TORONTO – Leslie E. Shaw, the older brother of Shaw Communications chairman JR Shaw, died last Wednesday in his sleep at his Barbados home. He was 79.
While JR built a formidable Canadian communications firm (in which Les owned a minority interest and sat on its board for years) the elder Shaw brother built a global energy services company, ShawCor, from a general construction company in southwestern Ontario founded by their father, Francis in the 1930s.
(JR worked for the original family business, too, setting up its first western base in Edmonton in the early 1960s and soon launched…
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THE SMALL AND MEDIUM-sized business market has become a crowded place.
All of the big companies have said in the past months they see this market as a place to find big growth. Rogers, Bell, Shaw, Cogeco, Telus et al – all have talked about how well they hope to do in the SME space.
So is there room for small startups like Syntagma Network Services? CEO Theresa Carbonneau thinks so. The company’s small business plan offers a full suite of voice over IP-delivered services including broadband connectivity, voice services, e-mail and web hosting, exchange server hosting, virus scanning…
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CALGARY – Saying he wants an accounting of exactly how the Canadian Television Fund money is spent and where the value is, Shaw Communications CEO Jim Shaw says until he gets that and is satisfied, his company will no longer pay into the CTF.
That’s potentially a huge blow for the fund, since Shaw – also the owner of DTH company Star Choice – is the largest BDU contributor, paying approximately $60 million into the fund last year. (However, the CRTC’s BDU regulations say all TV distributors must pay a percentage of revenues into the fund, which is doled…
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CBC/RADIO-CANADA DOES NOT receive any money from the Canadian Television Fund (see "Shaw suspends TV fund payments"). The fund goes to independent producers to help them make Canadian programs that will be broadcast on Canadian television.
The Canadian Television Fund (CTF) was created to provide financial support to independent producers who make distinctly Canadian television programs. This Fund ensures Canadians can watch programs, particularly drama programs, which reflect Canada. Contrary to Mr. Shaw’s claim that it supports programs that few watch, the CTF has made possible many highly successful Canadian programs including Shania: A Life in Eight Albums, H2O,…
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MONTREAL – Videotron announced late Tuesday afternoon that it won’t be making its regular monthly contributions to the Canadian Television Fund either.
In a letter to the CTF, Pierre Karl Péladeau, president and CEO of Videotron parent Quebecor Inc. said it won’t pay and has asked the Bev Oda, Minister of Canadian Heritage, to launch a thorough review of the fund’s management and membership structures.
In a press release, Péladeau said he feels "deep dissatisfaction with the Fund’s governance, performance and direction" and complained that "Fund managers pay little heed to the main private-sector contributors to the Fund and give…
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DEREGULATING LOCAL PHONE in major urban centres in 2007 seems to me to be the right thing to do.
"The idea that somehow the cable guys are at a disadvantage to the telcos has not been proven so far in the entry of the cable industry in local voice," Lawson Hunter, Bell’s chief corporate officer said to me Wednesday. I agree with him. To a point.
Setting aside the unprecedented use of the provision in the Telecom Act that let’s the government issue policy directives to the CRTC (until 2006, it just hadn’t been done), it’s time to…
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CALGARY – DTH company Star Choice said today it will expand its Mississauga operations by adding a call centre and increasing employment at the facilities by up to 100 people over the next few quarters.
“Our continued growth and focus on providing the best customer service to our 869,000 customers across Canada made the decision to expand an easy one,” said Jim Cummins, vice-president, operations, in a press release.
Shaw Communications-owned Star Choice currently operates call centres in Calgary and Montreal. There will be no job loss as a result of the Mississauga expansion, the company said.
The newly…
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CALGARY – Shaw Communications said today announced that it has agreed to buy the cable systems in Winfield, Lumby, Pender Island, Mayne Island, Galiano Island and Lillooet, B.C. from Mascon Communications.
The deal sees Shaw acquire about two-thirds of Mascon’s approximately 11,000 customers, leaving Mascon with systems in Sicamous, Chase and Sun Peaks.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
"We are delighted with the acquisition of these B.C. cable systems", said Peter Bissonnette, president of Shaw, in a release. "These cable systems complement our existing cable properties in and around Kelowna and the Gulf Islands."
"We are proud…
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CALGARY – The battle for workers in Alberta is holding things back a little at Shaw Communications, the company said today.
The company posted nice growth figures in the first quarter of the fiscal year, ended November 30, 2006, but during a conference call with financial analysts CEO Jim Shaw said "a tight labour market" means that the company’s telephone service is primarily sold via word of mouth because it can’t find enough installers in order to "hit the gas" on a mass-market campaign.
In Q1, consolidated service revenue of $671 million for the three month period was an…
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CALGARY – The Canadian Television Fund will lose a huge chunk of its funding this year since Shaw Communications has apparently told the CTF it will no longer contribute, says an Ottawa Citizen report.
According to the report, CEO Jim Shaw says he will no longer send the cable and satellite company’s contribution of $56 million to Ottawa this year.
Shaw says that until the fund is restructured, he will withhold the five per cent of his company’s revenues that legislation stipulates be used to support the production of Canadian TV shows.
Shaw has often said it would rather…
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