to several sources, the seat may remain vacant for a while, until the federal government can find a candidate the Prime Minister’s Office likes.
As we’ve reported here and here, the rumour mill has whipsawed back and forth on what might be done, leading to lots of speculation on what may or may not be happening behind the scenes in Ottawa.
What we know is that the feds were adamant that Arpin not be extended, and…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – Most stakeholders agree that the CRTC’s new community TV policy did little to lessen cable’s firm grip on the country’s community channels. But even some of the country’s biggest cable companies appear to have some concerns.
“The closed captioning component is going to be a challenge”, said Colette Watson, VP of Rogers TV, in an interview with Cartt.ca. “As of December 31st, the funding is frozen to the levels we’re at now for four years. That’s fine, we’ll make that work. The issue then becomes, if in that same time frame we have to caption 100%…
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CALGARY – Shaw Direct will introduce its customers to a new high definition PVR next week.
The Advanced HDPVR will allow customers to watch up to 175 hours of recorded programming, customize series recordings using ‘smart PVR technology’, and find out what’s on 14 days in advance thanks to a new interactive on-screen guide. It will also acts as a platform for more interactive channels and new features coming in the future, Shaw said in an annoucement.
Starting September 1st, customers can purchase the new Advanced HDPVR 630 for $399, or qualify for a current customer rental program of $15 per month.
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TORONTO – Change is in the air at TSN.
The sports network’s new president is Stewart Johnston, Phil King, president of sports and EVP of programming for CTV, announced late Tuesday.
Johnston, 39, has been VP of programming for TSN since 2007. Reporting to Johnston are Mark Milliere, who is promoted to SVP of production, and Shawn Redmond, who moves to a new role as VP of programming.
As President of TSN, Johnston will oversee all of the day-to-day operations of TSN and its various platforms including TSN2, TSN.ca, TSN Mobile, and TSN Events, along with ESPN Classic and NHL Network.
"Over his past…
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CALGARY – The Shaw family has purchased an additional 1,000,000 class B non-voting shares of Shaw Communications.
The Shaw family, and entities owned or controlled by them, holds 49,217,591 class A and class B shares of the company, and said that it would continue its practice of purchasing shares on a regular basis.
www.shaw.ca
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