UPDATED: Bell looking at ‘streamlining’ its brands, with focus on internet & mobility bundling under Bell name

BCE Inc. held an investors day presentation on Tuesday, Oct. 14 to present its plans for the next three years. The event was the first such offering in 12 years. CEO Mirko Bibic was hopeful for the future and told investors that Bell has been through a lot during his tenure at the helm. “When I became CEO just over five years ago in January 2020, none of us could have predicted the extent of change that was coming: COVID-19, supply chain constraints, high inflation, rising interest rates, global tariff wars, reduction in immigration, and ill-advised regulatory decisions all reshaped our operating environment,” he stated. He laid out four points that the company must concentrate on to expand its growth. It must put the customer first, he said. It must deliver the best fibre and wireless networks. It must lead in enterprise markets with artificial intelligence products. Lastly, it must build a digital and media powerhouse. Bibic said Bell used to lead the Big Three – BCE, Rogers Communications Inc., and Telus Corp. – in complaints to the Commission for Complaints about Telecom-television Services (CCTS). While that was true in 2019, today it has fallen to third place. The CEO projects growth of two to four per cent over the next three years across all platforms of the corporation. Blaik Kirby, group president of consumer and small business, told the audience that starting next year, the Virgin Plus internet brand will no longer be sold in Ontario. According to a press release from the company, that change is “a first step.” It also includes stopping the Virgin Plus TV service. Bell is “simplifying its go-to-market strategy to be more agile and more efficient by streamlining its brands, focusing its internet and mobility bundling with the Bell brand,” the company said. It noted that Virgin Plus wireless will still be its post-paid mobile brand, and Lucky Mobile its prepaid brand. The EBOX brand will continue on as a flanker internet brand. “Canada is a small market with too many brands,” Kirby explained. “Going forward, Bell will be our only brand for superior mobile and internet and content bundling and driving product intensity.” In an email, a company spokesperson said the point of the change is to “drive higher product intensity, lower churn, and meaningful operational savings -- while our flanker brands continue to serve key customer segments.” “When we talk about streamlining our brand portfolio, we mean simplifying our approach in Canada to be more in line with other mature telecom markets, where most focus on a single, converged brand,” the spokesperson said. They added that Virgin Plus TV and internet will be phased out in Quebec next. Bell later clarified that while the Virgin Plus TV and internet service will no longer be sold to new customers in Ontario, existing customers will still have their service. Kirby said Bell will be bundling its Crave streaming service with content from its TSN and RDS sports channels. It has also signed agreements with outside content providers such as Disney+ and Netflix. Bell Media president Sean Cohan elucidated on the plans for the broadcast sector of Bell. He expects Crave to have six million subscribers by 2028. It added 1.2 million subscribers last year, Cohan noted. Bell Media produces 30 hours a week of original content across all platforms now and he expects that to grow to 40 hours by the end of the year. The division president was particularly proud of the sports content that Bell broadcasts. There were 17 million people who watched the Super Bowl on CTV, TSN, and RDS. Sports is the last bastion of point-and-click viewing, he asserted. “Viewers, subscribers, and advertisers have all been migrating to a streaming, digital, and on-demand world,” he stated. “So we've been making that same transition in content delivery, marketing, and ad selling.” One analyst was happy that BCE decided to hold its first investors’ day in a dozen years. “The 145-year-old company is not in as great a position as it was 10-15 years ago, let alone three years ago,” Adam Shine of the National Bank wrote in a note. “But it's in a better place now than it was just a couple of quarters ago, and its story is getting incrementally better rather than worse exiting 2025.” The company reported revenues of $6.09 billion in its most recent second quarter results. Profits were $644 million. Both figures increased from the year before. Editor’s note: This file was updated to properly reference changes being made to Bell’s flanker brand strategy. A previous version of this article included incorrect information about the company’s plans. It was later updated a second time to add clarifying information provided by Bell following the first update regarding existing customers of the Virgin Plus service in Ontario. ppark@thewirereport.ca

UPDATED: Bell looking at ‘streamlining’ its brands, with focus on internet & mobility bundling under Bell name

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By Paul Park
|October 15, 2025

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UPDATED: Bell looking at ‘streamlining’ its brands, with focus on internet & mobility bundling under Bell name

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