CALGARY – Shaw Communications announced plans to sell up to $600 million worth of senior unsecured notes due in 2014, pricing the bond offering at 6.50%.
The company said in a statement that the net proceeds of the offering will be used for its debt repayment or redemption, for working capital and “for general corporate purposes”.
Closing is scheduled for March 27, 2009. The notes are available in Canada and the United States, through an underwriting syndicate led by TD Securities Inc.
www.shaw.ca
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CALGARY – Characterizing the results as "solid", Shaw Communications today announced second quarter fiscal 2009 subscriber results that saw digital television subscriber growth rise by more than double as compared to the second quarter of fiscal 2008.
Basic cable subscribers increased 4,273 to 2,273,904 in the quartere ended February 28, digital and Internet customers grew by 106,489 to 1,076,373 and 26,130 to 1,626,334, respectively, and digital phone lines were up 50,848 to 719,376. Star Choice DTH customers increased 3,657 to 896,633.
Internet and phone sub growth was slower, however. The company’s growth rate on Internet subs was 46% slower…
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MORE AND MORE, we’re beginning to realize that to provide the quickest, most robust broadband experience, fibre optics must penetrate far more deeply than most CFOs and others in charge of capex at telecom and cable companies are hoping.
Fibre to the neighbourhood, or to the node? That works great now and will continue to be satisfactory for the near and mid-term future. But not so long from now, consumers will be demanding more – far more – especially when they begin to access ever more bandwidth-hungry services like high definition TV over the web.
North American cable and…
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TORONTO – Moody’s Investors Service has upgraded Shaw Communications’ senior unsecured debt ratings to Baa3 from Ba1, after concluding a ratings review that began at the end of January.
Shaw’s ratings outlook has also been repositioned to “stable”. With the company’s debt now rated at an investment grade level, the former speculative grade liquidity rating has been withdrawn, as have the company’s probability of default rating and loss given default assessments for individual debt instruments, the press release detailed.
The rating action anticipates that Shaw “will exhibit key attributes of an investment grade company”, including a strong and relatively stable…
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TORONTO – The new Canada Media Fund (CMF) puts private companies in charge of a "key Canadian cultural fund", worries The Documentary Organization of Canada/l’association des Documentaristes du Canada (DOC).
DOC said in a statement that cable companies have argued in the past that the special levies they collect from Canadians are ‘theirs’, and that they should have the ability to influence the content of programs produced and to spend the money on their own in-house productions. This would effectively give them “full control” over content, copyright and distribution of Canadian programming paid for by public funds.
The…
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OTTAWA – CNN International has been added to the list of eligible satellite services for distribution in Canada.
The CRTC received a request from Shaw Communications in May 2008 to make the U.S.-based news service available on a digital basis, and the Commission agreed on Tuesday.
Shaw describes the service as a 24 hour-per-day, professionally produced, satellite-delivered, advertiser-supported video programming service in the English language predominantly consisting of news, information and special features. Also, according to Shaw, CNNI focuses on international news, current affairs and business programming reported by staff of various international backgrounds.
www.crtc.gc.ca www.shaw.ca…
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TORONTO – Reaction to the new Canadian Media Fund (CMF) was predictably mixed, but the consensus seems to be that the distributors got what they wanted.
For starters, the CMF’s new “streamlined” and “independent” board will be made up of seven members – two appointed by the government, and the other five nominated by the fund’s five largest contributors, namely Bell, Rogers, Shaw, Videotron and Cogeco. The old board had 21 members, and was dominated by producers and cultural groups.
Minister Moore confirmed that the five members cannot be current employees of these companies, but, as to whether they…
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TORONTO – Getting funding to make television in Canada is about to get a whole lot different.
Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore announced today the Canadian Media Fund, a combination of the existing Canadian Television Fund and the Canadian New Media Fund.
The new fund, according to the Minister will be “reformed and rebranded” through a radically different partnership with the groups who provide the funding (government, DTH, cable and telco TV providers) and those who spend it (the production community). Its mandate will be to ensure the production of quality content and to make it available on multiple…
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OTTAWA – We’d almost forgotten about it, but the federal government just might release its decision on the Canadian Television Fund next week.
A source with knowledge of the decision’s timing told Cartt.ca this week that Heritage Minister James Moore may have an announcement as early as Monday.
The fund has spent a lot of the past 24 months defending itself and making a few changes in the way it does things. This impending release and any potential changes in how the $250 million in annual TV production money is collected and doled out was spurred on by the…
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GATINEAU – The dangling carrot of more money for the Canadian TV system is always what’s at stake when the Regulator considers letting broadcast distribution undertakings sell the ad time that’s available on American cable channels.
U.S. channels like CNN, A&E, Speed and the Golf Channel make two or three minutes per hour available for U.S. cable, satellite and telco carriers to sell ads on. It’s a multi-billion-dollar business in the States. That time is also available to Canadian carriers but they can’t sell it. Regulations say that 75% of the time must be made available to Canadian broadcasters…
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