MY FIRST MEETING WITH SHAW Communications president Peter Bissonnette in the winter of 1998 seems like a lifetime ago. It was in Richmond Hill, then the home base of Shaw’s substantial Ontario cable operations. I think it was February.
This was before Bissonnette was even president of the company. Before Shaw and Rogers traded their Ontario and British Columbia cable systems to each other. Before Izzy Asper and JR Shaw split up WIC (Western International Communications). Before the Shaw family spun its media assets into Corus Entertainment. Before a Jean Monty-led BCE bought CTV the first time, claiming – a…
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OTTAWA – An invitational summit of prominent decision-makers from Canada and France will gather in Ottawa to discuss how policy makers can grow local content industries in the face of increasing digital disruption. The summit, from November 14-16, is being organized by The Embassy of France in Canada and the Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC).
Approximately 70 individuals representing key organizations from France and Canada have been invited to engage in a discussion of content issues. Topic areas include new technology-enabled consumer behaviour, changing business models and new opportunities, and the evolution of public policy…
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GATINEAU – Watch the CRTC’s web site today as the Commission plans to open a new public process aimed at creating a code of conduct to govern the contracts consumers sign for various wireless devices and services, Cartt.ca has learned.
Urged on by many inside the industry (led by Telus) and outside of it, the CRTC in April asked for comments on whether the wireless market in Canada warranted its intervention in the development of a national retail wireless services consumer code.
Fuelled by voter backlash, a number of provinces have introduced their own…
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WHILE CONCEDING THAT THE various accusations and complaints levelled against it over the past weeks and months show a high level of “competitive and financial tension” evident in the Canadian TV business nowadays, Bell Canada told the CRTC Friday that this tension should not impact the approval of its purchase of Astral Media.
In its final written reply to the CRTC hearing into the purchase, Bell Canada insisted its decision to buy Astral Media and all of its radio stations, TV properties and other assets is in the public interest and that only by owning the…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC has told Canada’s wireless companies that their collective inaction when it comes to the loss or theft of customer handsets – and the personal data those mobiles contain – will not be tolerated.
Back in the summer, the Commission sent a letter to the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association asking what the group and its members (which include all Canadian wireless carriers, big and small) are doing to keep track of lost or stolen mobile phones and help their customers who are impacted. In most other jurisdictions around the world, a central database has been created so…
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OTTAWA – Siri, where can I go to recycle you? The answer is the Recycle My Cell program for mobile devices and accessories, which has officially kicked off its third annual Recycle My Cell Student Challenge.
As the national sponsor of Waste Reduction Week in Canada (October 15-21), Recycle My Cell is challenging all Canadian schools and post-secondary institutions to recycle as many old wireless devices as possible, including cell phones, smartphones, wireless PDAs, pagers, accessories and cell phone batteries.
The Challenge, running from October 15 to November 15, encourages students of all…
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GRANTING BELL THE RIGHT to buy Astral Media will make an already big company that acts badly, enormous, add incentive for it act even worse, which in the end will crush competition and choice in Canada. Therefore, the deal needs to be quashed altogether or tough new rules applied to constrain the biggest player in Canadian media, say final replies to the CRTC’s public proceeding into Bell Canada’s quest to buy Astral Media.
Those last written rejoinders to the Commission’s public proceeding into Bell Canada’s purchase of Astral Media (CRTC 2012-370) from intervenors were due into the Commission on Friday,…
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TORONTO – North American wireless carriers reported strong Q2 margins, with combined wireless EBITDA service margins for Rogers, Telus, Bell, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, LEAP and MetroPCS up 342 basis points and EBITDA growth up 14.5% over the previous year. This according to figures reported in Dvai Ghose’s Canaccord Genuity Daily Letter for September 17.
He says the improved margins were driven by reduced device subsidy pressure. Wireless equipment subsidies dropped an estimated 12% in Q2 due to a “dearth of iconic device launches.” He noted that with the Samsung Galaxy S III and the iPhone 5 recently launched “we…
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MONTREAL – It was almost a game of regulatory Call Of Duty for Bell Canada on Friday as company executives brandished figurative pistols to whack as many of its enemies claims as it could while defending its position on its deal to buy Astral Media for $3.38 billion.
While the company recommitted itself to providing everything it promised earlier in the week, and reiterated how the combined company’s level of ownership and audience share would not “come anywhere close to any reasonable or customary assessment of dominance in any developed country,” said…
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MONTREAL – “If we had realized last year how Bell would behave once it acquired CTV, we would have opposed that application and proposed even stronger safeguards in the Vertical Integration proceeding,” said Rogers vice-president of regulatory affairs Pam Dinsmore in kicking off Rogers Communications’ opposition to the Bell-Astral merger on Wednesday morning.
“However, we know the Commission cannot turn back the clock back on the CTV transaction now. That ship has sailed.”
The RCI presentation told a tale of how CTV has changed since being acquired by Bell Canada, a story where multiplatform rights are routinely held back and that…
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