TED ROGERS TURNED TO AN old friend this week to expand his telecom empire, but was a little unclear whether or not he’ll use his new hammer to nail his cable friends while building local telephony across the country.
Today, Rogers Communications announced it would purchase Call-Net Enterprises, which does business mainly under the Sprint Canada name, in a $330 million all-stock deal. Still a money-losing competitive local exchange carrier (its net loss in 2004 was $78.4 million), Call-Net did book revenues last year of over $818 million and EBITDA of $105 million.
Call-Net CEO Bill Linton is a…
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OSHAWA – Spiky-haired former jock reporter John Gallagher will return to Toronto-area radio tomorrow morning on Oshawa’s 94.9 The Rock.
The two-time sportscaster of the year and one-time Foster Hewitt award winner will join host Sarah Beer and the “Beer for Breakfast” morning show on the Durham Radio-owned station.
A long-time broadcast veteran, Gallagher has had stints with Q107, TSN and Citytv, but has been off-air for the most part since City cut him loose in 2004.
“Joining Sarah Beer for ‘John Gallagher and Beer for Breakfast,’ Gallagher will inject a new dimension to mornings on 94.9 The Rock,”…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The CRTC said Friday that Shaw Communications was not giving itself an undue preference when denying full pay-per-view service to Telus and it’s yet-to-be-launched digital television service, Telus TV.
Telus filed a complaint in November 2004 saying that Shaw Pay-Per-View was saying it would limit the movie titles made available to Telus TV – which therefore means Shaw has given its PPV and cable divisions “undue preference” and subjected Telus to an undue disadvantage, said the western telco.
Shaw, on the other hand, claimed agreements with certain U.S. movie studios prohibit it from making programming available to…
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WASHINGTON – Stressing he does not know what the CRTC’s voice over IP decision will be, Bell Canada Enterprises CEO Michael Sabia said today that if it reads the way he thinks it will, the company will immediately appeal it to the Federal Cabinet.
Speaking at a media and telecom conference this morning in Washington, Sabia said he believes the Commission will side against the incumbent telephone companies (ILECs) and maintain certain regulatory restrictions on the likes of Bell Canada and Telus when it comes to voice over Internet telephony.
The CRTC’s VOIP decision is due out sometime next…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – TV distribution newcomer Manitoba Telecom Services had its complaint over Shaw Cablesystems distribution of certain channels denied today by the CRTC.
But that doesn’t mean the rules aren’t about to change, again.
In August 2004 MTS, which operates a DSL-delivered digital television product in Winnipeg, asked the Commission for an expedited mandatory order, under section 12(2) of the Broadcasting Act, saying Shaw was violating the distribution and linkage (D&L) rules.
MTS complained that in and around Winnipeg, Shaw has been offering certain discretionary services (Family Channel and the U.S. superstations KTLA Los Angeles, WGN-TV Chicago, WPIX New…
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CALGARY – Corus Entertainment announced today it’s been advised that the Shaw family, and entities owned or controlled by them, completed the purchase of an additional 250,000 Class B non-voting shares of the company during the week of April 29, 2005.
At the close of trading on April 29, Corus shares traded at $30.19 on the Toronto Stock Exchange, placing the value of the investment at around $7.5 million.
The Shaw family is the radio and specialty service broadcasting company’s controlling shareholder.
The Shaw family, and entities owned or controlled by them, now holds 2,897,150 shares of Corus. The…
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TORONTO – The owner of Pridevision TV and OUTtv says he may be forced to take Shaw Communications to court over what he says is unfair carriage of one of his channels by the large western cable company.
At issue is the way category one digital service OUTtv is being packaged on Shaw Digital Cable.
A little background: At launch and through its first years of existence, Pridevision was the category one (i.e. digital must-carry) gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgendered channel. It had lifestyle programming in the daytime and prime time hours and adult movies after hours.
At launch,…
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HAVING COVERED THE Cable, radio, television and telecom markets for well over seven years now, you could say I was inspired.
I’ve written about so many entrepreneurs who gambled and won (and a few who gambled and lost, too) that I suppose it had to rub off on me.
Warning, blatant self-promotion now follows.
So, on Monday, May 2 at 4:13 p.m., www.cartt.ca went live and on Tuesday, our first-ever newsletter went out filled with original stories you…
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WINNIPEG – Manitoba Telecom Services reported huge (160.8%) growth in its television customers with the release of its second quarter financial report today.
While the still-small MTS TV group is still classified as “Other Revenue” by the company, lumped in with the company’s directory business and other items, that unit earned $22.6 million in revenue in the first quarter of 2005, a 40% jump over Q1 2004.
Offered to customers in Winnipeg, MTS TV counted 37,219 customers at March 31, 2004, placing it in the top 12 of television signal distributors in Canada. Today, the company reported it had…
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CALGARY – Prodded by analysts to peer into their regulatory crystal ball, Shaw Communications’ chief executives Jim Shaw and Peter Bissonnette said they envision an easier regulatory environment in the not-too-distant future.
During the company’s second quarter conference call on April 15, after fielding questions on going to all-digital and offering more channels on a pick-and-pay basis, CEO Shaw predicted policy changes on the horizon for Canadian television channels.
“We think the protectionist nature of programming now in Canada is going to change in that services will have to stand on their own merits,” he said, referring to the…
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